Hi all,
For a while now I've been thinking about different ways to define and measure the Wikimedia movement's impact. This started for me with various conversations about different iterations of the WMF's Global Metrics and different rounds of FDC bids, but it turns out to be wider than that.
This is a big and thorny topic and one where we seem to have come up with a lot of implicit answers without spending much time thinking about in any detail, so I've written up my thoughts as a meta-essay here:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:The_Land/Thinking_about_the_impact_of_t...
I'd be really interested to hear other peoples' views!
Chris
(User:The Land)
Chris,
This paper suggests that Wikipedia has become more influential than a large proportion of the peer reviewed literature:
http://www.cs.indiana.edu/~xshuai/papers/jcdl240-shuai.pdf
On a related note, I tried to reply off-list to the Foundation official who recently claimed that my assertion that systemic bias in the English Wikipedia's economics articles has deleterious real-world implications was, "framed with a leading question," and "filled with a good deal of speculation," by asking what she thought of the evidence I presented on how the "Fair Tax" article and the other Mises-influenced walled garden articles had been successfully gamed into appearing first in the automatically generated set of "related articles" on articles with an opposite economic perspective, such as "Making Work Pay tax credit," but there was no reply.
Do you think this topic is something that the Foundation should study? I've asked the Chair of the Board of Trustees to do so, but there hasn't been a reply to that either.
Best regards, Jim
On Wed, Feb 22, 2017 at 2:57 PM Chris Keating chriskeatingwiki@gmail.com wrote:
Hi all,
For a while now I've been thinking about different ways to define and measure the Wikimedia movement's impact. This started for me with various conversations about different iterations of the WMF's Global Metrics and different rounds of FDC bids, but it turns out to be wider than that.
This is a big and thorny topic and one where we seem to have come up with a lot of implicit answers without spending much time thinking about in any detail, so I've written up my thoughts as a meta-essay here:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:The_Land/Thinking_about_the_impact_of_t...
I'd be really interested to hear other peoples' views!
Chris
(User:The Land) _______________________________________________
Another fact to consider is that both doctors and patients have been obtaining most of their medical information from Wikipedia for years:
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/03/doctors-1-source-for-heal...
Christophe, does the Board agree that the Foundation should study bias in the wikipedias' economics articles and its impact on society?
On Thu, Feb 23, 2017 at 8:01 AM, James Salsman jsalsman@gmail.com wrote:
Chris,
This paper suggests that Wikipedia has become more influential than a large proportion of the peer reviewed literature:
http://www.cs.indiana.edu/~xshuai/papers/jcdl240-shuai.pdf
On a related note, I tried to reply off-list to the Foundation official who recently claimed that my assertion that systemic bias in the English Wikipedia's economics articles has deleterious real-world implications was, "framed with a leading question," and "filled with a good deal of speculation," by asking what she thought of the evidence I presented on how the "Fair Tax" article and the other Mises-influenced walled garden articles had been successfully gamed into appearing first in the automatically generated set of "related articles" on articles with an opposite economic perspective, such as "Making Work Pay tax credit," but there was no reply.
Do you think this topic is something that the Foundation should study? I've asked the Chair of the Board of Trustees to do so, but there hasn't been a reply to that either.
Best regards, Jim
On Wed, Feb 22, 2017 at 2:57 PM Chris Keating chriskeatingwiki@gmail.com wrote:
Hi all,
For a while now I've been thinking about different ways to define and measure the Wikimedia movement's impact. This started for me with various conversations about different iterations of the WMF's Global Metrics and different rounds of FDC bids, but it turns out to be wider than that.
This is a big and thorny topic and one where we seem to have come up with a lot of implicit answers without spending much time thinking about in any detail, so I've written up my thoughts as a meta-essay here:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:The_Land/Thinking_about_the_impact_of_t...
I'd be really interested to hear other peoples' views!
Chris
(User:The Land)
Hoi, There are many area's where Wikipedia is biased. Obviously we take the gender gap seriously but there is also a bias towards the Western world. It is very much in the very basics of our community. Why should we study the bias in a field like economics? When we were to study it what kind of impact should we study? Remember there is this "neutral point of view" and remember Wikipedia is not about "original research" and that is what you are calling for.
So consider what is it that makes any subject of relevance so that our board has to study this, why could we not leave it to the researchers ... or should we not first study the existing bias in our research ? Thanks, GerardM
Op do 23 feb. 2017 om 18:24 schreef James Salsman jsalsman@gmail.com
Another fact to consider is that both doctors and patients have been obtaining most of their medical information from Wikipedia for years:
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/03/doctors-1-source-for- healthcare-information-wikipedia/284206/
Christophe, does the Board agree that the Foundation should study bias in the wikipedias' economics articles and its impact on society?
On Thu, Feb 23, 2017 at 8:01 AM, James Salsman jsalsman@gmail.com wrote:
Chris,
This paper suggests that Wikipedia has become more influential than a
large
proportion of the peer reviewed literature:
http://www.cs.indiana.edu/~xshuai/papers/jcdl240-shuai.pdf
On a related note, I tried to reply off-list to the Foundation official
who
recently claimed that my assertion that systemic bias in the English Wikipedia's economics articles has deleterious real-world implications
was,
"framed with a leading question," and "filled with a good deal of speculation," by asking what she thought of the evidence I presented on
how
the "Fair Tax" article and the other Mises-influenced walled garden
articles
had been successfully gamed into appearing first in the automatically generated set of "related articles" on articles with an opposite economic perspective, such as "Making Work Pay tax credit," but there was no
reply.
Do you think this topic is something that the Foundation should study?
I've
asked the Chair of the Board of Trustees to do so, but there hasn't been
a
reply to that either.
Best regards, Jim
On Wed, Feb 22, 2017 at 2:57 PM Chris Keating <
chriskeatingwiki@gmail.com>
wrote:
Hi all,
For a while now I've been thinking about different ways to define and measure the Wikimedia movement's impact. This started for me with
various
conversations about different iterations of the WMF's Global Metrics and different rounds of FDC bids, but it turns out to be wider than that.
This is a big and thorny topic and one where we seem to have come up
with
a lot of implicit answers without spending much time thinking about in any detail, so I've written up my thoughts as a meta-essay here:
about_the_impact_of_the_Wikimedia_movement
I'd be really interested to hear other peoples' views!
Chris
(User:The Land)
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Gerard,
Are there any other areas where systemic bias on the wikipedias might reasonably expected to cause serious damage to society? If we are missing articles on notable women, or rural landmarks, or we have Japanese islands with Korean names or vice-versa, that is bad, but is it likely to cause as many actual, real-world problems as, for example, repeated implications that lowering taxes on the rich will improve conditions for most people?
The Foundation and volunteers frequently address issues where individual companies are the subject of organized advocacy. Why shouldn't socioeconomic class be subject to the same scrutiny?
Researchers have studied the topic, but not in a systematic way. The few systematic studies of political bias on Wikipedia have either focused mostly on social issues or geocentric bias, with economics playing a very small part. It would be great if the Foundation would fund such more specific studies by independent researchers with a history of studying bias in economics sources. Mark Blyth and David Stuckler at Oxford and Sanjay Basu, an M.D. at Stanford, have all done very good work in this area.
On Thu, Feb 23, 2017 at 11:39 AM, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Hoi, There are many area's where Wikipedia is biased. Obviously we take the gender gap seriously but there is also a bias towards the Western world. It is very much in the very basics of our community. Why should we study the bias in a field like economics? When we were to study it what kind of impact should we study? Remember there is this "neutral point of view" and remember Wikipedia is not about "original research" and that is what you are calling for.
So consider what is it that makes any subject of relevance so that our board has to study this, why could we not leave it to the researchers ... or should we not first study the existing bias in our research ? Thanks, GerardM
Op do 23 feb. 2017 om 18:24 schreef James Salsman jsalsman@gmail.com
Another fact to consider is that both doctors and patients have been obtaining most of their medical information from Wikipedia for years:
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/03/doctors-1-source-for- healthcare-information-wikipedia/284206/
Christophe, does the Board agree that the Foundation should study bias in the wikipedias' economics articles and its impact on society?
On Thu, Feb 23, 2017 at 8:01 AM, James Salsman jsalsman@gmail.com wrote:
Chris,
This paper suggests that Wikipedia has become more influential than a
large
proportion of the peer reviewed literature:
http://www.cs.indiana.edu/~xshuai/papers/jcdl240-shuai.pdf
On a related note, I tried to reply off-list to the Foundation official
who
recently claimed that my assertion that systemic bias in the English Wikipedia's economics articles has deleterious real-world implications
was,
"framed with a leading question," and "filled with a good deal of speculation," by asking what she thought of the evidence I presented on
how
the "Fair Tax" article and the other Mises-influenced walled garden
articles
had been successfully gamed into appearing first in the automatically generated set of "related articles" on articles with an opposite economic perspective, such as "Making Work Pay tax credit," but there was no
reply.
Do you think this topic is something that the Foundation should study?
I've
asked the Chair of the Board of Trustees to do so, but there hasn't been
a
reply to that either.
Best regards, Jim
On Wed, Feb 22, 2017 at 2:57 PM Chris Keating <
chriskeatingwiki@gmail.com>
wrote:
Hi all,
For a while now I've been thinking about different ways to define and measure the Wikimedia movement's impact. This started for me with
various
conversations about different iterations of the WMF's Global Metrics and different rounds of FDC bids, but it turns out to be wider than that.
This is a big and thorny topic and one where we seem to have come up
with
a lot of implicit answers without spending much time thinking about in any detail, so I've written up my thoughts as a meta-essay here:
about_the_impact_of_the_Wikimedia_movement
I'd be really interested to hear other peoples' views!
Chris
(User:The Land)
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Hi James,
This paper suggests that Wikipedia has become more influential than a large
proportion of the peer reviewed literature:
I am not sure that is the correct conclusion from the paper you mention. To quote the conclusion:
"We find that ... the Wikipedia community favors reputable authors and trending topics. Second... Wikipedia does serve as a collaborative social filtering system which is able to favor “classical” papers, authors, and topics, and recommend them to the general public."
Unless I have missed something (and please let me know if I have) it doesn't compare Wikipedia's influence with that of journal publishing, merely observes that the same authors and topics are mentioned on Wikipedia as are heavily mentioned in journals (and thus that the two are reflective of the same corpus of knowledge)
my assertion that systemic bias in the English Wikipedia's economics articles has deleterious real-world implications...
Do you think this topic is something that the Foundation should study?
I wouldn't place it high up the list of things WMF ought to be worried about. I remember hearing something vaguely about studies looking at "left-right" bias among academic economists and in media coverage of economics. In principle the same techniques could be applied to Wikipedia articles and that might yield some insights into what could be done better.
Equally, economics isn't a very well covered area and has never attracted that many editors, so the problems probably woudln't be fixed without a couple of dozen more strong economics editors able to write about things in a neutral way.
Regards,
Chris
Hi Chris,
Thank you for your reply:
This paper suggests that Wikipedia has become more influential than a large proportion of the peer reviewed literature:
I am not sure that is the correct conclusion from the paper you mention....
I was referring to this passage: "It is apparent that papers, authors, and keywords that are mentioned on Wikipedia are ranked higher in the scholarly community than those are not mentioned." My studies of the time series of rankings of papers cited on popular vital science and medicine articles early in those articles' development suggests to me that the causation of that association is heavily bidirectional.
But, if the fact that both doctors and patients are obtaining most of their medical information from Wikipedia doesn't support the same conclusion, please let me know why you don't think so.
my assertion that systemic bias in the English Wikipedia's economics articles has deleterious real-world implications...
Do you think this topic is something that the Foundation should study?
I wouldn't place it high up the list of things WMF ought to be worried about.
Can you think of any other subject matter areas where systemic bias might have more serious real-world implications?
I remember hearing something vaguely about studies looking at "left-right" bias among academic economists and in media coverage of economics.
Would you please send citations to those that you know of? I tried to review them all today, and all that I could find were mostly about social political issues or geopolitics instead of economics.
Best regards, Jim
wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org