Language Homogeneity in the Japanese Wikipedia

Wikipedia is a potentially very useful source of information, but intuitively it is difficult to have confidence in the quality of an encyclopedia that anyone can modify. One aspect of correctness is writing style, which we examine in a computer based study of the full Japanese Wikipedia. This is possible because Japanese is a language with clearly distinct writing styles using e.g., different verb forms. We find that the writing style of the Japanese Wikipedia is largely consistent with the style guidelines for the project. Exceptions appear to occur primarily in articles with a small number of changes and editors.