Hi All,
I'm a Master student working under the supervision of Drs. Arazy and Minkov (Haifa U) My research explores the extent to which "recognized domain experts" contribute to Wikipedia. (I use a narrow definition for "recognized domain experts" to include those with academic qualifications in the relevant topic). I manually tracked these experts using a variety of sources, and then use machine learning methods for automatically identifying domain experts within Wikipedia editors.
I'm writing to explore whether this research is on interest to the community and to learn if other people have already tackled this research question.
Thank you in advance for pointing me to relevant research projects Alex
Hi Alex,
On Fri, Jul 7, 2017 at 8:20 AM, Alex Yarovoy yarovoy.alex@gmail.com wrote:
Hi All,
I'm a Master student working under the supervision of Drs. Arazy and Minkov (Haifa U)
This is great. :) Thanks in advance for the time and effort you will put to help us improve (our understanding of) Wikimedia projects.
My research explores the extent to which "recognized domain experts" contribute to Wikipedia. (I use a narrow definition for "recognized domain experts" to include those with academic qualifications in the relevant topic). I manually tracked these experts using a variety of sources, and then use machine learning methods for automatically identifying domain experts within Wikipedia editors.
I'm not sure if this part of your research is done, if it's not, section 2.3.1. of https://arxiv.org/pdf/1604.03235.pdf can be of interest to you as a starting point for building topical models based on past contributions.
I'm writing to explore whether this research is on interest to the community and to learn if other people have already tackled this research question.
I'm not speaking on behalf of the community but providing my personal view which should be counted as one view: :)
We don't have a good understanding of why experts (the way you define the term) do or do not contribute to Wikipedia (or other Wikimedia projects). Understanding the incentive mechanisms (and I emphasize on mechanisms) that can encourage these people to contribute is very valuable. Understanding the blockers for their contributions (which can be related to the incentive problem, but not necessarily), is also very valuable. We also don't understand how such incentives change across Wikipedia languages or Wikimedia projects, if at all (For example, does a professional photographer who uploads photos to Wikimedia Commons do this with the same incentive as a doctor adding content about an epidemic on Hindi Wikipedia or a university professor who is improving articles on convex optimization in Hebrew?)
What I'd like to recommend is that you keep the practical component of the research you will be doing in this space in mind. A good rule of thumb is: if I answer question x, how will it help Wikimedians recruit for or encourage such experts to join Wikimedia? This is a high bar to meet, especially in a master thesis, but it's a good bar to keep in mind as you think about research questions. :)
Good luck with your research! :)
Best, Leila
p.s. btw, do make sure you share the result of your research as you develop it with the research community. We have, for example, Wiki Workshop which happens at least once a year and we'd love to hear more about your research there. (last year's page: http://wikiworkshop.org/2017/ ) We had Ofer as an invited speaker to the workshop a couple of years ago. :)
-- Leila Zia Senior Research Scientist Wikimedia Foundation
Thank you in advance for pointing me to relevant research projects Alex _______________________________________________ Wiki-research-l mailing list Wiki-research-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l
Hi Alex,
I believe that this is a subject of interest to the community. It would indeed be helpful to know the percentage of people with graduate-level academic qualifications who regularly make contributions on English Wikipedia and other language editions of Wikipedia.
I'd suggest thinking about the following:
1. In general, academics don't receive benefits to their C.V. from contributing to Wikipedia. My guess is that this is a major reason why relatively few academics contribute to Wikipedia on a regular basis. It might be interesting if you can produce data that confirms a hypothesis like this.
2. I would encourage changing the term that you use from "recognized domain experts" to "people with graduate-level academic qualifications". In the U.S., in many domains, there are multiple ways for people to gain reputations of being experts in domain; an academic qualification is often not required, although it may be helpful.
Pine
On Fri, Jul 7, 2017 at 8:20 AM, Alex Yarovoy yarovoy.alex@gmail.com wrote:
Hi All,
I'm a Master student working under the supervision of Drs. Arazy and Minkov (Haifa U) My research explores the extent to which "recognized domain experts" contribute to Wikipedia. (I use a narrow definition for "recognized domain experts" to include those with academic qualifications in the relevant topic). I manually tracked these experts using a variety of sources, and then use machine learning methods for automatically identifying domain experts within Wikipedia editors.
I'm writing to explore whether this research is on interest to the community and to learn if other people have already tackled this research question.
Thank you in advance for pointing me to relevant research projects Alex _______________________________________________ Wiki-research-l mailing list Wiki-research-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l
It is worth remembering that via the orcid identifier in the authority control template, the is now a standard linked-data mechanism for researchers to identify themselves. I have no idea whether anyone is looking at that though.
Cheers Stuart
On Saturday, July 8, 2017, Pine W wiki.pine@gmail.com wrote:
Hi Alex,
I believe that this is a subject of interest to the community. It would indeed be helpful to know the percentage of people with graduate-level academic qualifications who regularly make contributions on English Wikipedia and other language editions of Wikipedia.
I'd suggest thinking about the following:
- In general, academics don't receive benefits to their C.V. from
contributing to Wikipedia. My guess is that this is a major reason why relatively few academics contribute to Wikipedia on a regular basis. It might be interesting if you can produce data that confirms a hypothesis like this.
- I would encourage changing the term that you use from "recognized domain
experts" to "people with graduate-level academic qualifications". In the U.S., in many domains, there are multiple ways for people to gain reputations of being experts in domain; an academic qualification is often not required, although it may be helpful.
Pine
On Fri, Jul 7, 2017 at 8:20 AM, Alex Yarovoy <yarovoy.alex@gmail.com javascript:;> wrote:
Hi All,
I'm a Master student working under the supervision of Drs. Arazy and
Minkov
(Haifa U) My research explores the extent to which "recognized domain experts" contribute to Wikipedia. (I use a narrow definition for "recognized domain experts" to include
those
with academic qualifications in the relevant topic). I manually tracked these experts using a variety of sources, and then use machine learning methods for automatically identifying domain experts within Wikipedia editors.
I'm writing to explore whether this research is on interest to the community and to learn if other people have already tackled this research question.
Thank you in advance for pointing me to relevant research projects Alex _______________________________________________ Wiki-research-l mailing list Wiki-research-l@lists.wikimedia.org javascript:; https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l
Wiki-research-l mailing list Wiki-research-l@lists.wikimedia.org javascript:; https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l
Stuart reminds me of a point that I forgot to mention. While I believe that directly contributing to Wikipedia is rarely beneficial for academics' CVs, having one's work cited on Wikipedia might be viewed positively. Perhaps one way that academics might be incentivized to contribute more to Wikipedia is by encouraging them to post references to their works on talk pages when the academics think that their work could be beneficial to articles.
Pine
On Sat, Jul 8, 2017 at 4:14 AM, Stuart A. Yeates syeates@gmail.com wrote:
It is worth remembering that via the orcid identifier in the authority control template, the is now a standard linked-data mechanism for researchers to identify themselves. I have no idea whether anyone is looking at that though.
Cheers Stuart
On Saturday, July 8, 2017, Pine W wiki.pine@gmail.com wrote:
Hi Alex,
I believe that this is a subject of interest to the community. It would indeed be helpful to know the percentage of people with graduate-level academic qualifications who regularly make contributions on English Wikipedia and other language editions of Wikipedia.
I'd suggest thinking about the following:
- In general, academics don't receive benefits to their C.V. from
contributing to Wikipedia. My guess is that this is a major reason why relatively few academics contribute to Wikipedia on a regular basis. It might be interesting if you can produce data that confirms a hypothesis like this.
- I would encourage changing the term that you use from "recognized
domain
experts" to "people with graduate-level academic qualifications". In the U.S., in many domains, there are multiple ways for people to gain reputations of being experts in domain; an academic qualification is
often
not required, although it may be helpful.
Pine
On Fri, Jul 7, 2017 at 8:20 AM, Alex Yarovoy <yarovoy.alex@gmail.com javascript:;> wrote:
Hi All,
I'm a Master student working under the supervision of Drs. Arazy and
Minkov
(Haifa U) My research explores the extent to which "recognized domain experts" contribute to Wikipedia. (I use a narrow definition for "recognized domain experts" to include
those
with academic qualifications in the relevant topic). I manually tracked these experts using a variety of sources, and then
use
machine learning methods for automatically identifying domain experts within Wikipedia editors.
I'm writing to explore whether this research is on interest to the community and to learn if other people have already tackled this
research
question.
Thank you in advance for pointing me to relevant research projects Alex _______________________________________________ Wiki-research-l mailing list Wiki-research-l@lists.wikimedia.org javascript:; https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l
Wiki-research-l mailing list Wiki-research-l@lists.wikimedia.org javascript:; https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l
--
...let us be heard from red core to black sky _______________________________________________ Wiki-research-l mailing list Wiki-research-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l
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