Wikipedia:WikiProject Wikidemia

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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, and to archive research attempted by Wikipedians into related topics.

[edit] Descendant WikiProjects

[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? stressed?
  • 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

Main article: Wikipedia:WikiProject Vandalism studies
  • How can disputes (eg, edit wars) be resolved more efficiently?
  • How can vandalism be decreased or fixed more quickly?
  • What categories does vandalism fall into, and how much of total vandalism does each category (e.g. advertising) represent?
  • How long does vandalism typically remain visible before it is removed - statistical analysis needed. See for example Wikipedia talk:Don't protect Main Page featured articles/December Main Page FA analysis
  • How effective are bots in helping deal with mischief? What strategies can we use to further their effectiveness?
  • Who typically reverts vandalism? (figures for admins, regular editors, IP editors, bots)
  • What effects does semi-protection have on levels of contribution and vandalism? Several articles should be studied before protection, during and after.
    • What level of vandalism is acceptable; at what point is protection warranted?

[edit] Article quality

  • How can our best articles be kept in pristine condition?
    • What policies and initiatives can we enact to prevent article deteriation
    • A case study of 'edit creep' is needed
  • What is the average quality of our articles?
  • Is the average quality improving? Does a typical article improve over it's lifespan? How quickly? What trends do we see?
  • How can our article assessment system be improved?
  • What percentage of articles cite no references at all?

[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] Anecdotal success stories

Where has Wikipedia excelled at providing accurate information? or at drawing in new volunteers? Share your stories here! (See also WP:WPOR and http://www.aboutus.org/Wiki_success_stories )

  • Barlow Road: During a WikiProject Oregon Collaboration of the Week, Wikipedia editors noted that several historic sources said that Sam Barlow's party went over Lolo Pass during their 1845 trip across the Cascades. This claim does not jive with the geography of the region and other details of the trip. From a careful reading of Palmer's journals, editors discovered where the misunderstanding originated, and wrote up a more accurate account of the journey.
  • Mary Ramsey Wood: This Oregon pioneer is reputed to have lived to 120 years of age, in many supposedly authoritative sources. Partially on this basis, she was named the "Queen Mother of Oregon" by the Oregon Legislature. Wikipedia editors searched the census records of 1880 and 1890, and determined that she was in fact no older than 97 when she died.
  • List of Oregon ballot measures: The Oregon Secretary of State maintains historic information about ballot measures, but it is not as useful as it could be; the complete list contains no hyperlinks to detailed information about the measures, or other relevant information. Wikipedia has a better version. (Note: this is a work in progress, and is not yet very complete before 1989.)
  • William Pope McArthur: One editor created an article on a historical figure, William Pope McArthur. Within a few hours a "domino effect" of collaboration among several editors from different states led to the creation and expansion of several articles. See User talk:Katr67.

[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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