Wikimania presentation on the "Understanding Sources" project

Managing sources during high volume news eventshford@ushahidi.com@hfordsahttp://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Understanding_sources

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Aude/Egypt

Research questions

How are Wikipedians managing social media sources?

What verification challenges were they facing?

How can help editors manage sources better during high volume news events?

Source

Variable 1Variable 2Variable 3vote

Ranking

1. Defining concepts

Sources play 2 important roles

• Verify facts

• Verify importance

• Directly represented (sometimes)

• Summaries require interpretation (and in rapidly evolving news events that interpretation often hasn’t arrived)

xkcd

sources‘on the books’

1. Use only reliable sources2. Use predominantly secondary sources 3. Ensure verifiability

source=

Social media sources are allowed!

- Policy doesn’t specify media but warns to be careful - WP:Twitter sources can be used as sources on themselves- Self-published expert sources may be considered reliable sources

Primary sources are allowed!

- and in fact, are the only sources available near an event- but policy states that the majority of sources should be secondary

2011 Egyptian revolution article

http://sonetlab.fbk.eu/wikitrip/#|en|2011_Egyptian_Revolution

How did editors verify?

• Avoiding single sources

• “Wait and see”

• Reading/watching the source to see whether it has been accurately reflected

• Counting

Suez Jan 26/27Reports of Army involvements are refuted on Twitter, sometimes quite strongly; all reliable tweets seem to mention paramilitary riot police only (using Fahd (armored personnel carrier) which the Army also uses, hence the apparent confusion).

Suez city center apparently cordoned off, curfew in effect, internet and phone (mobile and landlines) capped or intermittent at best, possibly blackout. Watercannons, dozens injured. Best source so far: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yIfGGo6G-4Q (Arabic) possibly useful (mainstream media blog) http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/blog/2011/jan/26/egypt-protests —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.196.206.14 (talk) 01:29, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Source

Variable 1Variable 2Variable 3vote

Ranking independent variable 1

independent variable 2

context

Indep. variables

Are the majority of sources secondary? What is the article about? How recent is the event being discussed?

hford@ushahidi.com@hfordsahttp://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Understanding_sources