Facebook is a social networking site that was created by Mark Zuckerberg, a Harvard student at the time. Facebook launched in 2004 for Harvard students, soon after it expanded to all universities, high schools and it is currently available to anyone 13 years of age and older. Facebook attracted 123.9 million unique visitors in May 2008. Facebook allows users to interact using the wall, photos, and numerous different features.

I am interested to track the edits of Facebook because I am sure there has been much discussion with all the changes Facebook makes. I am using WikiScanner to see these edits.

1. Who and How Often
On the search retrieved on July 3, 2008 from WikiScanner there are 1870 edits for page Facebook. The top 10 edits are created by: 

1. Comcast Cable Communications Holdings Inc (Cambridge, Massachusetts) – 22 edits

2. Thefacebook.Com (Palo Alto, California) – 18 edits

3. Sympatico Hse (Toronto, Ontario) – 16 edits

4. Comcast Cable Communications Holdings Inc (Arlington, Massachusetts) 15 edits

5. Shaw Communications Inc (Burnaby, British Columbia) – 13 edits

6. University Of California Irvine (Irvine, California) – 13edits

7. Road Runner Holdco Llc (Cincinnati, Ohio) – 12 edits

8. Stanford University (Stanford, California) – 12 edits

9. Telus Communications Inc (Vancouver, British Columbia) – 12 edits

10. Brown University (Providence, Rhode Island) – 10 edits.

There were also a large number of Universities that contributed to the edits. One consistent provider that I found was Comcast Cable Communications with approximately 88 users from different states.

 2. What 

Most of the edits made were enhancing the original information such as the history, origin, and the launch date. Another wave of edits was the additions to the actual Facebook such as news feed, different applications, gifts, etc.

Other issues
While most of the edits were enhancing the information provided, some controversial topics were raised on privacy issues, there was also some controversy over the news feed and mini feed.  I found that although the WikiScanner showed changes in the information and privacy issues as being the most frequent edits made, the discussion section on the article showed foreign issues. They discussed issues such as how Facebook should recognize Palestine and rumors of United Arab Emirates banning Facebook. There were issues such as the date and launching of Facebook Chat as well.

What’s not there?

I find it hard to believe that there have been no edits made to this in 2008. With all the additions made daily to Facebook I feel that seven months into the year people should be making edits on Wikipedia. But the WikiScanner did not report of any edits made.

3. When
The majority of the edits were made in 2006 and 2007. A few were made in 2004 and 2005. It was surprising to me because I anticipated a great deal of the changes and or controversy would exist in 2004 because that was the year Facebook launched. I guess there wasn’t any need to because the great deal of changes occurred within the last few years with all the applications and such.

4. Where
According to the IP Addresses found in the WikiScanner the majority of the editors resided in the United States or Canada. There were a few exceptions from places such as Egypt and England. The editors were widely spread within the United States with a great deal of edits from Massachusetts and California.

5. Conclusion
This report helped me see first hand how Wikipedia works. It shows that it is indeed a collaborative effort from people all over the US and even all over the world. I got to see how the changes are made. It was also interesting to see that all the IP Addresses are recorded as well as the edits. So you can pinpoint any changes that have been made. Overall I feel Wikipedia is a great site for accurate information because it is updated frequently and if there is any incorrect information it is corrected. But I do take everything with a grain of salt, after all it is the internet.