Wikipedia:WikiProject Wikidemia

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WP:WD redirects here. For the essay about drama on Wikipedia, see Wikipedia:WikiDrama.

This project, Wikidemia, provides a space for articles related to academic research about Wikipedia. Related pages include the Statistics Department, m:Research, and m:Statistics. This page and project are still very preliminary and will benefit from your contributions and insight. If you would like to help, please sign the Participants list below and introduce yourself on the talk page. The to-do list here is just a start...

Contents

[edit] Title

WikiProject on Wikidemia

[edit] Scope

This WikiProject aims primarily to design, implement, and discuss academic research about Wikipedia. We seek to better understand what promotes or circumscribes Wikipedia's success and why. We also seek to explore and rigorously evaluate new strategies for improving Wikipedia.

[edit] Members

Please add your name here!

[edit] Wikipedia Studies

[edit] Completed Studies

[edit] Data

[edit] Ongoing Studies

for Proposed Studies, see the Research Questions lists below; all content at /Studies has been incorporated into specific study pages.

Issues : How to identify classes of cases/user; what variations to impose (and how to implement them); then how to choose randomly among them to implement variation[s]; finally what data to collect [both primary and secondary metrics].

[edit] Research Questions

[edit] Promoting Contribution

  • Who contributes to Wikipedia? (demographics/ education / other volunteerism and community involvement)
  • How does feedback to contributors affect subsequent propensities to contribute?
  • What interventions can increase the quantity and quality of Wikipedia articles?
  • What makes contributors mad?
  • What makes contributors happy?
  • What is the effect of contributors' emotional reactions on their contributions?
  • What role do watchlists play in encouraging contributions and edit wars?
  • What is the effect of placing an article on the Main Page as a featured article on readership and contributions?
  • What steps are needed to secure accreditation on articles? Should there be any?

[edit] Promoting Readership/Consumption

[edit] Curtailing Mischief

  • How can disputes (eg, edit wars) be resolved more efficiently?
  • How can vandalism be decreased or fixed more quickly?

[edit] Networking

  • How (much) are the pages linked together? (Paths, Meshing)
  • Which pages are visited together? How close are they in matter of content?
  • How important is #wikipedia to the administration of Wikipedia?
  • ...

[edit] Coherence and consistency

  • How to promote coherence and consistency of Wikipedia guidelines, without hampering the freedom associated with Wikipedia's methods? discuss
  • Can WikiProjects be coordinated with Portals and Categories in a comprehensive way from a more logical focus to help align Wikipedia - The Community with Wikipedia the encyclopedia? discuss
  • ...

[edit] Collaboration

[edit] Methodology

  • Many different methodologies would be possible and useful.
  • Some questions can be examined by direct analysis of existing field data.
  • Running randomized evaluations will facilitate drawing causal inferences about results. A standard way to pre-test possible large-scale innovations in a neutral way is to identify a class of visitors, editors, or pages; select a randomized subset of that class; and introduce a variation to the randomized subset. Then metrics can be evaluated for both the subset and the entire class, and inferences drawn about what effects the variation had. Stratification can increase the statistical power of the evaluation.
  • A user survey to which one could add important questions, would help inform background assumptions. Users who do not choose to be wholly anonymous in responding to such a survey could even partake in specialized control groups for some studies.
  • Pilot studies - running small, short initial studies to provide an example of how to run and evaluate a study; and to iron out implementation details specific to Wikipedia and its community.

[edit] Caveats?

  • Privacy
  • Consent to participate
  • Interventions may have unpredictable results
  • Randomization may be difficult to sustain

[edit] General strategy and context

Research on Wikipedia links naturally to topics currently under study in economics, psychology, and sociology. Specifically, focus is needed on:

Economists study markets in ideas; volunteerism; bargaining; and information. Psychologists study motivation; conflict resolution;.... Sociologists study networks of ideas and people; the culture of organizations; norms of behavior;....

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