RENDER Toolkit for Knowledge Diversity in Wikipedia

Info

Wikimedia Deutschland is a use case partner in the research project RENDER (Reflecting Knowledge Diversity). In cooperation with our project partners we analyse and evaluate diversity in Wikipedia. Diversity is important for Wikipedia because it is a result of complete coverage of facts and a balanced representation of all viewpoints. Diversity is necessary for an encyclopaedic and neutral description.

Metrics

All our analysis focus on metrics for quality as they apply in Wikipedia. We take the following criteria into account:

• Completeness
• Timeliness
• Objectivity

In addition, we investigate the characteristics of editor interaction. For more information about the project, please visit RENDER on Meta-Wiki or the project website.

The toolkit provides a first insight into our diversity analysis in Wikipedia, as they will be implemented in the RENDER project.

Planned Supporting Tools

At a later stage of the project we are going to integrate the results in different supporting applications. These tools will lead users to locations in Wikipedia, which need to be improved. We are going to develop two supporting tools:

• Quality Overview Tool: This application displays the diversity analysis results for every article. This tool will include the possibility to check for different metrics and provide a quick overview of the quality and the state of an article.
• Task List Generator: This application enables a Wikipedia author to generate lists of articles related to a specific topic or preferred category, which need to be improved.

These supporting tools cannot and should not give an answer to the question whether an article is incomplete or biased by emphasis from a certain point of view. For that it still needs human judgement. The tools can only provide advice for problematic articles. These articles may be reviewed and corrected by human beings. An automatic review of articles could save time. Saved time could be used for completion and improvement of Wikipedia. Furthermore it is possible to detect a lack of diversity with technical aid, that cannot be done manually within reasonable time.

The whole toolkit as well as the tools are in a continuous process of development. We are looking forward to receiving suggestions, feedback or ideas on discussion page concerning RENDER in Wikipedia or by email.