Social Network Analysis (SNA) dates back over fifty years. The serious side of this work is that a network representation is a great simplification of complex social interactions but hopefully one which captures a key aspect – the bilateral relationships. Mathematical measures can then be applied to the tangle of connections in order to reveal key features. One important use of SNA is to identify who is the most important person. Defining what is meant by “important” is an important part of the question with many different answers for different contexts.
However it also means we can have a little fun. In a frivolous mode we can just apply the various tools SNA provides (PageRank, betweenness and so forth) to produce instant answers to our favourite collection of individuals.
A recent study of bibliographies on Wikipedia (Biographical Social Networks on Wikipedia – A cross-cultural study of links that made history) was based on publically available data from dbpedia. There is a serious point to the paper which contains many interesting conclusions especially about the relationships between different languages. However at a trivial level I couldn’t help but be drawn to a table of the “top 25 persons” which is given below. The top 5 were (in descending order by in-degree) George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan and then Adolf Hitler. Of course this tells us as much about who is using the English Wikipedia system as anything else. In fact looking at the top 25 shows most are recent US presidents. Its those who are not who caught my eye.
First, in this age of celebrity, there are very few modern entertainers, just Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra, Bob Dylan, Michael Jackson (again in descending order). They are, though, all American.
At least us Brits are the second most popular nation as we get William Shakespeare, Winston Churchill and the Queen. In fact it is probably the continuing obsession with the Second World War in the America and Britain, and not their tyrannical nature, that sees two other foreigners make it into the list, with Hitler and Stalin appearing along with Churchill.
Religion makes a surprisingly small contribution given the US bias. We only have Pope John Paul II and Jesus as top 25 sort of guys, though the last Pope is higher than his boss. Still while Jesus is near the bottom it still puts him above any of the Beatles, ‘disproving’ John Lennon’s famous quip.
I also thought it was interesting that anything before 1900 is clearly ancient history. Lincoln is the only 19th century representative while Shakespeare and Jesus are the only contributions from earlier times.
Perhaps the saddest comment on our times is the lack of any women. I’m not sure if the Queen is there because of what she has done with the job or because of the fact she is head of state. The latter reason is a just matter of chance although even there her sex made it harder to be in the position (male heirs are preferred over female heirs) . The only other woman, at number 25 in fact, is Hilary Clinton.
The top 25 persons in the English Wiki- pedia ranked by in-degree. Taken from Table 2 of arXiv:1204.3799.