After a significant increase to start 2024, the Wikipedia Chaos Index sits at 66 for the month of March, the same as it was in February.

January saw a significant increase in pages nominated for deletion; though that decreased slightly in February, the number of AfC submissions increased, suggesting the increased levels of deleted pages will continue through the spring. Wait times for AfC submissions also continue their steady increase through the first months of the year, as the backlog of submissions slowly grows.

There’s no better time to see the power of Wikipedia at work than during an election season, which academics agree can often allude to electoral outcomes – or at the very least, show what candidates and subjects are drawing the most public interest. Nikki Haley, for example, was drawing around 500,000 pageviews a month throughout 2023; in January, that number topped 4 million.

This effect extends beyond politics, of course – after the debut of Netflix’s Griselda series, Griselda Blanco’s Wikipedia page traffic increased from 85,000 views a month to 5.5 million, catapulting it into the top 10 most popular pages on all of the English Wikipedia for the first two months of 2024.

Regardless of the topic, these statistics are a prescient reminder of Wikipedia’s lasting power in Google’s algorithm and public consciousness, further reinforcing its importance as a barometer for what the global public is curious about – and more importantly, its lasting power as a high-ranking Google result, something every notable individual and organization should remember close during (and in between) news cycles.

The Mather Group is a Capitol Communicator sponsor.