State of Wikipedia report for October 2024

The Chaos Index for October 2024 is at 65, holding steady (-2%) from September as Wikipedia continues to edit at a high pace, matching the high volume we saw from February to April earlier this year.  Articles for Creation submission increased dramatically from September; this is both due to a higher number of new pages submitted, but also a further clearing of the backlog on the platform. The current wait time for a new page is estimated at a lengthy eight weeks, a significant year-over-year increase from recent memory

With 6,894,622 articles and counting (comprising over 4.6 billion words), the English Wikipedia continues to grow as it heads towards its 25th birthday (on January 15, 2026, for anyone saving the date). Within that consistent growth are two notable, competing editorial movements: editors looking to cull down what they consider an excessive amount of content – and those who continue to publish new pages and defend existing pages.

Both movements have their benefits, but new page submissions are often left in the middle – and has led to an extensive backlog being monitored and updated by a smaller number of active editors than usual. In 2024, this has led to more stringent guidelines for approval, and wait times that have, on average, doubled in time. Submissions on clearly notable subjects with quality content and citations (aka the top 20% of submissions) are still being accepted at their usual rates, but there’s been an uptick in wait times and rejection rates for the other 80%.

Of course, approvals and denials are not absolute; approved pages can later be nominated for deletion, and rejected submissions are improved and approved upon resubmission all the time. But with a smaller pool of editors and an extensive backlog working on new pages, planning and patience is as important as ever with new page submissions.

The Chaos Index is our proprietary metric for measuring turbulence throughout Wikipedia and tracking the community’s current sentiment towards corporate-related pages. The index measures community actions such as editing frequency, content deletion, message board posts, and many other activities that contribute to unstable corporate page environments.