How the numbers work.
70% popularity, 30% reach. Every number comes from an open source you can check.
Who is in the Index?
Everyone with an article in at least nineteen Wikipedia language editions: about 100,000 people. Facts come from Wikidata and refresh weekly.
How is popularity measured?
Views of the person's English Wikipedia article over the last 30 days, from Wikimedia's public pageview statistics, counting people and excluding automated traffic.
What is reach?
How many Wikipedia language editions have an article about the person: a measure of how widely across the world they are known.
How is the Position Index calculated?
Everyone is ranked by popularity and by reach. Each rank becomes a percentile, and the Index weights popularity at 70% and reach at 30%, giving a score from 0 to 100. A score of 90 means the person sits above roughly 90% of the Index.
How often does it update?
Rankings are recalculated from the latest pageview data, and new people and facts are added every week.
Why is there no net worth for most people?
Net worth is shown only where a published, sourced estimate exists, as a range with its source named. Most people don't have one, and we don't guess.
Where do the portraits come from?
Wikimedia Commons. Every portrait is freely licensed and shows its photographer and licence on the profile.
Who writes the profiles and the Journal?
Profiles are assembled from Wikidata facts and statistics computed from the Index itself. Journal articles are written with AI from the sources listed under each one and checked against them automatically; sensitive stories are reviewed by a person first.
See it in action on the full Index.