A study led by Young-Ho Eom of the University of Toulouse used links across 24 language editions of Wikipedia to examine which historical figures receive the most attention and whether that attention varies by gender, era and location. The researchers found that prominent figures are disproportionately male, born in Western countries and from after the 17th century. Each language edition also tends to highlight figures from places where that language is spoken.

The rankings varied considerably with the method used. Using PageRank, which measures a page’s importance partly by the importance of pages linking to it, the researchers found Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus at the top across languages. Linnaeus developed the scientific naming system still generally used today, and Wikipedia’s many species articles link back to him. That feature of the encyclopedia helped produce his unexpectedly high ranking.

To account for patterns in outgoing as well as incoming links, the team combined PageRank with a measure called CheiRank to create a 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. Another study cited in the reporting used academic references to assess scholarly influence and ranked Karl Marx first.

Separately, the Internet Archive is crawling newly created pages and the pages they reference to preserve versions that may later change or disappear. Its “No More 404” effort aims to replace broken links with archived copies or add companion links so readers can see what authors originally referenced.