Hi all,

The next Research Showcase will be live-streamed next Wednesday, January 19, at 9:30 AM PST/17:30 UTC. The theme is: Beyond English Wikipedia.

YouTube stream: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRaCa-v8nfQ

As usual, you can join the conversation on IRC at #wikimedia-research. You can also watch our past research showcases here: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Research/Showcase

The Showcase will feature the following talks:

Comparing Language Communities - Characterizing Collaboration in the English, French and Spanish Language Editions of Wikipedia

By Taryn Bipat (Microsoft, formerly University of Washington)

Is Wikipedia a standardized platform with a common model of collaboration or is it a set of 312 active language editions with distinct collaborative models? In the last 20 years, researchers have extensively analyzed the complexities of group work that enable the creation of quality articles in the English Wikipedia, but most of our intellectual assumptions about collaborative practices on Wikipedia remain solely based on an Anglocentric perspective. This research extends the current Anglocentric body of literature in human-computer interaction (HCI) and computer-supported cooperative work (CSCW) through three studies that mutually help build an understanding of collaboration models in the English (EN), French (FR), and Spanish (ES) editions of Wikipedia. In the first study, I replicated a model by Viégas et al. (2007) based on editors' behaviors in the English Wikipedia. This model was used as a lens to examine collaborative activity in EN, FR, and ES. In the second study, I leveraged a collaboration model by Kriplean et al. (2007) that suggested editors used “power plays” – how groups of editors claim control over article content through the discourse of Wikipedia policy – in their talk page debates to justify their edits made on articles. In the third study, I interviewed editors from each language edition to build a typology of collaborative behavior and further understand the editor's perceptions of power and authority on Wikipedia.

Understanding Wikipedia Practices Through Hindi, Urdu, and English Takes on an Evolving Regional Conflict

By Jacob Thebault-Spieker (Information School, University of Wisconsin – Madison)

Wikipedia is the product of thousands of editors working collaboratively to provide free and up-to-date encyclopedic information to the project’s users. This article asks to what degree Wikipedia articles in three languages — Hindi, Urdu, and English — achieve Wikipedia’s mission of making neutrally-presented, reliable information on a polarizing, controversial topic available to people around the globe. We chose the topic of the recent revocation of Article 370 of the Constitution of India, which, along with other recent events in and concerning the region of Jammu and Kashmir, has drawn attention to related articles on Wikipedia. This work focuses on the English Wikipedia, being the preeminent language edition of the project, as well as the Hindi and Urdu editions. Hindi and Urdu are the two standardized varieties of Hindustani, a lingua franca of Jammu and Kashmir. We analyzed page view and revision data for three Wikipedia articles to gauge popularity of the pages in our corpus, and responsiveness of editors to breaking news events and problematic edits. Additionally, we interviewed editors from all three language editions to learn about differences in editing processes and motivations, and we compared the text of the articles across languages as they appeared shortly after the revocation of Article 370. Across languages, we saw discrepancies in article tone, organization, and the information presented, as well as differences in how editors collaborate and communicate with one another. Nevertheless, in Hindi and Urdu, as well as English, editors predominantly try to adhere to the principle of neutral point of view (NPOV), and for the most part, the editors quash attempts by other editors to push political agendas.