Growth guy turns real internet data into tree rings and pulsar plots: Wikipedia peaked in 2006
morganb · x · 2026-10-25
Growth practitioner morganb shares a weird hobby: borrowing the visual forms of famous scientific records (tree rings, seismograph drums, pulsar plots, 1880s Marey train timetables) and filling them with real internet data.
- Wikipedia Peaked in 2006: tree-ring cross-section of English Wikipedia's new articles, 2001–2024, 6.9M total; 2006 peaked at 579k articles, 2024 had 195k (34% of peak).
- ChatGPT Kills Stack Overflow: Marey timetable of weekly new posters' 26-week retention; next-week return rate fell from 8.7% (early 2022) to 3.5%, with the 8,761 users who joined in ChatGPT's launch week showing a cliff-like collapse.
- New Year's Eve in Japan: pulsar plot of Japanese Wikipedia hourly pageviews; NHK's Kohaku song contest drove 3.7M views in a single hour, 1.8x a normal night.
He's taking suggestions for what to make next.
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