Agent-Based Wiki Page Simulation: A Conceptual Model

This chapter provides details regarding the development of an agent-ased model ( ABM) used to understand and analyze editorial changes made to Wiki pages in sites such as Wikipedia and ELATEwiki. The model was structured using a discrete space approach where letters were represented as agents with capabilities that include changing character symbol, deletion, or re-introduction based on rates derived from wiki page histories. Wiki-Hist-Heist, a pre-processor written in C#, was developed to derive information from existing wiki histories and provide model inputs based on detected distributions. The Wiki Page ABM was built using AnyLogic 7.1 which provided user-friendly features and a framework for model organization, experiments, and results. An input form was developed to enable changes to inputs so a variety of pages could be modelled. Overall, this project illustrates the usefulness of AnyLogic 7.1 and its ABM features in this domain. Study limitations and future directions also are described.