Visual Gender Biases in Wikipedia: A Systematic Evaluation across the Ten Most Spoken Languages

Wikipedia, a collaborative crowd-sourced platform, is the largest, most visited online encyclopedia. Since it spreads information freely in more than 300 languages, many users, tools, and dashboards rely on its content. Hence, there is a need to maintain its fairness and completeness. However, previous research has indicated the existence of a significant gender gap in Wikipedia biographical articles. We already know that a minimal proportion of those articles portray women and there are gender asymmetries in the textual content of these articles, but little has been reported about the visual aspects (e.g., image volume or image quality) of the gender gap. Here, we analyze all biographies available on Wikipedia across 300 occupations in the ten most widely spoken languages, and undertake quantitative and qualitative analysis of gender differences in the written and visual content. The cross-lingual results indicate that (1) much of the male bias in content arises when editors select which personalities should have a Wikipedia page, (2) the trends in written and visual content are quite dissimilar, (3) men biographies tend to have more images across languages, and (4) female biographies average better visual quality. A more granular analysis is performed on English Wikipedia, distinguishing trends in occupations and qualitatively analyzing science and technology biographies. The overall results shed light on the kinds of visual biases that emerge in the collaborative creation of Wikipedia and yield guidelines for future management of contributions on the platform.

A note on the Neyman–Rayner triangle

This note raises questions for other number theorists to tackle. It considers a triangle arising from some statistical research of John Rayner and his use of some orthonormal polynomials related to the Legendre polynomials. These are expressed in a way that challenges the generalizing them. In particular, the coefficients are expressed in a triangle and related to known sequences in the Online Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences. The note actually raises more questions than it answers when it links with the cluster algebra of Fomin and Zelevinsky.

Two decades of Wikipedia research: a PubMed bibliometric network analysis

Purpose This paper aims to examine the structure and dynamics of scholarly publications dealing with Wikipedia. The research also aims to investigate how such research evolved since its launch in 2001. Design/methodology/approach Wikipedia has grown to be the biggest online encyclopedia in terms of comprehensiveness, reach and coverage. Based on 1,040 PubMed Wikipedia documents written by 5,280 authors over two decades (2001–2021), this paper conducts a bibliometric review of the intellectual structure of scholarly publications dealing with Wikipedia. Findings Results show that annual scholarly publications on Wikipedia growth rate is 13.26. Major outlets publishing Wikipedia’s research are PloS One, the Journal of Medical Internet Research, Nucleic Acids Research, Studies in Health Technology and Informatics, Bioinformatics and the International Journal of Medical Informatics. Results also show that the author collaboration network is very sparse, signifying rather negligible collaboration among the authors. Furthermore, results reveal that the Wikipedia research institutions’ collaboration network reflects what is sometimes termed Wikipedia’s “North-South divide,” indicating limited collaboration between rich and poor nations’ institutions. Finally, the multiple correspondence analysis applied to obtain the Wikipedia research conceptual map and its intellectual structure reveals the intellectual thrust and the diversity of the scholarly publications dealing with Wikipedia. Originality/value To the best of the author’s knowledge, this research represents the first application of bibliometric methods to investigate two decades of scholarly publications dealing with Wikipedia based on the PubMed database.

ПРЕДСТАВЛЕНІСТЬ НАУКОВОГО КОНТЕНТУ ЕНЦИКЛОПЕДИЧНОЇ ТЕМАТИКИ У НАУКОМЕТРИЧНИХ І РЕФЕРАТИВНИХ БАЗАХ ДАНИХ

Стаття актуалізує проблему відкритості, доступності, зручності у використанні довідкової інформації якісних наукових джерел, контент яких є авторитетним, релевантним і, водночас, поданим у невеликих обсягах. Саме таким має бути змістове наповнення сучасних енциклопедичних ресурсів, які ми розглядаємо з позицій е-інфраструктур, що можуть сприяти розвитку будь-якої наукової галузі та навчальної дисципліни. Для досягнення мети авторами здійснено розширений пошук наукового контенту енциклопедичної тематики у найбільш авторитетних наукометричних і реферативних базах даних, що здійснюють добір якісного наукового контенту, а саме: Web of Science, Scopus, Google Scholar, Open Ukrainian Citation Index, Российский индекс научного цитирования, ScienceDirect, Directory of Open Access Journals, ERIH PLUS. Результати пошуку проаналізовано, систематизовано за різними критеріями (рік публікації, тип документу, країна і регіон, мова оригінального тексту, галузь науки, видавець) та узагальнено. Представлено висновки щодо наявності наукової літератури з питань енциклопедистики у міжнародних базах даних та ступінь висвітлення цього напряму наукових розвідок. Стаття містить короткий опис 12 найавторитетніших наукометричних і реферативних баз даних, авторами зроблено акцент на аналітично-пошуковому функціоналі відповідних платформ. У статті подано ретельно деталізовану методику створення пошукових запитів та особливості кількісного аналізу даних. Результати систематизовано, подано в таблицях і графічно візуалізовано. Здійснено конкретизацію відомостей щодо електронних енциклопедій. Перспективами подальших досліджень є контент-аналіз публікацій щодо визначеної тематики у наукометричних і реферативних базах даних. Обґрунтовано звуження кола здійснення пошуку запитів до трьох баз (WoS, Scopus, OUCI) та Derwent Innovations Index. що дають найбільше охоплення джерел та мають зручний функціонал щодо ранжування за цитуванням. Також обґрунтовано обмеження для контент-аналізу наступних пошукових запитів щодо «online encyclopedia» у наукових періодичних виданнях та патентних базах.

Engaging student employee expertise to improve Wikipedia edit-a-thons

Although academic skepticism of Wikipedia’s value as an information resource is widespread, the collaboratively created online encyclopedia is in fact one of the most frequently used health information resources in the world, including among students and professionals. As a result, the U.S.-based Network of the National Library of Medicine (NNLM) has, since 2018, organized biannual “#CiteNLM” edit-a-thons aimed at strengthening Wikipedia’s health pages by adding content and citations to trusted sources of information. The first #CiteNLM edit-a-thon was a one-day virtual event in April 2018; since then NNLM’s edit-a-thons have evolved into month-long campaigns engaging primarily academic libraries with in-person edit-a-thons as well as virtual events. Hundreds of students, faculty, and library staff across the country (many of whom were new to Wikipedia editing) have collaborated in NNLM’s efforts to support universal access to high-quality health information. To date, over 600 health articles have been edited by over 400 editors. The current #CiteNLM campaign structure makes it easy for either individuals or groups to contribute or host affiliated events, which can include classroom exercises, citizen science projects, or library engagement efforts.

Bibliowikis: The volunteer-driven, Catalan case study of libraries as hotspots for new Wikipedians and high-quality sources

The Catalan Wikipedia (Viquipèdia) is a successful free-knowledge platform with a strong community of editors that has significantly contributed to the normalization of this minoritized language on the Internet. In 2012, the NGO Amical Wikimedia and the Public Library Service of the Catalan Ministry of Culture launched #Bibliowikis, an initiative that has involved several hundreds of librarians and public libraries in the improvement of this version of the online encyclopedia. This unique, successful model was presented to the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and has been highlighted as a case study by the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA). The project involves the so-called Amical-way, in which scaffolded training, long-term self-management, and the geographically available Wikipedian volunteers constitute the three fundamental working pillars. #Bibliowikis’ success has experienced different levels of applicability and regularity over the Catalan-speaking territories, especially in the Land of Valencia and Andorra, and may be endangered by global online dynamics, loss of the volunteering principles, and prioritization of economic resources in the fast-changing Wikimedia environment. However, #Bibliowikis’ characteristics are fully aligned with those of Open Access, thus it is easily combined with academia and the public knowledge transfer at universities. Its robust ethical discourse on social contribution, negligible infrastructure, and linguistic heritage protection has allowed #Bibliowikis to be feasible and easily implemented in the increasing context of teleworking and the need for social digitization of bibliographic repositories.

Latinx Authorship and Representation in Digital Spaces: Wikipedia as a Tool to Decolonize the HSI Classroom

Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia, is accessed by over 1.5 billion users each month, yet remains stigmatized in the academic world. Many faculty demonstrate reluctance in allowing students to use Wikipedia as part of their research and writing projects due to the open access nature of the site and have all but banned its use in their courses. In this article, we evaluate implications of our pedagogical decision to embed a Wikipedia editing assignment into our respective undergraduate courses at a Hispanic-Serving Institution (HSI) in South Texas. First, we describe students’ initial reactions to Wikipedia as disrupting the classroom. Second, we examine the outcomes of the assignment in our Latinx students’ recognizing their work on Wikipedia as an act of decolonizing the classroom. In particular, we show the extent to which students a) claim authority, b) develop an ownership of knowledge, c) forge identities as public scholars, and d) develop a civic responsibility through their work on Wikipedia. We conclude with a discussion of recommendations for implementing assignments on digital citizenship in college classrooms, particularly in HSIs.

On Generalized Lucas Pseudoprimality of Level k

We investigate the Fibonacci pseudoprimes of level k, and we disprove a statement concerning the relationship between the sets of different levels, and also discuss a counterpart of this result for the Lucas pseudoprimes of level k. We then use some recent arithmetic properties of the generalized Lucas, and generalized Pell–Lucas sequences, to define some new types of pseudoprimes of levels k+ and k− and parameter a. For these novel pseudoprime sequences we investigate some basic properties and calculate numerous associated integer sequences which we have added to the Online Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences.

Mundane work for utopian ends: Freeing digital materials in peer production

This article studies the online encyclopedia Wikipedia as a core example of the storage and sharing of commons-based digital materials. It focuses on the voluntary, day-to-day activities of its editors as they gather and transform digital information goods that are made available free of charge. Using the notion of articulation work, I stress the effort that goes into accommodating the engagement with the encyclopedia within the contributors’ media-suffused daily routines. Then, the article discusses the typical practices of transcribing, republishing, and relicensing through which the transition from non-free ownership to freely shared property is brought about. Finally, the freedom that is inherent in the modification of the legal status of ideas and artifacts and their public circulation requires us to interrogate the ethical implications of the digital commons collected and spread by Wikipedians.