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Wikipedia a Field Report by Lennart Guldbrandsson Introduction The Wikipedia A Field Report by Lennart Guldbrandsson Introduction language Wikipedia, where I am mostly active, had around 60 000 articles, while Above my desk is a quote by Albert the English-language Wikipedia had Einstein: “Do not worry about your dif- about 450 000 articles. Reference sec- ficulties in mathematics; I can assure tions as well as images were not plenti- you that mine are still greater.” One of ful, to say the least. There were no Einstein’s problems, of course, was that schools that used Wikipedia as a teach- since he was a pioneer, there were not ing tool, and no museums put their im- many who could give him the correct ages on Wikipedia. Media reports were answers. few and often negative. Wikipedia is in some ways in the same th Through diligent work of several thou- position. It is presently the 6 most vis- sands of volunteers, all this changed: the ited website in the world (Alexa 2014), number of articles is more than 20 times it is the only donor-supported website in they were in 2005 for the Swedish- the top 50 list, and Mozilla is the only language Wikipedia, and 10 times more other non-profit in the top 25 list (Gard- for the English-language Wikipedia. ner 2013). Few other very large websites References to scholarly works as well as use only copyright-free material, written other reputable sources have become a and maintained by anyone, with a deci- standard. Images of increasingly higher sion system that has been described as quality are inserted into more and more consensus-driven. Even the five-year articles. Partly this is due to collabora- strategic plan for the Wikimedia Foun- tions with galleries, libraries, archives dation was crowd-sourced (Wikimedia and museums around the world (Wiki- 2011b). media 2014a). Many universities and It is in this light, the challenges and places of higher education use Wikipe- plans for the future of Wikipedia should dia, either as an examination form, or as be viewed. Very few other web site a way to work with outreach to the lay owners, or even encyclopaedias, are in community (Wikimedia 2013). Media the same situation, with the same busi- reporting have also begun to change, ness model, or government system. For albeit more slowly. sure, there are some similarities with for There have, naturally, also come up instance traditional encyclopaedias or new measures of quality that were not with social media. In common with the on the map in 2005. The largest, by far, former is the tone of the language and is the result of a series of surveys carried overall goal. With social media, Wikipe- out around 2008-2010, most famously dia shares an increase in use on mobile one by UNU-MERIT, which showed and tablets. However, this means very that only 13% of the editors of Wikipe- little when it comes to Wikipedia's chal- dia were female (Glott et al. 2009).1 lenges and plans for the future. This has led to a series of discussions on I will exemplify this with one chal- and near Wikipedia as well in the media, lenge and one plan for the future. mainly about what the consequences and remedies might be. Wikipedians, includ- The Gendergap Challenge ing me, have started to focus on recruit- During my nine years as a contributor to ing more female editors, through several Wikipedia, there has been an increase in initiatives. So-called “edit-a-thons” with almost all possible measures of quality. a focus on female participants or what is When I started in 2005, the Swedish- generally considered to be female- oriented topics, are probably the most Guldbrandsson, Lennart: “Field Report: Wikipedia Sweden” Culture Unbound, Volume 6, 2014: 633–636. Hosted by Linköping University Electronic Press: http://www.cultureunbound.ep.liu.se common initiative. Another good exam- in my experience made at least made ple is the on-Wikipedia initiative, The some more volunteers support the issue. Teahouse (English-Language Wikipedia My own estimation of this issue is that 2014). Since 2013, interest in using sta- it may take some time to reverse the tistics to determine the best methods for common misconceptions that experts are recruiting female editors has increased, male, that contributing to Wikipedia is not least with a view to getting women hard, and that you need to be an expert to continue contributing to Wikipedia. to contribute to Wikipedia. This is part Recruiting people from all-female or of a cultural shift that not only exists on predominantly female groups have also Wikipedia. A further examination of this meant that common discussion topics topic can be found, in Swedish, on and solutions to their problems enter the Wikimedia Sverige’s blog: Wikipedia community. http://wikimediasverige.wordpress.com/ However, this has also meant getting kvinnor-pa-wikipedia/). veteran Wikipedians to question them- selves on how and why they started con- The Redesign Plans tributing to Wikipedia. The answers have been varied, but true altruism and I have in other forums compared gov- an unwillingness to let one of the inter- erning Wikipedia to steering an oil tank- net’s most used sources for information er. Every turn needs to be done in small contain errors, are two of the most steps. One of the most long-standing (if common answers. not well-known) examples is a series of The challenge is far from over. Admit- proposals to re-design Wikipedia. To- tedly somewhat anecdotally, topics that day, most of Wikipedia is white and are generally considered to be more grey, with thin blue lines as dividers interesting for women, still have worse between sections. The present look of articles than comparable subjects for Wikipedia was created around 2003- men.2 Both The Teahouse project and 2004, when there were very few mobile the Education Program have been draw- phone users, and the internet in general ing more interest from females than looked quite different. Since then, only from males, which point to a small but incremental changes have been made. gradual increase in female editors (To be clear, I am not discussing the (Wikimedia 2014b; El-Sharbaty 2013). function here, with WYSIWYG-editing As long as the majority of the most ac- capabilities and so on, but the look and tive Wikipedians are male, the gender- feel of the website.) gap issue is difficult to resolve (Hale There have been some suggestions to 2014). totally redesign Wikipedia. Perhaps the However, there are still no major sur- most serious attempt began as a series of veys to tell whether the numbers are user interface tests circa 2010 (Wiki- changing or not. Even if there were, media 2011a). It was discovered that there may still be problems detecting most test subjects, who had never edited any changes in surveying the Wikipedia Wikipedia before, found the layout con- community. First, the UNU-MERIT fusing and the workflow unintuitive. survey was shown to have been skewed Compared with other websites, such as (Hill & Shaw 2013). Secondly, many Facebook, the design appears antiquated female editors prefer to stay anonymous, and cluttered. A change to attract new in fear of sexual harassments, degrading users seemed inevitable. comments about women, and other re- However, with the consensus model, all large changes need to be discussed percussions (Gardner 2011). The discus- 3 sions on Wikipedia are torn between before implementation. In the case of positive and indifferent, but information the redesigns, the results of the surveys about the gendergap and prominent were largely ignored by the veteran Wikipedians speaking out about it, has Wikipedians, who had already learned to [634] Culture Unbound, Volume 6, 2014 navigate through the maze. Since it was for the large trends and challenges mostly veteran Wikipedians discussing ahead. This is not only a weakness, the issue, it became the consensus to though. The Wikipedians interested in keep the existing design. the gendergap issue and the Wikipedians New designs continue to be discussed. interested in redesigning the website are Wikimedia Foundation's senior designer, often more invested in their respective Brandon Harris, has shown many inter- fields, and have more patience in pro- esting-looking tests and cases (Me- posing and re-proposing the necessary diawiki 2014). The plans are there, and changes. This is especially true as more they would in some cases seriously help interested people from outside Wikipe- newcomers to understand and to be ac- dia engage with the veteran Wikipedi- tive on Wikipedia. While some of them ans. have been implemented, there are some So while Einstein’s quote may be fit- difficulties trying to lead the Wikipedia ting, it is not entirely true. Some solu- community through fiat or even by tions come from within the community, showing a good case. The results are not and some from without (newcomers and always what you would expect. experts), but some come from the meet- Why is this important? Wikipedia still ing of the two. mainly reaches countries in the US and Western Europe. In the rest of the world, Notes mobile users and newcomers are the default. For them, a redesign is a neces- 1 The survey website seems to have been sary step in the on-ramp to editing. Here shut down, but I have endeavoured to link to the consensus of the veterans stands in as much of the results as I could find in the list of references. the way of an easy experience. 2 The changes are happening, as the vet- This is indeed the topic of many media eran Wikipedians become more and reports on the gendergap, including by Digi- tal Trends, The Huffington Post and The more intermixed with newcomers in the New York Times.
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