Understanding Wikipedia in Australia

We examine the relationship between Wikipedia and the Order of Australia to understand who is recognised. It’s important to note that both systems have been criticised for their bias against minorities and under-recognised groups. A 1995 review into the Australian Honours system outlined significant failings of the awards because of its gender and racial biases. We estimate that there are 53,569 pages in Wikipedia that relate to people connected to Australia, compared to 41,330 people who hold an Order of Australia. Notability on each platform is measured in a different way. The Order receives public nominations but convenes a panel of representatives to judge a person’s merit based on service or contribution. While the Order of Australia focuses on those who have rendered service to the nation, Wikipedia has a wider latitude to also include people who operate more on the fringe - indeed, it even includes some Australians who have had their Order removed because of a criminal conviction.
While each system has a different system for measuring “notability”, we were interested in how much overlap exists between the two. What we have found is that this overlap is relatively small. There are 4,452 people who have both a Wikipedia page and hold an Order of Australia. Only 11% of all Order recipients have a Wikipedia biography. Given that Wikipedia page creation relies on external forms of verification, we set out to explore this relationship in more depth.