visualising wikipedia controversies: a look inside contropedia
TRANSCRIPT
Visualising Wikipedia Controversies:a look inside Contropedia
Erik Borra, Esther Weltevrede, Andreas Kaltenbrunner, Michele Mauri, David Laniado, Richard Rogers,
Paolo Ciuccarelli, Giovanni Magni, Tommaso Venturini
www.contropedia.net
TANT-Lab, Aalborg University, Copenhagen - June 3, 2015
Wikipedia
● largest repository of human knowledge
● anyone may edit it
● conditions and reflects public opinion
Wikipedia’s most visible side
● article on global warming (image)
● article on global warming (image)
Behind the scenes: talk pages (>70 archived pages)
Complete edit history log (>20k revisions)
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
Contropedia layer view
<2MB image of Global Warming overlay
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
<2MB image of Global Warming dashboard
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 struckthrough
Detailed view
● all the edits involving a specific element○ edits in chronological order○ content added and deleted in each edit
● also related comments from the talk page (under improvement)
Comparison of different periods
● which are the most controversial elements in different moments?○ dashboard view for specific time windows
● after 2012:○ conflict has cooled down○ disputes focus mostly on different issues
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
Users and Uses
● Social researchers
● Wikipedians
● Teachers and students
● Journalists
● Citizens
Cross-language analysis
● what (and when) is controversial about a topic in different language versions?
● preliminary example for 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
References● E. 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.
● and more material at: http://contropedia.net/
Try the Contropedia demo!http://www.contropedia.net/demo