Research:Understanding sources
 |
This project page documents a research project currently in progress. Information may be incomplete and can change rapidly as science advances. |
| Understanding how editors track and verify sources on Wikipedia | |
|---|---|
| main contact | |
| WMF contact | Dario Taraborelli |
| start | 2011-09 |
| end | 2012-08 |
| status | in progress  |
| field | social computing |
| WMF support | |
 Wikimedia research projects |
|
Contents |
[edit] Key Personnel
- Heather Ford
hford
ushahidi.org
[edit] Project Summary
This project aims to analyze the current systems that editors use to track and verify news sources on rapidly evolving pages of .en Wikipedia. How did editors verify news sources in scenarios like the Japan earthquake and the Egyptian revolution or around cultural phenomena like the Kenyan Makmende story where notability and verifiability is often situated outside the frame of reference of most established editors? What techniques do editors use to track issues around pages that they edit? What role does social media play in this process?
[edit] Recruitment Details
We are looking to recruit editors who edit more than one language version of the encyclopedia. We will use a snowball sampling and "fieldsite as network" (Burrell) approach.
[edit] Benefits for Wikipedia
In the second phase of the project we will apply the learnings from the research phase to SwiftRiver Ushahidi's Sweeper and RiverID tools for experimental use in Wikipedia. The research will be helpful in developing algorithms that users can apply to stream specific types of content according to different levels of authority, accuracy and trustworthiness over time.
The platform, launched by Ushahidi as a way to manage large quantities of data during a crisis, holds promise for assisting Wikipedia editors in doing their work in a more holistic, authoritative and reflective way. This could be done by making transparent the process by which editors choose one source over another, and by tracing social media sources before an event/phenomenon hits mainstream news.
[edit] Sharing our Findings
We will be publishing our findings here and in selected publications and events/conferences.
[edit] Related projects
- InCite project https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Fellowships/Project_Ideas/InCite
- Oral Citations Project https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Oral_Citations
- Wiki Scholar https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiScholar
- Federated Wiki http://wardcunningham.github.com/
[edit] Time Line
2011 July
- Input from stakeholders regarding methodology, goals - done
- Develop interview guide - done
August
- Test interview instrument - done
- Conduct interviews at Wikimania - done
September
- Official launch - done
October, November, December
- Interviews - done
- Literature review - done
2012 January, February, March
- Write up and review research
April
- Launch research at (streamed on Webex) seminar on 3 April at 12 noon at the WMF
- Work with developers on tool dev
May, June, July
- User testing
August
- Final report
[edit] Wikipedia Policies, Ethics, and Human Subjects Protection
Our foremost concern is to conduct our research project in an ethical, respectful, and non-disruptive manner. For this reason, we will ensure that we conform to strict standards of informed consent and openness of data collection methods. In particular, we will inform respondents about our affiliation, purpose, and research goals and describe and address any risks associated with participation in this study.
[edit] Contact Us
We welcome your feedback. Please contribute to our Discussion page or feel free to contact us directly via email at Heather Ford @ Ushahidi / SwiftRiver.
[edit] Project updates
January 2012 --Hfordsa 00:49, 27 January 2012 (UTC)
I have finished the first set of interviews (about 20) + content analysis, and busy writing up for 2 April launch deadline.
Notes on findings:
1. Editors may find their information from local sources but cite traditional sources because they fear questioning of the reliability of those sources.
2. Editors are unclear about the Reliable Sources policy regarding web/social media sources with the result that some sources are being deleted because of their platform (e.g. YouTube) despite their contextual applicability.
3. Discussions and consensus reached on a question related to a source on one page is unlikely to be discovered by other editors working elsewhere.
4. Source use is contextual so its usage/context is critical to whether it is accepted or not.
Two research trajectories:
Source diversity
I’m exploring the following hypotheses with the help of collaborators including Shilad Sen and David Musicant, computer scientists who have done work on Wikipedia sources from GroupLens at the University of Minnesota:
- There is a long tail of source use in .en Wikipedia with the majority of sources coming from few countries.
- “Self-published” sources are being used/on the rise despite policy recommending against this.
- Different sources have different degrees of stickiness according to variables such as topic, scarcity, location (of source and of WP editor majority), contentiousness and editor diversity (numbers of editors, editors from different countries).
Role of social media
- Twitter/FB: Calling friends/followers to come to Wikipedia to:
- read
- help stop a delete
- add voice to an argument
- Sometimes posts themselves are newsworthy e.g. tweets as first reports of the Osama bin Laden raid
- Sometimes social media is the only place to find information about a particular subject or the place where the conversation is happening (i.e. as a signal of its notability) e.g. Makmende, online culture etc.
Next steps
The next steps are to get in touch with others doing work on citations and propose to work on the social media/web citation structuring (fields, variables) and discussion piece, and to put developers from WP and Ushahidi in touch about testing the new SwiftRiver.
