research-article

Getting to the source: where does Wikipedia get its information from?

Authors:

David R. Musicant,

Nathaniel MillerAuthors Info & Claims

WikiSym '13: Proceedings of the 9th International Symposium on Open Collaboration

Article No.: 9, Pages 1 - 10

https://doi.org/10.1145/2491055.2491064

Published: 05 August 2013 Publication History

Abstract

We ask what kinds of sources Wikipedians value most and compare Wikipedia's stated policy on sources to what we observe in practice. We find that primary data sources developed by alternative publishers are both popular and persistent, despite policies that present such sources as inferior to scholarly secondary sources. We also find that Wikipedians make almost equal use of information produced by associations such as nonprofits as from scholarly publishers, with a significant portion coming from government information sources. Our findings suggest the rise of new influential sources of information on the Web but also reinforce the traditional geographic patterns of scholarly publication. This has a significant effect on the goal of Wikipedians to represent "the sum of all human knowledge."

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Cited By

Lawrence Avan Wanrooy B(2024)Sourcing public policy: organisation publishing in WikipediaNew Review of Hypermedia and Multimedia10.1080/13614568.2024.234384530:3-4(181-200)Online publication date: 20-May-2024
https://doi.org/10.1080/13614568.2024.2343845
Champion KHill B(2023)Taboo and Collaborative Knowledge Production: Evidence from WikipediaProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/36100907:CSCW2(1-25)Online publication date: 4-Oct-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3610090
Guo QShi CYin ZLiu CMa X(2023)Exploring the Effects of Event-induced Sudden Influx of Newcomers to Online Pop Music Fandom Communities: Content, Interaction, and EngagementProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/36100637:CSCW2(1-24)Online publication date: 4-Oct-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3610063
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Getting to the source: where does Wikipedia get its information from?

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cover image ACM Other conferences

WikiSym '13: Proceedings of the 9th International Symposium on Open Collaboration

August 2013

248 pages

ISBN:9781450318525

DOI:10.1145/2491055

General Chairs:
Ademar Aguiar
Universidade do Porto
,
Dirk Riehle
Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nürnberg

Copyright © 2013 ACM.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than the author(s) must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected].

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John Ernest Foundation

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SIGWEB: ACM Special Interest Group on Hypertext, Hypermedia, and Web

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Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 05 August 2013

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Amazon
Hivos
Open Society Institute
Ushahidi

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WikiSym '13

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WikiSym '13: The 9th International Symposium on Wikis and Open Collaboration

August 5 - 7, 2013

Hong Kong, China

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WikiSym '13 Paper Acceptance Rate 22 of 43 submissions, 51%;

Overall Acceptance Rate 69 of 145 submissions, 48%

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Cited By

Lawrence Avan Wanrooy B(2024)Sourcing public policy: organisation publishing in WikipediaNew Review of Hypermedia and Multimedia10.1080/13614568.2024.234384530:3-4(181-200)Online publication date: 20-May-2024
https://doi.org/10.1080/13614568.2024.2343845
Champion KHill B(2023)Taboo and Collaborative Knowledge Production: Evidence from WikipediaProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/36100907:CSCW2(1-25)Online publication date: 4-Oct-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3610090
Guo QShi CYin ZLiu CMa X(2023)Exploring the Effects of Event-induced Sudden Influx of Newcomers to Online Pop Music Fandom Communities: Content, Interaction, and EngagementProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/36100637:CSCW2(1-24)Online publication date: 4-Oct-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3610063
Zheng XChen JYan ENi C(2022)Gender and country biases in Wikipedia citations to scholarly publicationsJournal of the Association for Information Science and Technology10.1002/asi.2472374:2(219-233)Online publication date: 5-Nov-2022
https://doi.org/10.1002/asi.24723
Ratković NMadzarević I(2021)Women's Participation in Wikipedia: Cross-Border Balkan PerspectiveÁrea Abierta10.5209/arab.7276321:2(237-256)Online publication date: 17-May-2021
https://doi.org/10.5209/arab.72763
Bubendorff SRizza C(2021)Produire collectivement du sens en temps de crise : l'utilisation de Wikipédia lors de la pandémie de COVID-19Making Sense Collectively in the Time of a Crisis: the Uses of Wikipedia During the COVID-19 PandemicCommuniquer. Revue de communication sociale et publique10.4000/communiquer.8333(83-102)Online publication date: 20-Sep-2021
https://doi.org/10.4000/communiquer.8333
Amaral GPiscopo AKaffee LRodrigues OSimperl E(2021)Assessing the Quality of Sources in Wikidata Across Languages: A Hybrid ApproachJournal of Data and Information Quality10.1145/348482813:4(1-35)Online publication date: 15-Oct-2021
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3484828
Bipat TAlimohammadi NYu YMcDonald DZachry M(2021)Wikipedia Beyond the English Language EditionProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/34491295:CSCW1(1-39)Online publication date: 22-Apr-2021
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3449129
Włodarczyk B(2020)What Does “a Reliable Source” Mean?Zagadnienia Informacji Naukowej - Studia Informacyjne10.36702/zin.71258:2(116)(44-63)Online publication date: 30-Dec-2020
https://doi.org/10.36702/zin.712
Azeroual OLewoniewski W(2020)How to Inspect and Measure Data Quality about Scientific Publications: Use Case of Wikipedia and CRIS DatabasesAlgorithms10.3390/a1305010713:5(107)Online publication date: 26-Apr-2020
https://doi.org/10.3390/a13050107
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