If Wikipedia’s users get to determine the next president, it seems like we’ll be seeing Ron Paul in the White House; according to an analysis of four different factors, the Republican candidate is popular in just about every way.
In regards to the first of the factors – the number of people who read a candidate’s article – Compete’s Matt Pace found that only Barack Obama ranked ahead of Paul. There’s a large gap between the two – Obama had 41,007 readers, while Paul had just 30,960 – but then again, the next closest candidate (who actually remains undeclared) is Fred Thompson (with 24,160 readers).
So, on to the next factor: minutes spent on an article. In this respect, Paul came in first place, with 10.22 minutes. Mike Gravel got second place with 8.83 minutes. In terms of a share of total time, Paul also won first place, but Obama displaced Gravel for second.
The percentage of Wikipedia users who also visited a candidate’s website became another Paul-Gravel mix-up, however. This time, Gravel grabbed the top spot, with 45 percent, while Paul trailed slightly with 42 percent.
That’s it for the factors. Pace then calculated an average rank for each candidate, and found that Paul’s 1.5 far outdistanced everyone else’s score. (Gravel, Obama, and Dennis Kucinich were the runners-up, if you’re curious.)
Is everyone who’s ever visited Wikipedia going to vote for Ron Paul, then? As we all know, that’s unlikely. Compete’s Pace points out one possible reason for these lopsided figures, writing, “Household names such as Hillary Clinton, John McCain and Rudy Giuliani trail rivals in this comparison. The modest interest seen in their Wikipedia articles could be a result of the public’s general familiarity with candidates whose lives of late have played out on the public stage.”
