Is Wikipedia Getting Bigger Screensaver
The Is Wikipedia Getting Bigger screensaver shows the net change in bytes across a Wikipedia edition each month, key-less. Net, not gross: a month where a cleanup drive removes more than contributors add is negative, and the bar is drawn from a zero line so those read as negative rather than as nothing. It's free, runs in your browser, and ESC exits.
Live preview
Press ESC to leave fullscreen. Settings are saved in your browser only.
How the Is Wikipedia Getting Bigger screensaver works
The saver reads the source described above and draws it on a canvas — no account, no tracking.
The net change in bytes across a Wikipedia edition each month, key-less. Net, not gross: a month where a cleanup drive removes more than contributors add is negative, and the bar is drawn from a zero line so those read as negative rather than as nothing.
It refreshes on a schedule, so what you see stays current.
Colours and any options can be changed in settings; nothing is stored beyond your own browser.
Net bytes and the size of Wikipedia
A Wikipedia edition grows as editors add text and shrinks as they remove it, and the size of each page is measured in bytes of its wikitext, the markup in the edit window, which includes templates, links and tables as well as readable prose. This saver reports the net change across an edition each month: bytes added minus bytes removed. A positive figure means the stored text grew overall, while a negative one means more was deleted than created.
Bytes are a rough proxy. In UTF-8, Devanagari (used for Hindi) and Chinese, Japanese and Korean characters take three bytes each, against one for basic Latin letters, so editions in different scripts are not directly comparable. A cleanup that deletes bulk references, merges duplicate pages or removes vandalism can produce a negative month even though the encyclopedia improved, and a large addition of markup or tables counts the same as new prose.
Byte growth also says nothing about article count or reader value. An edition can shrink in bytes while gaining articles, or grow because of long articles and heavy markup, so a month’s figure is best read as a measure of how much stored text changed, not of how much knowledge was gained or lost.
A worked example
The net change in bytes across a Wikipedia edition each month, key-less. Net, not gross: a month where a cleanup drive removes more than contributors add is negative, and the bar is drawn from a zero line so those read as negative rather than as nothing.
Settings & tips
- Accent and Background recolour the display.
- Every value on screen comes from the live source — nothing is simulated.
- Press ESC to leave fullscreen.
Frequently asked questions
- Is this real data?
- Yes — it comes from the source named on this page and is refreshed on a schedule.
- Is a key needed?
- No. This source is fully key-less.
- Is it free?
- Yes, and it runs entirely in your browser.
- Does a negative month mean Wikipedia lost knowledge?
- Not necessarily. It means more bytes were removed than added, which can reflect cleanup, merges or removal of low quality text.
- What is measured in bytes?
- The size of each page’s wikitext, the markup visible in the edit window, which includes templates and tables as well as prose.
- Why can editions in different languages not be compared directly?
- Scripts need different numbers of bytes per character in UTF-8: Devanagari and CJK characters take three bytes, basic Latin letters one, so the same amount of text is a different size.