Talk:Complex contagion
Add topic | This article is rated Start-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | ||||||||||
| |||||||||||
COI edit request: "spread of information" is classified as simple contagion on a 2007 source; a 2017 experiment found otherwise
[edit source] | The user below has a request that an edit be made to Complex contagion. That user has an actual or apparent conflict of interest. The requested edits backlog is very high. Please be extremely patient. There are currently 626 requests waiting for review. Please read the instructions for the parameters used by this template for accepting and declining them, and review the request below and make the edit if it is well sourced, neutral, and follows other Wikipedia guidelines and policies. |
I have a conflict of interest here and am requesting rather than making this edit.
The issue: In § Application and examples the article lists, under the heading "Examples of simple contagion", the bullet "Spread of information", sourced to <ref name="CENTOLA" />, which is Centola and Macy, "Complex Contagions and the Weakness of Long Ties" (2007). The article therefore classifies the spread of information as a simple contagion on the strength of a 2007 source, and gives no indication that the classification has been tested since. It has been: a 2017 controlled experiment on Twitter reached the opposite conclusion, finding that a complex contagion model fitted observed information diffusion better than a simple contagion model. The article head has carried {{original research|date=April 2011}} and {{refimprove|date=April 2011}} inside {{multiple issues}} since April 2011, and the body cites nothing later than 2011. I am not proposing to remove the bullet or the tags, only to add the later finding beside it so the classification is not left unqualified.
Proposed change: Add one sentence immediately after the "Examples of simple contagion" list, before the ==See also== heading:
A 2017 controlled experiment on Twitter, using automated accounts to vary the number of independent exposures a user received, reported that the diffusion of information was described better by a complex contagion model than by a simple contagion model.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Mønsted |first1=Bjarke |last2=Sapieżyński |first2=Piotr |last3=Ferrara |first3=Emilio |last4=Lehmann |first4=Sune |year=2017 |title=Evidence of complex contagion of information in social media: An experiment using Twitter bots |journal=PLOS ONE |volume=12 |issue=9 |pages=e0184148 |doi=10.1371/journal.pone.0184148}}</ref>
Source: Mønsted, Bjarke; Sapieżyński, Piotr; Ferrara, Emilio; Lehmann, Sune (2017). "Evidence of complex contagion of information in social media: An experiment using Twitter bots". PLOS ONE 12(9): e0184148. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0184148 {{doi}}: unflagged free DOI (link)
Disclosure: This citation is to work I co-authored (Bjarke Mønsted, Piotr Sapieżyński, Emilio Ferrara, Sune Lehmann). See User:Emilio Ferrara.
Happy for this to be declined or reworded; I will not make the edit myself. Emilio Ferrara (talk) 04:52, 27 July 2026 (UTC)