A study of 24 language editions of Wikipedia has produced strikingly different rankings of historical figures, highlighting how the design of a ranking method can shape its results. Led by Young-Ho Eom of the University of Toulouse, the research also examined whether Wikipedia’s coverage favors people from particular places, periods or genders.

Using PageRank, an algorithm that treats a page as important when other important pages link to it, the researchers found Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus at the top across languages. Linnaeus developed the scientific naming system still used for organisms, and Wikipedia’s many species articles link back to him. His result illustrates how the encyclopedia’s structure can amplify one person’s ranking.

The researchers also combined PageRank with CheiRank, which considers an article’s outgoing links, to create a measure called 2DRank. By that measure, Frank Sinatra ranked first in English Wikipedia, followed by Michael Jackson and Pope Pius XII. Across all 24 editions, Adolf Hitler ranked first, followed by Jackson and Madonna. The study found that prominent figures across editions tended to be men born in Western countries after the 17th century, although individual language editions also emphasized local figures. A separate study using citations among academics had previously identified Karl Marx as the most influential scholar.

Meanwhile, the Internet Archive is working to preserve web pages and the pages they reference through its “No More 404” crawls. The effort aims to provide archived versions when referenced pages change or disappear, either replacing broken links or supplementing live links so readers can see the material authors originally intended to cite.