What Wikipedia Deletes: Characterizing Dangerous Collaborative Content

What Wikipedia Deletes: Characterizing Dangerous Collaborative Content - scientific work related to Wikipedia quality published in 2011, written by Andrew G. West and Insup Lee.

Overview

Collaborative environments, such as Wikipedia, often have low barriers-to-entry in order to encourage participation. This accessibility is frequently abused ( e.g ., vandalism and spam). However, certain inappropriate behaviors are more threatening than others. In this work, authors study contributions which are not simply "undone" -- but deleted from revision histories and public view. Such treatment is generally reserved for edits which: (1) present a legal liability to the host ( e.g ., copyright issues, defamation), or (2) present privacy threats to individuals ( i.e ., contact information). Herein, authors analyze one year of Wikipedia's public deletion log and use brute-force strategies to learn about privately handled redactions. This permits insight about the prevalence of deletion, the reasons that induce it, and the extent of end-user exposure to dangerous content. While Wikipedia's approach is generally quite reactive, authors find that copyright issues prove most problematic of those behaviors studied.