Effects of Contributor Experience on the Quality of Health-Related Wikipedia Articles

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Effects of Contributor Experience on the Quality of Health-Related Wikipedia Articles
Authors
Peter Holtz
Besnik Fetahu
Joachim Kimmerle
Publication date
2018
DOI
10.2196/jmir.9683
Links
Original

Effects of Contributor Experience on the Quality of Health-Related Wikipedia Articles - scientific work related to Wikipedia quality published in 2018, written by Peter Holtz, Besnik Fetahu and Joachim Kimmerle.

Overview

Background: Consulting the Internet for health-related information is a common and widespread phenomenon, and Wikipedia is arguably one of the most important resources for health-related information. Therefore, it is relevant to identify factors that have an impact on the quality of health-related Wikipedia articles. Objective: In study authors have hypothesized a positive effect of contributor experience on the quality of health-related Wikipedia articles. Methods: Authors mined the edit history of all (as of February 2017) 18,805 articles that were listed in the categories on the portal health & fitness in the English language version of Wikipedia. Authors identified tags within the articles’ edit histories, which indicated potential issues with regard to the respective article’s quality or neutrality. Of all of the sampled articles, 99 (99/18,805, 0.53%) articles had at some point received at least one such tag. In analysis authors only considered those articles with a minimum of 10 edits (10,265 articles in total; 96 tagged articles, 0.94%). Additionally, to test hypothesis, authors constructed contributor profiles, where a profile consisted of all the articles edited by a contributor and the corresponding number of edits contributed. Authors did not differentiate between rollbacks and edits with novel content. Results: Nonparametric Mann-Whitney U-tests indicated a higher number of previously edited articles for editors of the nontagged articles (mean rank tagged 2348.23, mean rank nontagged 5159.29; U=9.25, P<.001). However, authors did not find a significant difference for the contributors’ total number of edits (mean rank tagged 4872.85, mean rank nontagged 5135.48; U=0.87, P=.39). Using logistic regression analysis with the respective article’s number of edits and number of editors as covariates, only the number of edited articles yielded a significant effect on the article’s status as tagged versus nontagged (dummy-coded; Nagelkerke R2 for the full model=.17; B [SE B]=-0.001 [0.00]; Wald c2 [1]=19.70; P<.001), whereas authors again found no significant effect for the mere number of edits (Nagelkerke R2 for the full model=.15; B [SE B]=0.000 [0.01]; Wald c2 [1]=0.01; P=.94). Conclusions: Authors findings indicate an effect of contributor experience on the quality of health-related Wikipedia articles. However, only the number of previously edited articles was a predictor of the articles’ quality but not the mere volume of edits. More research is needed to disentangle the different aspects of contributor experience. Authors have discussed the implications of findings with respect to ensuring the quality of health-related information in collaborative knowledge-building platforms. [J Med Internet Res 2018;20(5):e171]