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Wikipedia for Researchers talk, as given at the British Library. The first part covers Wikipedia as a resource for researchers, looking at how it works, how to judge the reliability of content, and how to use Wikipedia as a starting point to access other resources. The second part looks at how Wikipedia is used by researchers as a subject or a corpus, and gives an overview of the kinds of research being done on Wikipedia.
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About Wikipedia & Wikimedia
Wikimedia Movement and charitable body 80,000 contributors in 280 languages and
eleven core projects Image repository, dictionary, news site… …read by 7% of the world!
Wikipedia 19,000,000 articles, 4,000,000 in English 6,500 articles and 235,000 edits per day
(…and ten years ago, this was all fields…)
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…so what is Wikipedia?
…an encyclopedia
…written neutrally and verifiably
…using previously published information
…free to use, distribute, or reuse
…a collaborative community
…with no firm rules
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Internal processes
All edits are visible through watchlists and page histories About 7% are vandalism or malicious; processes to detect
these Median time to correction < 2 minutes… but some stay much
longer
Individual discussion pages for all articles – “talk”
Quality review and assessment process
Specialised “wikiproject” working groups and central noticeboards eg/ content topics; style; dispute resolution; copyright; etc.
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Quality of Wikipedia
On average… it’s not bad In 2005 four errors per article, versus three in Britannica In 2011, in English, Spanish & Arabic:
“…the Wikipedia articles in this sample scored higher overall than the comparison articles with respect to accuracy, references, style/ readability and overall judgment…”
Millions of articles – so many are, individually, problematic Various ways of identifying “signs” of quality Markers for quality are both obvious and subtle
Very effective “springboard” tool
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Looking for quality
Corner icons - article locked down in some way - featured or “good” quality
Problem tags
Article talk pages and histories
Style Badly written or formatted articles = often neglected
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Accessing other content
Structured categories and navigational templates
“What links here”
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Moving on to other content
Other languages – not translations, and may have more content
Mousing over footnote markers
Within the references: Links through DOIs and other identifiers ISBNs go to a special landing page
…and then out to libraries, booksellers, etc ISSNs go to WorldCat If an author, look for authority control links:
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Preferences
Available to logged in users
Two particularly useful options: New window for external links (Gadgets > Browsing)
Quality assessment in headers (Gadgets > Appearance)
Many others - mostly editor-oriented tools
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Looking for sets of material
Some tools available – http://www.toolserver.org Complex to use, but rewarding
CatScan: look for intersection of categories “all physicists born in 1912” – 51 in English, 34 in German
Full dumps of all data available – http://dumps.wikipedia.org
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Research about Wikipedia
Thriving research around Wikipedia community & content by mid-2011, 2100 peer-reviewed articles and 38 PhD theses Active research committee and WMF support
Regular report - http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Newsletter also @wikiresearch
Major themes include: Community and content creation Reading and researching by users Quality of content Technical research
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Research on communities
Research on the Wikipedia communities:
Dynamics of community conflict, discussions, collaboration, voting, contribution, mentoring…
Demographics, motivation and specialisms of contributors Patterns of growth and content creation/deletion Effect of central programs on volunteer activity Cross-cultural interaction
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Research on users
Research on usage of Wikipedia:
Specific searching behaviour Patterns of usage (yearly, daily) Tracking external events (eg swine flu) through Wikipedia Search engine rankings Change in usage by students Effect of Wikipedia publication on wider literature
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Research on content
Research on the content of Wikipedia:
Evolution of content Accuracy, coverage and quality Biases – geographic, cultural, gender Linguistic analysis Visualisations of content Effect of external publications on Wikipedia
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Research on technical aspects
Research on the technical side of Wikipedia:
Extensive work on scaling open-content services Tools for detecting and handling vandalism Algorithmic detection and identification of bias, spam Practical research on uses of wikis
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Research example – visualising art history
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikiarthistory.png
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Research example – visualising editing patterns
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:WikiTrip_egyptian_revolution_screenshot.png
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Research example – editor activity
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Effect_of_barnstars_on_productivity.png
