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Wikirace Help

Wikirace compares Wikipedia daily pageviews for a group of articles over a date range. See who attracted more attention — and by how much.

Data comes from the Wikimedia Pageviews API. StatsWiki resolves articles via Wikidata QIDs.

Quick start

  1. Open Wikirace from the site header.
  2. Search for articles by name or QID (autocomplete uses the StatsWiki catalog).
  3. Add at least two articles to the group.
  4. Set a start and end date (or use a quick window preset).
  5. Click Compare →.

You can also pick a preset group (elections, sports finals, etc.) to load a ready-made race.

Reading the results

Chart

Stacked share (default) stacks each day’s pageviews by article — band area matches Race%. Daily compare overlays curves on one shared scale. The time axis runs from the first to the last plotted day.

Race% (area under the curve)

Race% is each article’s area under the curve over the selected period — i.e. the sum of its daily pageviews, expressed as a share of the group total:

Race% = sum(daily pageviews for article) ÷ sum(daily pageviews for all articles) × 100

The chart defaults to Stacked share: each day’s pageviews are stacked by article, so the colored band area matches Race%. Switch to Daily compare to overlay curves on one scale and spot peak days. The table is sorted by Race% (highest first).

Column Meaning
Views Total pageviews in the selected period
Race% Share of the group’s combined attention
Share Visual bar for Race%

Example: Trump 68% · Harris 32% means Trump’s Wikipedia article received about twice as many views as Harris’s over that window.

Resize buttons

On a race page, 1 month / 3 months / 6 months / 1 year recalculates the window ending on the current end date (or the day before a preset event). The URL updates with the new dates.

URL format

Every race has a shareable URL with three parts:

/wikirace/{QID1}+{QID2}+…/{start}/{end}
Part Format Example
Group Wikidata QIDs joined with + Q22686+Q10853588
Start YYYY-MM-DD 2024-05-09
End YYYY-MM-DD 2024-11-04

Examples

Race URL
2024 US President (6 months pre-election) /wikirace/Q22686+Q10853588/2024-05-09/2024-11-04
2020 US President /wikirace/Q22686+Q6279/2020-05-07/2020-11-02
2024 NBA Finals (3 months) /wikirace/Q131371+Q132893/2024-03-19/2024-06-16

No names or slugs in the URL — only QIDs and dates.

Building a custom group

Article search

  • Type a name (e.g. Trump, Biden, Chiefs) — search uses the StatsWiki catalog first, then Wikidata for broader matches (English Wikipedia articles only).
  • Or type a QID (e.g. Q22686) and press Enter.
  • Selected articles appear as chips; click × to remove.

Dates

  • Quick window fills start/end relative to yesterday (builder) or relative to the race end date (resize buttons on a race page).
  • Preset groups use curated ranges anchored to the day before the event (election day, final, etc.) to avoid single-day spikes.

Preset groups

Ready-made races for common comparisons:

Preset Articles Default period
2024 US President Trump · Harris 6 months before Nov 5, 2024
2020 US President Trump · Biden 6 months before Nov 3, 2020
2016 US President Trump · Clinton 6 months before Nov 8, 2016
2022 FL Governor DeSantis · Crist 6 months before Nov 8, 2022
2022 PA Senate Fetterman · Oz 6 months before Nov 8, 2022
Super Bowl LVIII Chiefs · 49ers 3 months before Feb 11, 2024
2024 NBA Finals Celtics · Mavericks 3 months before Jun 17, 2024
2022 World Cup Final Argentina · France 3 months before Dec 18, 2022
Breaking Bad (10y post-finale) Walter · Jesse · Skyler · Hank · Marie · Walt Jr · Skinny Pete 1 year, 10 years after Sep 29, 2013 finale (BB-only cast)
Big Bang Theory (post-finale) Sheldon · Leonard · Penny · Howard · Raj · Amy · Bernadette 1 year after May 16, 2019 finale
Better Call Saul (post-finale) Saul · Kim · Chuck · Nacho · Stacey · Lalo · Howard 1 year after Aug 15, 2022 finale (no BB crossover chars)
Barbenheimer (opening week) Barbie · Oppenheimer · Gerwig · Nolan · Robbie · Murphy · Gosling · Blunt 7 days from Jul 21, 2023 US opening
ChatGPT launch ChatGPT · OpenAI · AI · ML · Language model · GPT-3 · Microsoft · Artificial neural network 1 month after Nov 30, 2022 launch
Rust in Linux 6.1 Rust · Linux · Memory safety · C · C++ · Linus Torvalds · Go · LLVM 1 month after Dec 11, 2022 kernel release

What Wikirace is — and isn’t

Good for

  • Comparing relative Wikipedia attention between candidates, teams, or topics.
  • Exploring attention over time (trends, spikes, debates, scandals).
  • Sharing a reproducible link to a specific comparison.

Not a prediction tool

Higher pageviews reflect curiosity and media coverage, not necessarily votes or match outcomes. Incumbents, celebrities, and viral moments can skew the signal. Use Race% as an attention index, not a forecast.

For developers

Regenerate the article catalog

cd pipeline && pip install -e .
sw-wikirace-catalog

Writes web/public/wikirace/catalog.json from web/public/data/q/*.json.

Regenerate this help page

cd web && npm run build:help

Source: docs/wikirace-help.md → web/public/wikirace/help.json (bundled at npm run build).

Local dev

cd web && npm run dev
# → http://localhost:5173/wikirace

License & attribution

Wikipedia pageview data: Wikimedia Terms of Use.

Article metadata: Wikidata CC0.

StatsWiki code: MIT.