contropedia: a visual tool to explore controversies in wikipedia (donald trump example)
TRANSCRIPT
Contropedia: a Visual Tool to Explore Controversies in Wikipedia
[email protected] DigiDoc Seminar - UPF - November 16, 2016
Wikipedia
● largest repository of human knowledge
● first result for web queries on many topics
● anyone may edit it● conditions and reflects
public opinion
Contropedia aims to:
● make this huge volume of information easily accessible
● unveil negotiations behind encyclopaedic content
● allow users to follow the development of individual topics
Layer view
● which are the most disputed concepts?
● where are controversies located in the article?
● wiki links as focal points○ the hotter the color, the more controversial
the element (wiki link)
Controversiality measure
● count edits to sentences including a wiki link
● only consider substantive disagreeing edits:○ substantive -> no vandalism or anti-vandalism○ disagreeing -> delete some content
● language agnostic approach○ based only on user activity
Dashboard view
● ranking of the most controversial elements within the article
● timeline shows when each element was most disputed
● elements that are not present (as wiki links) in the current version of the article are struck through
Detailed view
● all the edits involving a specific element○ edits in chronological order○ content added and deleted in each edit
● Optionally shown also related comments from the talk page
How would you word the 2005 audio recording controversy?
Trump ...● “was overheard sharing a number of vulgar sexual remarks over the
course of a private conversation”
● “bragged about forcibly kissing women and being permitted to grab women's genitals”
● “talked about kissing and groping women without their consent”
● “jokingly brags to companions that as a celebrity he can and does kiss or groping any woman he's attracted to”
● “appeared to brag about committing sexual assault.”
Comparison of different periods
● which are the most controversial elements in different moments?○ selecting specific time windows
● before and after Trump announced his candidacy
Summing up
● what is most controversial?○ count disagreeing, substantive, edits to a wiki link○ visualize with layer view and dashboard
● when is it most controversial?○ controversy timeline
● what is the controversy about?○ edit history around a specific wiki link
Contropedia can:
● increase transparency in Wikipedia
● lower barriers to participation
● foster critical digital literacy
Cross-language analysis
● what (and when) is controversial about a topic in different language versions?
● example for article “Homosexuality”○ Catholic church appears only in Italy among the
most controversial elements
○ USSR and USA are controversial in the Russian Wikipedia
Work in progress● integrating talk pages
● beyond wiki links: templates, references, images
● edit networks, editor camps
● cross-language visualizations
● networks of articles and external references
ReferencesE. Borra, E. Weltevrede, P. Ciuccarelli, A. Kaltenbrunner, D. Laniado, G. Magni, M. Mauri, R. Rogers, and T. Venturini. Societal Controversies in Wikipedia Articles, CHI ’15 - Proceedings of the 33rd Annual ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 2015.
E. Borra, D. Laniado, E. Weltevrede, M. Mauri, G. Magni, T. Venturini, P. Ciuccarelli, R. Rogers, and A. Kaltenbrunner.A Platform for Visually Exploring the Development of Wikipedia Articles, ICWSM '15 - Proceedings of the 9th International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media, 2015.
F Flöck, D Laniado, F Stadthaus, M AcostaTowards Better Visual Tools for Exploring Wikipedia Article Development – The Use Case of Gamergate ControversyWikipedia, a Social Pedia: Research Challenges and Opportunities, 2015.
Pentzold, C., Weltevrede E., Mauri M., Laniado D., Kaltenbrunner A., Borra E. (2017)Digging Wikipedia. The online encyclopedia as digital cultural heritage gateway and siteACM Journal on Computing and Cultural Heritage (JOCCH), (in press)
and more material at: http://contropedia.net/
Play with the Contropedia demo!http://www.contropedia.net/demo
It already contains hundreds of articles. Feel free to ask, we can add specific articles you would like to play with