User Engagement on Wikipedia: a Review of Studies of Readers and Editors
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Wikipedia and Intermediary Immunity: Supporting Sturdy Crowd Systems for Producing Reliable Information Jacob Rogers Abstract
THE YALE LAW JOURNAL FORUM O CTOBER 9 , 2017 Wikipedia and Intermediary Immunity: Supporting Sturdy Crowd Systems for Producing Reliable Information Jacob Rogers abstract. The problem of fake news impacts a massive online ecosystem of individuals and organizations creating, sharing, and disseminating content around the world. One effective ap- proach to addressing false information lies in monitoring such information through an active, engaged volunteer community. Wikipedia, as one of the largest online volunteer contributor communities, presents one example of this approach. This Essay argues that the existing legal framework protecting intermediary companies in the United States empowers the Wikipedia community to ensure that information is accurate and well-sourced. The Essay further argues that current legal efforts to weaken these protections, in response to the “fake news” problem, are likely to create perverse incentives that will harm volunteer engagement and confuse the public. Finally, the Essay offers suggestions for other intermediaries beyond Wikipedia to help monitor their content through user community engagement. introduction Wikipedia is well-known as a free online encyclopedia that covers nearly any topic, including both the popular and the incredibly obscure. It is also an encyclopedia that anyone can edit, an example of one of the largest crowd- sourced, user-generated content websites in the world. This user-generated model is supported by the Wikimedia Foundation, which relies on the robust intermediary liability immunity framework of U.S. law to allow the volunteer editor community to work independently. Volunteer engagement on Wikipedia provides an effective framework for combating fake news and false infor- mation. 358 wikipedia and intermediary immunity: supporting sturdy crowd systems for producing reliable information It is perhaps surprising that a project open to public editing could be highly reliable. -
Wikipedia Ahead
Caution: Wikipedia not might be what you think it is… What is Wikipedia? Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia that is written, updated, rewritten, and edited by registered site users around the world known as “Wikipedians”. The concept of a freely accessible online “work in progress” is known as a “wiki” (Lin, 2004). While it is possible to view the user profile of individual contributors, one of the prime features of a wiki is that the information is collectively owned, shared, and changed by Internet users who have access to that wiki. Wikipedia is accessible to anyone with an Internet connection. Why Wikipedia? The main philosophy behind Wikipedia is that the sum total of the ideas of Internet users are as credible and valid as the published views of experts who have advanced degrees and extensive experience in their field. Like any wiki, Wikipedians do not “own” or assume intellectual property of the ideas and text, as the information is shared or altered by any/all contributors. I’m not sure what you mean…. An example may be most helpful. Consider Wikipedia’s article on global warming. This text has been continually written, edited, and rewritten by hundreds of Internet users around the world over the past few years. When you open and read Wikipedia’s global warming article, you are reading a text that: • is the sum of all the contributions to this article until that moment. Explanation: The information in the article, in terms of both the content and language, will likely change in the next few hours, days, or months as Wikipedias continue to contribute to/modify the article. -
Decentralization in Wikipedia Governance
Decentralization in Wikipedia Governance Andrea Forte1, Vanessa Larco2 and Amy Bruckman1 1GVU Center, College of Computing, Georgia Institute of Technology {aforte, asb}@cc.gatech.edu 2Microsoft [email protected] This is a preprint version of the journal article: Forte, Andrea, Vanessa Larco and Amy Bruckman. (2009) Decentralization in Wikipedia Governance. Journal of Management Information Systems. 26(1) pp 49-72. Publisher: M.E. Sharp www.mesharpe.com/journals.asp Abstract How does “self-governance” happen in Wikipedia? Through in-depth interviews with twenty individuals who have held a variety of responsibilities in the English-language Wikipedia, we obtained rich descriptions of how various forces produce and regulate social structures on the site. Our analysis describes Wikipedia as an organization with highly refined policies, norms, and a technological architecture that supports organizational ideals of consensus building and discussion. We describe how governance on the site is becoming increasingly decentralized as the community grows and how this is predicted by theories of commons-based governance developed in offline contexts. We also briefly examine local governance structures called WikiProjects through the example of WikiProject Military History, one of the oldest and most prolific projects on the site. 1. The Mechanisms of Self-Organization Should a picture of a big, hairy tarantula appear in an encyclopedia article about arachnophobia? Does it illustrate the point, or just frighten potential readers? Reasonable people might disagree on this question. In a freely editable site like Wikipedia, anyone can add the photo, and someone else can remove it. And someone can add it back, and the process continues. -
Community and Communication
Community and 12 Communication A large, diverse, and thriving group of volun- teers produces encyclopedia articles and administers Wikipedia. Over time, members of the Wikipedia community have developed conventions for interacting with each other, processes for managing content, and policies for minimizing disruptions and maximizing use- ful work. In this chapter, we’ll discuss where to find other contributors and how to ask for help with any topic. We’ll also explain ways in which community members interact with each other. Though most discussion occurs on talk pages, Wikipedia has some central community forums for debate about the site’s larger policies and more specific issues. We’ll also talk about the make-up of the community. First, however, we’ll outline aspects of Wikipedia’s shared culture, from key philosophies about how contributors How Wikipedia Works (C) 2008 by Phoebe Ayers, Charles Matthews, and Ben Yates should interact with each other to some long-running points of debate to some friendly practices that have arisen over time. Although explicit site policies cover content guidelines and social norms, informal philosophies and practices help keep the Wikipedia community of contributors together. Wikipedia’s Culture Wikipedia’s community has grown spontaneously and organically—a recipe for a baffling culture rich with in-jokes and insider references. But core tenets of the wiki way, like Assume Good Faith and Please Don’t Bite the Newcomers, have been with the community since the beginning. Assumptions on Arrival Wikipedians try to treat new editors well. Assume Good Faith (AGF) is a funda- mental philosophy, as well as an official guideline (shortcut WP:AGF) on Wikipedia. -
The Culture of Wikipedia
Good Faith Collaboration: The Culture of Wikipedia Good Faith Collaboration The Culture of Wikipedia Joseph Michael Reagle Jr. Foreword by Lawrence Lessig The MIT Press, Cambridge, MA. Web edition, Copyright © 2011 by Joseph Michael Reagle Jr. CC-NC-SA 3.0 Purchase at Amazon.com | Barnes and Noble | IndieBound | MIT Press Wikipedia's style of collaborative production has been lauded, lambasted, and satirized. Despite unease over its implications for the character (and quality) of knowledge, Wikipedia has brought us closer than ever to a realization of the centuries-old Author Bio & Research Blog pursuit of a universal encyclopedia. Good Faith Collaboration: The Culture of Wikipedia is a rich ethnographic portrayal of Wikipedia's historical roots, collaborative culture, and much debated legacy. Foreword Preface to the Web Edition Praise for Good Faith Collaboration Preface Extended Table of Contents "Reagle offers a compelling case that Wikipedia's most fascinating and unprecedented aspect isn't the encyclopedia itself — rather, it's the collaborative culture that underpins it: brawling, self-reflexive, funny, serious, and full-tilt committed to the 1. Nazis and Norms project, even if it means setting aside personal differences. Reagle's position as a scholar and a member of the community 2. The Pursuit of the Universal makes him uniquely situated to describe this culture." —Cory Doctorow , Boing Boing Encyclopedia "Reagle provides ample data regarding the everyday practices and cultural norms of the community which collaborates to 3. Good Faith Collaboration produce Wikipedia. His rich research and nuanced appreciation of the complexities of cultural digital media research are 4. The Puzzle of Openness well presented. -
Building a Visual Editor for Wikipedia
Building a Visual Editor for Wikipedia Trevor Parscal and Roan Kattouw Wikimania D.C. 2012 Trevor Parscal Roan Kattouw Rob Moen Lead Designer and Engineer Data Model Engineer User Interface Engineer Wikimedia Wikimedia Wikimedia Inez Korczynski Christian Williams James Forrester Edit Surface Engineer Edit Surface Engineer Product Analyst Wikia Wikia Wikimedia The People Wikimania D.C. 2012 Parsoid Team Gabriel Wicke Subbu Sastry Lead Parser Engineer Parser Engineer Wikimedia Wikimedia The People Wikimania D.C. 2012 The Complexity Problem Wikimania D.C. 2012 Active Editors 20k 0 2001 2007 Today Growth Stagnation The Complexity Problem Wikimania D.C. 2012 just messing around Testing testing 123... The Complexity Problem Wikimania D.C. 2012 The Review Problem Wikimania D.C. 2012 Balancing the ecosystem Difficulty Editing Reviewing The Review Problem Wikimania D.C. 2012 Balancing the ecosystem Difficulty Editing Reviewing The Review Problem Wikimania D.C. 2012 Balancing the ecosystem Difficulty Editing Reviewing The Review Problem Wikimania D.C. 2012 Balancing the ecosystem Difficulty Editing Reviewing The Review Problem Wikimania D.C. 2012 Wikitext enthusiasts CC-BY-SA-3.0, http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Usfa-heston.gif The Expert Problem Wikimania D.C. 2012 Exit strategy 100% Preference for Wikitext Capabilities of visual tools 0% The Expert Problem Wikimania D.C. 2012 To what extent? CC-BY-SA-3.0, http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:TriMet_MAX_Green_Line_Train_on_Portland_Transit_Mall.jpg The Expert Problem Wikimania D.C. 2012 To what extent? CC-BY-SA-3.0, http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:TriMet_MAX_Green_Line_Train_on_Portland_Transit_Mall.jpgCC-BY-SA-3.0, http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:TriMet_1990_Gillig_bus_carrying_bike.jpg The Expert Problem Wikimania D.C. -
Classifying Wikipedia Article Quality with Revision History Networks
Classifying Wikipedia Article Quality With Revision History Networks Narun Raman∗ Nathaniel Sauerberg∗ Carleton College Carleton College [email protected] [email protected] Jonah Fisher Sneha Narayan Carleton College Carleton College [email protected] [email protected] ABSTRACT long been interested in maintaining and investigating the quality We present a novel model for classifying the quality of Wikipedia of its content [4][6][12]. articles based on structural properties of a network representation Editors and WikiProjects typically rely on assessments of article of the article’s revision history. We create revision history networks quality to focus volunteer attention on improving lower quality (an adaptation of Keegan et. al’s article trajectory networks [7]), articles. This has led to multiple efforts to create classifiers that can where nodes correspond to individual editors of an article, and edges predict the quality of a given article [3][4][18]. These classifiers can join the authors of consecutive revisions. Using descriptive statistics assist in providing assessments of article quality at scale, and help generated from these networks, along with general properties like further our understanding of the features that distinguish high and the number of edits and article size, we predict which of six quality low quality Wikipedia articles. classes (Start, Stub, C-Class, B-Class, Good, Featured) articles belong While many Wikipedia article quality classifiers have focused to, attaining a classification accuracy of 49.35% on a stratified sample on assessing quality based on the content of the latest version of of articles. These results suggest that structures of collaboration an article [1, 4, 18], prior work has suggested that high quality arti- underlying the creation of articles, and not just the content of the cles are associated with more intense collaboration among editors article, should be considered for accurate quality classification. -
Wiki-Hacking: Opening up the Academy with Wikipedia
St. John's University St. John's Scholar Faculty Publications Department of English 2010 Wiki-hacking: Opening Up the Academy with Wikipedia Adrianne Wadewitz Occidental College Anne Ellen Geller St. John's University, [email protected] Jon Beasley-Murray University of British Columbia, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://scholar.stjohns.edu/english_facpubs Part of the Education Commons, and the English Language and Literature Commons Recommended Citation Wadewitz, A., Geller, A. E., & Beasley-Murray, J. (2010). Wiki-hacking: Opening Up the Academy with Wikipedia. Hacking the Academy Retrieved from https://scholar.stjohns.edu/english_facpubs/4 This Book Chapter is brought to you for free and open access by the Department of English at St. John's Scholar. It has been accepted for inclusion in Faculty Publications by an authorized administrator of St. John's Scholar. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Wiki-hacking: Opening up the academy with Wikipedia Contents Wiki-hacking: Opening up the academy with Wikipedia Introduction Wikipedia in academia Constructing knowledge Writing within discourse communities What's missing from Wikipedia Postscript: Authorship and attribution in this article Links Notes Bibliography Wiki-hacking: Opening up the academy with Wikipedia By Adrianne Wadewitz, Anne Ellen Geller, Jon Beasley-Murray Introduction A week ago, on Friday, May 21, 2010, we three were part of a roundtable dedicated to Wikipedia and pedagogy as part of the 2010 Writing Across the Curriculum (http://www.indiana.edu/~wac2010/abstracts.shtml) conference. That was our first face-to-face encounter; none of us had ever met in real life. -
Embracing Wikipedia As a Teaching and Learning Tool Benefits Health Professional Schools and the Populations They Serve
2017 Embracing Wikipedia as a teaching and learning tool benefits health professional schools and the populations they serve Author schools’ local service missions, suggesting that embracing Wikipedia as a teaching and learning Amin Azzam1* tool for tomorrow’s health professionals may be globally generalizable. A network of health Abstract professional schools and students contributing to Wikipedia would accelerate fulfillment of Wikipedia’s To paraphrase Wikipedia cofounder Jimmy Wales, audacious aspirational goal—providing every single “Imagine a world where all people have access person on the planet free access to the sum of all to high quality health information clearly written human knowledge. in their own language.” Most health professional students likely endorse that goal, as do individuals Keywords who volunteer to contribute to Wikipedia’s health- related content. Bringing these two communities medical education; medical communication; together inspired our efforts: a course for medical Wikipedia students to earn academic credit for improving Wikipedia. Here I describe the evolution of that Introduction course between 2013 – 2017, during which 80 students completed the course. Collectively they “Imagine a world in which every single person on the edited 65 pages, adding over 93,100 words and planet is given free access to the sum of all human 608 references. Impressively, these 65 Wikipedia knowledge. That’s what we’re doing.”1 pages were viewed 1,825,057 times during only the students’ active editing days. The students’ Some might consider this audacious statement a efforts were in partnership with communities naïve dreamer’s fantasy. Yet even at 16 years old, outside of academia—namely Wikiproject Medicine, Wikipedia continues to rank amongst the top 10 most 2 Translators Without Borders, and Wikipedia Zero. -
Critical Mass of What? Exploring Community Growth in Wikiprojects
Critical Mass of What? Exploring Community Growth in WikiProjects Jacob Solomon and Rick Wash Michigan State University 404 Wilson Rd. Room 409 Communications Arts & Sciences Building East Lansing, MI 48824-1212 Abstract In this paper, we conduct an exploratory analysis of over 1000 communities within Wikipedia known as WikiProjects Fledgling online communities often hope to achieve critical and analyze how they grow in order to better understand crit- mass so that the community becomes sustainable. This con- ical mass and how it develops. The goal of our analysis is cept however is not well understood. At what point does a community achieve critical mass, and how does the commu- to answer two questions about WikiProjects. Does the con- nity know this? Furthermore, online communities become cept of critical mass really apply to these kinds of distributed sustainable when they achieve a mass of what? We explore peer-production communities? And if so, what kind of mass this question by analyzing growth in a large number of online needs to be accumulated to generate community sustainabil- communities on Wikipedia. We find that individual commu- ity? Is it raw content or participation independent of the nities often have different patterns of growth of membership people who provide it? Or does a community need a certain from its pattern of growth of contribution or production. We mass of individuals that are independent of the quantity of also find that in the early stages of community development, content provided? building membership has a greater impact on community pro- duction and activity in later periods than accumulating many contributions early on, and this is especially true when there Background is more diversity in the early participants in a community. -
Controlled Analyses of Social Biases in Wikipedia Bios
Controlled Analyses of Social Biases in Wikipedia Bios Anjalie Field Chan Young Park Yulia Tsvetkov [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] Carnegie Mellon University Carnegie Mellon University Carnegie Mellon University ABSTRACT as explanatory variables in a regression model, which restricts anal- Social biases on Wikipedia, a widely-read global platform, could ysis to regression models and requires explicitly enumerating all greatly influence public opinion. While prior research has examined confounds [52]. man/woman gender bias in biography articles, possible influences In contrast, we develop a matching algorithm that enables ana- of confounding variables limit conclusions. In this work, we present lyzing different demographic groups while reducing the influence a methodology for reducing the effects of confounding variables in of confounding variables. Given a corpus of Wikipedia biography analyses of Wikipedia biography pages. Given a target corpus for pages for people that contain target attributes (e.g. pages for cis- analysis (e.g. biography pages about women), we present a method gender women), our algorithm builds a matched comparison corpus for constructing a comparison corpus that matches the target cor- of biography pages for people that do not (e.g. for cisgender men). pus in as many attributes as possible, except the target attribute The comparison corpus is constructed so that it closely matches the (e.g. the gender of the subject). We evaluate our methodology by de- target corpus on all known attributes except the targeted one. Thus, veloping metrics to measure how well the comparison corpus aligns examining differences between the two corpora can reveal content with the target corpus. -
Project Talk: Coordination Work and Group Membership in Wikiprojects
Project talk: Coordination work and group membership in WikiProjects Jonathan T. Morgan*, Michael Gilbert*, David W. McDonald**, Mark Zachry* *Human Centered Design & Engineering **The Information School University of Washington Seattle, WA USA {jmo25, mdg, dwmc, zachry} @uw.edu ABSTRACT Groups emerge in online collaborations as individuals organize their WikiProjects have contributed to Wikipedia’s success in important productive activities around shared goals, interests, tasks and work- ways, yet the range of work that WikiProjects perform and the way spaces. These groups can provide important benefits for their mem- they coordinate that work remains largely unexplored. In this study, bers and perform valuable work for the community they belong to. we perform a content analysis of 788 work-related discussions from Lave & Wenger [16] assert that the most effective way to under- the talk pages of 138 WikiProjects in order to understand the role stand working groups like these is to examine the work activities WikiProjects play in collaborative work on Wikipedia. We find that their members engage in. But, as the scenario above illustrates, the editors use WikiProjects to coordinate a wide variety of work identifying the members of an online group and the work the group activities beyond content production and that non-members play an performs can be difficult for an outsider—whether they are a new active role in that work. Our research suggests that WikiProject user, a researcher or a system designer. collaboration is less structured and more open than that of many virtual teams and that WikiProjects may function more like FLOSS Research on the behavior of Wikipedia editors has informed our projects than traditional groups.