Analysis of Wikipedia Featured Article: Act of Independence of Lithuania

[Charley Norkus]

I enjoyed exploring new territory here regarding my Lithuanian (Norkus) heritage, an article concerned with the expressed desire for Lithuanian independence during World War I and twenty brave signers of the declaratory Act.

1. Account for the postings (number of revisions, time range from first to last, notation of periods of activity).
Using en.WikiChecker/article, I discovered that this article originally appeared on Jan. 26, 2007, it has been edited 417 times, and the last revision/addition occurred today (Oct 4, 2009), just three hours before composing this analysis. The article has been maintained on Wikipedia for 983 days. Editors of this article total 120 with the top 10% contributing 285 edits, however, toolserver.org relates that 198 of those 285 edits came from one editor named M.K. Interestingly enough, another edit counter, WikiDashboard, records 442 edits with 201 by M.K, 45.5% of total edits.

2. Describe progress or development in the article from the original post to the most recent update (use Jones' descriptions of B-17 and special effect articles as a guide).
All of the major components of the original article are still in tact: the narrative, five pictures of a facsimile of the declaration (Act) the signers, house where signed, the first president, and announcement, as well as the text of the Act and a graphic representation of the path to its writing and signing. Most of the edits occurred between February and March of 2007 and concern the fate of those who signed Lithuania’s declaration of independence in 1918 and the exact location of the house where it was signed. Minor edits during that same time and later were grammatical.

3. Critique the quality of the article in its current state (use Rosenzweig's approach, writing quality and factual information).
Within a month of its first appearing in Wikipedia, the article appeared in the ‘Did You Know?’ column (Feb.15, 2007) and as ‘Today’s featured article’ on March 11, 2007. As a featured article, “it has been identified as one of the best articles produced by the Wikipedia community” (from ‘discussion’ tab for this article). This particular article has been rated of “top importance” within WikiProject Lithuania and although of “low importance” in the overall WikiProject Politics, it is regarded nevertheless as “FA-class” on that project’s quality scale.

4. Describe the discussion around the article.
Most of the edits occurred between February and March of 2007 and concern the fate of those who signed Lithuania’s declaration of independence in 1918 and the exact location of the house where it was signed. What does not seem to be a point of discussion is the fact that no original copy of the Act exists, the German government having destroyed all of them. This is apparently accepted while the text of the document has however been preserved.

5. Background information on the most active contributors (use Boston Massacre work as an example).
The original work and 45.5% of the edits belong to contributor M.K, real name Andreus Laikinas, who has made over 11,000 contributions to various articles on Lithuanian history beginning in April of 2006. He is the original author of 109 articles and is still actively posting as of this month. M.K/Laikinas has been granted “autoreviewer” status, a right “granted to experienced users who have demonstrated an understanding of policy (especially WP:BLP and WP:N) and have already created a good number of pages” (from Wikipedia: Autoreviewer). My original opinions of Wikipedia continue to be blown away the more I actually explore the articles, the rigor of their scholarship, and the supporting infrastructure behind them provided by the Wikipedia organization. – cn 10/5/2009