Dataset Information

How the structure of Wikipedia articles influences user navigation.

ABSTRACT: In this work we study how people navigate the information network of Wikipedia and investigate (i) free-form navigation by studying all clicks within the English Wikipedia over an entire month and (ii) goal-directed Wikipedia navigation by analyzing wikigames, where users are challenged to retrieve articles by following links. To study how the organization of Wikipedia articles in terms of layout and links affects navigation behavior, we first investigate the characteristics of the structural organization and of hyperlinks in Wikipedia and then evaluate link selection models based on article structure and other potential influences in navigation, such as the generality of an article's topic. In free-form Wikipedia navigation, covering all Wikipedia usage scenarios, we find that click choices can be best modeled by a bias towards article structure, such as a tendency to click links located in the lead section. For the goal-directed navigation of wikigames, our findings confirm the zoom-out and the homing-in phases identified by previous work, where users are guided by generality at first and textual similarity to the target later. However, our interpretation of the link selection models accentuates that article structure is the best explanation for the navigation paths in all except these initial and final stages. Overall, we find evidence that users more frequently click on links that are located close to the top of an article. The structure of Wikipedia articles, which places links to more general concepts near the top, supports navigation by allowing users to quickly find the better-connected articles that facilitate navigation. Our results highlight the importance of article structure and link position in Wikipedia navigation and suggest that better organization of information can help make information networks more navigable.

SUBMITTER: Lamprecht D

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5468769 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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How the structure of Wikipedia articles influences user navigation.

Lamprecht Daniel D Lerman Kristina K Helic Denis D Strohmaier Markus M

The new review of hypermedia and multimedia 20160512 1

In this work we study how people navigate the information network of Wikipedia and investigate (i) free-form navigation by studying all clicks within the English Wikipedia over an entire month and (ii) goal-directed Wikipedia navigation by analyzing wikigames, where users are challenged to retrieve articles by following links. To study how the organization of Wikipedia articles in terms of layout and links affects navigation behavior, we first investigate the characteristics of the structural or ...[more]

PMID: 28670171

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Project description: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 our study we have hypothesized a positive effect of contributor experience on the quality of health-related Wikipedia articles. METHODS:We 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. We 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 our analysis we only considered those articles with a minimum of 10 edits (10,265 articles in total; 96 tagged articles, 0.94%). Additionally, to test our hypothesis, we constructed contributor profiles, where a profile consisted of all the articles edited by a contributor and the corresponding number of edits contributed. We 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, we 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 we 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:Our 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. We have discussed the implications of our findings with respect to ensuring the quality of health-related information in collaborative knowledge-building platforms.

Project description:This study examined predictors of the development of Wikipedia articles that deal with controversial issues. We chose a corpus of articles in the German-language version of Wikipedia about alternative medicine as a representative controversial issue. We extracted edits made until March 2013 and categorized them using a supervised machine learning setup as either being pro conventional medicine, pro alternative medicine, or neutral. Based on these categories, we established relevant variables, such as the perspectives of articles and of authors at certain points in time, the (im)balance of an article's perspective, the number of non-neutral edits per article, the number of authors per article, authors' heterogeneity per article, and incongruity between authors' and articles' perspectives. The underlying objective was to predict the development of articles' perspectives with regard to the controversial topic. The empirical part of the study is embedded in theoretical considerations about editorial biases and the effectiveness of norms and rules in Wikipedia, such as the neutral point of view policy. Our findings revealed a selection bias where authors edited mainly articles with perspectives similar to their own viewpoint. Regression analyses showed that an author's perspective as well as the article's previous perspectives predicted the perspective of the resulting edits, albeit both predictors interact with each other. Further analyses indicated that articles with more non-neutral edits were altogether more balanced. We also found a positive effect of the number of authors and of the authors' heterogeneity on articles' balance. However, while the effect of the number of authors was reserved to pro-conventional medicine articles, the authors' heterogenity effect was restricted to pro-alternative medicine articles. Finally, we found a negative effect of incongruity between authors' and articles' perspectives that was pronounced for the pro-alternative medicine articles.

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How the structure of Wikipedia articles influences user navigation.

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How the structure of Wikipedia articles influences user navigation.

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