Antonio José Reinoso Peinado
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UNIVERSIDAD REY JUAN CARLOS ESCUELA TECNICA´ SUPERIOR DE INGENIERIA´ DE TELECOMUNICACION´ Temporal and behavioral patterns in the use of Wikipedia Doctoral Thesis Antonio Jose´ Reinoso Peinado Ingeniero en Informatica´ Madrid, 2011 Thesis submitted to the Departamento de Sistemas Telematicos´ y Computacion´ in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor Escuela Tecnica´ Superior de Ingenier´ıa de Telecomunicacion´ Universidad Rey Juan Carlos Madrid, Spain DOCTORAL THESIS Temporal and behavioral patterns in the use of Wikipedia Author: Antonio Jose´ Reinoso Peinado Ingeniero en Informatica´ Director: Jesus´ M. Gonzalez´ Barahona Doctor Ingeniero de Telecomunicacion´ Madrid, Spain, 2011 June , 2011 WE HEREBY RECOMMEND THAT THE THESIS PREPARED UNDER OUR SUPERVI- SION BY Antonio Jose´ Reinoso Peinado ENTITLED Temporal and behavioral patterns in the use of Wikipedia BE ACCEPTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF Doctor of Philosophy in Computer Science. Jesus´ M. Gonzalez´ Barahona, Ph.D. Thesis Director The committee named to evaluate the Thesis above indicated, made up of the following doctors Carlos Delgado Kloos, Ph.D. Universidad Carlos III de Madrid President Baltasar Fernandez´ Manjon,´ Ph.D. Universidad Complutense de Madrid Member Israel Herraiz, Ph.D. Universidad Politecnica´ de Madrid Member Eloisa Vargiu, Ph.D. University of Cagliary Member Gregorio Robles Mart´ınez, Ph.D. Universidad Rey Juan Carlos Secretary has decided to grant the qualification of Mostoles,´ Madrid (Spain), July , 2011. The secretary of the committee. (c) 2011 Antonio Jose´ Reinoso Peinado This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, 543 Howard Street, 5th Floor, San Francisco, California, 94105, USA. See appendix D for more details. I often say that when you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it; but when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meagre and unsatisfactory kind; it may be the beginning of knowledge, but you have scarcely, in your thoughts, advanced to the stage of science, whatever the matter may be. William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin, often referred as Lord Kelvin Mathematical, physicist and engineer(1824-1907) We often discover what will do, by finding out what will not do; and probably he who never made a mistake never made a discovery. Samuel Smiles Scottish author and reformer(1812-1904) Acknowledgements Writing this thesis is probably one the most difficult ventures I have ever undertaken and, of course, I am feeling as I have achieved a really important goal. However, on the other hand, I positively know that this is just another milestone, though a very important one. I can remember now, when I was sitting next to my university colleagues listening to the invited speaker in our graduation dissertation. The truth is that I cannot remember his name or position but I can perfectly remember some parts of his talk. I remember the way in which he insisted on the fact that the consecution of our degree had not have to be a goal for us at all but just another step and, most important, a new beginning. Because he thought that knowledge did not have any borders or limitations but just the ones we wanted to put over it. Education and learning did not have defined goals or achievements, according to him, but just particular milestones we had to pass through and, even, to put aside in the departure for new ones. He encouraged us to be always willing to undertake new challenges and to take part in new projects developing different approaches or ideas. Moreover, he persuaded us to conduct in the search for the new possibilities brought by the newest improvements and advances. As I have said, I cannot remember nothing at all about him but just these few ideas. That is the power and the awesome capability of knowledge: to survive to its creators and to persist through the time much longer than them. Perhaps this thesis started just after listening to these words and it has been a really long trip. First I worked in a completely different research field in which I was partially successful because I gave my first steps in the research universe and I could taste the flavor of the acknowledgment given by any type of accepted publication. At a given moment, my research interests started to decrease and fall apart and I practically gave up from my research work. Then I met the Wikipedia phenomenon as a part of interesting discussions with my colleague, and good friend, Felipe Ortega who put me on the trial of Gsyc/Libresoft activities and introduced me to Jesus Barahona in a meeting that is probably the nearest beginning in time of the work your are just about to read. Gathering of knowledge and its preservation for future generations has been an absolute concern for the humanity from immemorial times and information has always been a very appreciated and powerful good. One of the most special features of knowledge is its uncompleted character and the various ways in which it may be expanded. Moreover, knowledge can receive the contributions of individuals of any particular condition, disregarding their membership to particular cultural or aca- demic groups. In my opinion, information and knowledge make people, not only more prepared, but also more free. Perhaps because of this, manipulation and domination have usually involved some kind of barriers for granting individuals’ access to the information sources. Knowledge is an abso- lutely common good and, thus, it is everyone’s responsibility to take care of it and also to contribute to its generation. It is because of this, I want to express, from this thesis, my total gratitude to the individuals who voluntarily and altruistically contribute to Wikipedia because they are contributing to the spread of knowledge and, thus, to a more free society and a more free world. In the same line, I would also like to thank everyone enrolled in any FLOSS project because, again, their contributions are pointing to the dissemination of a branch of knowledge consisting on software development. In general, I think we should be grateful to this kind of initiatives and if I just mention these two ones it is because their particular closeness to the topic addressed in this thesis. As I have said before, this is (not this has been) a long and hard trip and it would be very difficult to thank all the people involved in it in any way. As I would regret to forget someone, I will do it briefly and in a general way. More than any one, I wish to thank Laura and my parents for supporting me during all this time. Little after having met Laura I also met Libresoft, enrolled in a master on Libre Software and started my research activities. It has been a hard-to-get-on-well triangle relationship. Laura, more than any one, has had to share all these moments with me and knows about lots of hard days when frustation arose but also about moments plenty of satisfaction after any sort of achievement. In acknowledgment recognitions like this one, it is usual to read parts asking forgiveness to the couple or to the family for all the time invested to accomplish a certain work and, consequently, subtracted to them. I have to ask Laura for her forgiveness because there have been so many nights sleeping alone, so many evenings watching television alone, so many lates because of work. I can really think whether the result of all this work could serve as a little compensation and, in a certain way, I hope so. Once, I told you ”Do not love me although but love me because“ and think that if I have put so much effort in this work it is, in part, because of you, because you deserve the best of me. I can hardly thank to my parents, Luis and Maria, for their unconditional support and for having always encouraged me to undertake this particular project of having a PhD degree. I wish also thank, not my family-in-law, but in fact my family, Beatriz, Rafa, Eugenio and Olalla or Marga (in memoriam) for all their comprehension, love, and their always kind attention. I am really glad of offering this to all my beloved beings because the possibility of sharing this with them is perhaps one of the things that gives more value to this work. Of course, I want to express my most sincere gratitude to all the people that have assisted me during the development of this thesis. Specially, I wish to thank Jesus Barahona for his guidance and assessment. I also want to extend my gratitude to all the Gsyc/Libresoft team for its support during this project. I have needed a great amount of help with lots of topics and I have always found a really cooperative and collaborative attitude from all the Gsyc/Libresoft members. I am grateful to them because, apart from their support, their treatment to me has always made me feeling part of the group even though I do not have any contractual relationship with it. As well, I wish to thank all my colleagues and directives at Universidad Alfonso X, specially Jesus´ Sanchez,´ Tomas Garc´ıa and Rafael Magro, for all their good advices and for their sane interest and encouragement to finish this work. Let me express a particular acknowledgment to Israel Herraiz and Felipe Ortega. Since Isra arrived at UAX and became my office mate, he has offered to me a really valuable advice and orientation.