Abstract
Natural languages and Wikipedia may both be evolving through the Iterated Learning Model, a cultural evolution mechanism that relies on iterated learning, a transmission bottleneck, and a structured meaning space, but does not require a competitive advantage for individual speakers or Wikipedia articles exhibiting more structure than others. This paper examines evidence that the evolution of structure on Wikipedia meets the same criteria as have been established for the ILM in the domain of language, and provides indications that Wikipedia is actually evolving through this mechanism. As a more readily studied example of cultural evolution, Wikipedia may provide answers to the evolution of structure that languages cannot address.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Title of host publication | Proceedings of the IADIS International Conference WWW/Internet 2010 |
| Pages | 339-344 |
| Number of pages | 6 |
| Publication status | Published - 2010 |
| Event | IADIS International Conference WWW/Internet 2010 - Timisoara Duration: 14 Oct 2010 → 17 Oct 2010 |
Conference
| Conference | IADIS International Conference WWW/Internet 2010 |
|---|---|
| City | Timisoara |
| Period | 14/10/10 → 17/10/10 |
Keywords
- Cultural evolution
- Iteration
- Learning
- Structure
- Wikipedia