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Trusting wikipedia

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Trusting Wikipedia Su-Laine Yeo Brodsky December 2014
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Page 1: Trusting wikipedia

Trusting WikipediaSu-Laine Yeo Brodsky

December 2014

Page 2: Trusting wikipedia

Today’s Talk

• How does

Wikipedia vet its

own content?

• Questions are

welcome

anytime, or at the

end

Image:Robert Lawton, distributed under a CC BY-SA 2.5 license

Page 3: Trusting wikipedia

The Encyclopedia Anyone

Can Edit

• Hosted by the non-profit

Wikimedia Foundation,

in 250+ languages

• Almost anyone is

encouraged to edit

almost all text and

media on the site

• ~10% of edits are

reverted (rejected)

Image: xkcd.com, distributed under a CC BY-NC 2.5 license

Page 4: Trusting wikipedia

What Happens When You

Edit This Page?

Page 5: Trusting wikipedia

Right Away

Page 6: Trusting wikipedia

Exceptions: Edits You Can’t

Save

• URLs on Wikipedia’s spam blacklist

• Use of certain images, except in particular articles

• Certain types of blatant vandalism

Page 7: Trusting wikipedia

Page History

Page 8: Trusting wikipedia
Page 9: Trusting wikipedia

User Contributions Page

Accounts used only

for vandalism are

easy to spot

Page 10: Trusting wikipedia

Summary: Wiki Mechanics

• All edits are tracked, and

summarized in the article

History page

• All edits can be tracked to an

IP address or username

• Edits can be quickly

reverted by another editor

Page 11: Trusting wikipedia

People and Processes

Page 12: Trusting wikipedia

Roles at Wikipedia

• Editor: Anyone who writes or changes articles, or

uploads images

• Administrator: 1,386 elected administrators have

additional tools:

• Can delete/undelete articles or past versions of

articles

• Can block editors or other administrators

• Can “protect” an article to prevent editing

Page 13: Trusting wikipedia

Reality: For the most part,

everybody has equal privileges

when it comes to controlling article

content

Assumption: Moderators decide

what changes to an article will be

accepted

Page 14: Trusting wikipedia

How Wikipedia Monitors

Edits: A 2-Stage Process

Page 15: Trusting wikipedia

Stage 1: Recent Changes

Page

30 seconds worth

of edits to all

English Wikipedia

articles

Page 16: Trusting wikipedia

Link to “diff”

showing what text

was changed in this

edit

Link to list of editor’s

other edits

Heading of the article

section that was

changed

Editor’s

explanation for

the edit

Red indicates

editor is new

Page 17: Trusting wikipedia

Recent Changes Patrol

• Volunteer patrollers and

robots monitor all

changes to the site

• Quickly revert blatantly

inappropriate changes

Page 18: Trusting wikipedia

Stage 2: Watchlists

Changes to articles

I’ve chosen to

watch, grouped by

date

Page 19: Trusting wikipedia

Watchlists

• Each user has a watchlist of

articles they are interested in

• The Watchlist page shows

recent changes in those

articles

• Primary tool for fact-

checking

Page 20: Trusting wikipedia

Will an Edit Stick?

• Usually decided by the editors who watch the

page

• If no consensus, the editors who watch the page

ask the wider Wikipedia community for input and

mediation

Page 21: Trusting wikipedia

Reality: Wikipedia articles summarize

what reliable published sources say

on the subject…

…as determined by the consensus of

editors who show up

Assumption: Wikipedia articles

summarize what a majority of its

editors on the subject believe

Page 22: Trusting wikipedia

How Editors Scrutinize

Changes

Consider:

• My own knowledge

• Sources cited?

• Who is the editor?

• What does the source say?

Userpage of a Wikipedia

editor

Image: Userpage of Kim Dent-Brown on Wikipedia

• Improve instead of reverting

Page 23: Trusting wikipedia

Dispute Resolution

• Discuss the issue on

the article Talk Page

• Ask the wider

community for input

• Problematic editors

can be blocked by

administrators

Page 24: Trusting wikipedia

What Can Go Wrong?• Patrollers/watchlisters

not paying attention

• Watchlisters lacking the

necessary expertise

• Persistent, highly

motivated agenda-

pushers

Page 25: Trusting wikipedia

Perspective: Core Facts

In an article with a reasonable number of watchers, the core

facts of the article tend to be reliably monitored.

“West Bengal

is a state in

the eastern

region of

India.”

(no source given)

Page 26: Trusting wikipedia

Wikipedians: Question 1Wikipedia currently has 31,000 active, registered

editors. According to surveys of Wikipedia editors,

what percentage are male?

A. 85%

B. 60%

C. 45%

Page 27: Trusting wikipedia

Wikipedians: Question 2Which of the following statements is false?

A. According to editor surveys, more than 10% of

Wikipedia editors are under 18 years old

B. Anyone can track down the IP address that

each edit comes from

C. According to editor surveys, about half of

Wikipedia editors have some post-secondary

education

Page 28: Trusting wikipedia

Systemic Bias• Demographic bias:

• Technical

• Male

• Childless

• First world

• Recentism: Recent

news coverage &

online sources

Page 29: Trusting wikipedia

Summary: People and

Processes

• All editors are equal, in

theory

• Articles should draw only

from reliable published

sources

• 2-stage review process

means that subtle problems

last longer than obvious

ones

Image: Adam Novak, distributed under a CC BY-SA 3.0 license

Wikimania Conference 2013

Page 30: Trusting wikipedia

Summary (cont’d)

• In an article with a

reasonable number of

watchers, the core facts

tend to be relatively

reliable

• Wikipedia has systemic

biases stemming from

community demographics

Page 31: Trusting wikipedia

Trends in Trust

Image: Mariuszjbie, distributed under a CC BY-SA 3.0 license

Page 32: Trusting wikipedia

How Many Watchers?

Article# of

Watchers

Barack Obama 2,592

Angela Merkel 225

Influenza 228

Cephalexin 46

Many articles on living people <5

Page 33: Trusting wikipedia

Four Trends

1. More complaints from the subjects of Wikipedia

articles, even articles with very low readership

2. Higher expectation to cite sources when adding

new content

3. More complete content -> Ratio of good to bad

edits changes

4. More sophisticated PR from organizations

Page 34: Trusting wikipedia

Problematic Edits in Medical

Articles

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Conflicts_of_interest_%28medicine%29

Page 35: Trusting wikipedia

Looking Out for Bias• Would any personal,

corporate, or ideological

interest benefit from a

certain article slant?

• Does the article Talk page

and/or history show any

concerns with conflict-of-

interest editing or disputes

over neutrality?

Buy!

Page 36: Trusting wikipedia

• Libel

• Hoax

• Advertising

• Pseudoscience

• Propaganda

Don’t bite the

newbies

Reject questionable

edits

Many edits by new

editors are imperfect

and do not cite

sources

Page 37: Trusting wikipedia
Page 38: Trusting wikipedia

A Reversible Trend?

• Community needs to

grow to:

• Maintain quality and

update facts

• Reduce systemic bias

• Requires Wikipedia

community to be skilled

in both skepticism and

openness

Page 39: Trusting wikipedia

Enjoy Wikipedia

• Reliability is variable

• Project reflects huge

volunteer effort

• Future depends on a

strong editor

community

Image: Takeaway, distributed under a CC BY-SA 3.0 license

Page 40: Trusting wikipedia

Thank You!Any questions?

Su-Laine Yeo Brodsky

[email protected]

www.interelement.ca

@sulaineyeo


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