Su-Laine YeoVancouver User Experience Group

November, 2007

Dynamics of Wikipedia

This presentation is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike 3.0http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

OverviewHow does it all work?

Who writes for Wikipedia, and why?How does the site keep vandalism and spam

away?What happens when contributors disagree? How does the site keep articles consistent

and organized?

AgendaWhat is Wikipedia?Contributing: Part IVandalism and spamConflict and cultureContributing: Part II

Please ask questions along the way!

What is Wikipedia?

VisionA free, neutral encyclopedia that anyone

can edit

“Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge. That's what we're doing.”

– Wikipedia founder Jimbo Wales

The global project253 languages2 million+ articles in English5 million articles in languages other than

English, accounting for half of all trafficFreely -licensed image, video, and sound

files on Wikimedia Commons are used across languages

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/List_of_Wikipedias_by_language_family

Size of the English Wikipedia

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Size_of_English_Wikipedia_in_August_2007.svg

Who’s whoMediaWiki softwareWikimedia FoundationJimmy (Jimbo) Wales, founder,

leader, and benevolent dictator

5.8 million registered accounts for volunteer contributors

Lots of edits by unregistered users

Wikimedia FoundationRuns the servers; hardware costs are 60%

of its budgetNo ads or paid subscribersAnnual revenues $1.5 million (June 2006) Fewer than 10 full-time employeesSister projects to Wikipedia: Wiktionary,

Wikispecies, Wikiversity, Wikinews…

Wikipedia statistics Among top 10 most visited websites70% of traffic is from search enginesCited in over 100 U.S. court rulings

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/29/technology/29wikipedia.html?ex=1327726800&en=92bbe5fe41874778&ei=5090

Key policiesWikipedia is an encyclopedia; its goals go

no furtherFree contentNeutral point of viewAttribution to reliable sources

Most viewed articles

Source: http://tools.wikimedia.de/~leon/stats/wikicharts for Sept 07

Most viewed articles (cont’d)

Most viewed articles (cont’d)

Unusual articlesExploding whaleHeavy metal umlautCosmic latteAnti-Barney humorFive-second rulePassenger train toiletsSociety for the Prevention of Calling

Sleeping Car Porters “George”0.999...

Contributing: Part I

“So fix it.” - A Wikipedia saying

Contributing: OverviewEditing a sentenceWikitext

HeadingsLinksBulleted listsTemplatesSignatures

Accounts and privacy

Get an accountEditing with an account is MORE private

than editing without oneDon’t use your real name

You can change your username laterYou can identify yourself in less permanent

ways

User pages

Wikiscanner

http://wikiscanner.virgil.gr/

Vandals and spammers

Addressing vandalismAutomated vandalism reversion (bots)Recent Changes patrolWatchlists

Semi-protect heavily-vandalised pagesCompletely protect high-visibility pagesWarn vandalsBlock repeat offenders

Recent Changes patrol

Reverting

User contribution history

Vandalism warnings

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:208.67.142.93

Blocks

Administrators~1400 administrators in EnglishBlock and unblock usersSemi-protect pages (lock pages from being

edited by unregistered and new users) Protect pages (lock pages from being

edited)Edit protected pagesDelete and undelete page histories

Addressing spam“No-follow” on external linksSpam blacklistAs with vandalism: revert, warn user, block

persistent offenders

Other obviously-bad editsBlatant advertisingCopyright violationLibelHoaxComplete bullocks

Conflict and Culture“When someone just writes 'f**k, f**k, f**k', we just fix it, laugh and move on. But the difficult social issues are the borderline cases — people who do some good work, but who are also a pain in the neck.”

– Jimbo Wales

ConflictWhen contributors disagree in good faith,

there are procedures for working through disputes.

The Wikipedia community has final say on most things

… The community is: people who have a history of good contributions and who show up for the debate

What not to do

Dispute resolutionAfter being bold:Discuss on the article Talk page and/or the

other person’s Talk pageThird OpinionMediationRequest for CommentArbitrationIntervention by Jimbo

Content policies and guidelinesWhat are reliable sources?What is an acceptable External Link?Is company XYZ notable enough for an

article?Should the article title be “Giraffe” or

“Giraffes”?Is it “program” or “programme”?

Conduct policies and guidelinesBe civilAssume good faithDon’t edit warWrite for the enemyIgnore all rulesDon’t use Wikipedia for self-promotion

Corporate advocacy and self-promotion

Includes adding excessive links to your own company’s website

If in doubt about possible conflict of interest, suggest changes on the article’s Talk page or on one of the noticeboards

Talk pages

Dispute resolution principlesFocus on how to improve the articlesWiden the conflict; ask for third-party

viewpointsDon’t wikilawyerDiscuss rather than vote

See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Deleted_articles_with_freaky_titleshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Pooky_the_Teddy_Bear

Controversy is often goodMotivates people to improve articlesRaises awareness of the need for quality

sourcingLeads to inclusion of multiple viewpoints

and nuances in articlesBuilds community

Problem behaviourPoint-of-view pushing; political and

nationalist block votingEdit warringPersistent corporate advocacyFraudulent use of multiple accounts

(sockpuppetry)

Problem behaviour (cont’d)Problem users can be banned from a topic

or from all of WikipediaBans are difficult to enforceShort supply of neutral people who are

patient enough to deal with problematic behaviour

“The takeaway message I'm getting here is ‘only an admin with a hole in his head willingly gets involved in Israel-Palestine articles.’ ” - a Wikipedia administrator

Biographies of Living Persons rulesConsider privacyNegative material has more rigorous

inclusion requirementsImmediately remove unsourced or poorly

sourced negative or controversial materialAvoid discussion

IA for two million articlesFew information types: encyclopedia

articles, lists, disambiguation pagesNo essays or how-to articlesNo point-of-view forking of articles

Extensive guidelines on:naming conventionsrefactoring long articles, merging similar

articlesuse of categories

IA for two million articles (cont’d)Relatively simple markup

Extensive use of templates

Constant refactoring

Templates

CategoriesThere are guidelines for creating categoriesBe bold in creating categoriesCategories are subject to refactoring

Adding and using categories

Summary: Conflict and culturePolicies and guidelinesCulture is oriented towards trust,

discussion, and generating consensusConflict can build community and often

leads to better articlesMost articles are not controversial. Usually,

good-faith edits stickDecentralized management of information

architecture

Contributing: Part II

“I have found working with a bunch of like minded folks on an article or wikiproject when it kicks into top gear one of the most inspiring things, the rapid-fire editing of an article gunning toward FA status as writer's blocks are sequentially blasted out of the way is just amazing to witness via the diffs/hists.”

–Wikipedia editor “Casliber”

Contribute by…Writing about what you’re interested inImproving the writing of othersCiting sourcesCategorizing and organizing articles Translating articlesContributing photographs and artworkReviewing and commenting on articlesMaintenance: removing vandalism, spam,

and triviaHelping to resolve disputes

"We can no longer feel satisfied and happy when we see these (article) numbers going up.... We should continue to turn our attention away from growth and towards quality.“

- Jimbo Wales

Why contribute?Improve your skills in:WritingEditingHaving your work editedConflict resolution and group dynamicsUnderstanding copyrightWiki technology

SummaryFree encyclopedia written by volunteersBe boldGet an account with a fake name; don’t

promote commercial interestsRevert, warn, and block vandals and

spammersPolicies, guidelines, and dispute resolution

systems exist for controversial issuesDistributed decision-making scales well for

information architecture

The radical projectAlmost no co-ordination of effort2% of users (1400 people) make 73.4% of

edits0.7% of users (524 people) make 50% of

edits

But… people who make very, very few edits write most of Wikipedia’s content

… Your earliest edits will probably be your most valuable ones

http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/whowriteswikipedia

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d4/Be_bold.pnghttp://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d4/Be_bold.png