[WikiEN-l] "Software Weighs Wikipedians' Trustworthiness"

[David Goodman]

Their Wikimania slides have an interesting example, where a really
problematic edit becomes gradually accepted simply from being there
and other people editing the article but not fixing it.


On 8/6/07, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen <cimonavaro at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 8/6/07, Tim Starling <tstarling at wikimedia.org> wrote:
>
> > 1) A "blame map". Some might prefer to call it a "credit map" to be more
> > polite. This is a data structure that lets you see who is responsible
> > for what text. It can be updated on every edit. Having one stored in
> > MediaWiki will enable all sorts of applications. Apparently it's
> > old-hat, and not the subject of the present research, but it'll be great
> > to have an implementation integrated with MediaWiki.
> >
> > 2) A reputation metric. This is a predictor of how long a given user's
> > edits will stay in an article. It's novel, and it's the main topic of de
> > Alfaro's research.
> >
> > These two elements could be used independently in any way we choose.
> >
>
> <snip for clarity>
>
>
> > 2. The value of the metric for individual users is obscured. The only
> > access to it is via the reputation-coloured article text. The annotated
> > article text has no usernames attached, and the metric is not displayed
> > on user pages or the like.
> >
>
> Can you clarify this for me. What is there to prevent me from checking
> a particular snippet of text that has been edited by only one person, and
> seeing that it is a specific hue, and basing my evaluation of his or her
> trust metric on that hue?
>
> To be obscured would it not be necessary to only colour text that has
> been edited by multiple editors, thus limiting the usefulness?
>
> <snip>
>
> > It's time for us to think about how we want to use this technology.
> > There are lots of possibilities beyond the precise design that de Alfaro
> > proposes. Brainstorm away.
>
> I have not yet changed back to thinking this may not be useful, but I
> think we need more information on the limitations and possible
> further improvements that can be made to it. Is there a fuller
> description of the underlying formula/algorithm somewhere?
>
>
> --
> Jussi-Ville Heiskanen, ~ [[User:Cimon Avaro]]
>
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-- 
David Goodman, Ph.D, M.L.S.