A large scale study of reader interactions with images on Wikipedia

Abstract

Wikipedia is the largest source of free encyclopedic knowledge and one of the most visited sites on the Web. To increase reader understanding of the article, Wikipedia editors add images within the text of the article’s body. However, despite their widespread usage on web platforms and the huge volume of visual content on Wikipedia, little is known about the importance of images in the context of free knowledge environments. To bridge this gap, we collect data about English Wikipedia reader interactions with images during one month and perform the first large-scale analysis of how interactions with images happen on Wikipedia. First, we quantify the overall engagement with images, finding that one in 29 pageviews results in a click on at least one image, one order of magnitude higher than interactions with other types of article content. Second, we study what factors associate with image engagement and observe that clicks on images occur more often in shorter articles and articles about visual arts or transports and biographies of less well-known people. Third, we look at interactions with Wikipedia article previews and find that images help support reader information need when navigating through the site, especially for more popular pages. The findings in this study deepen our understanding of the role of images for free knowledge and provide a guide for Wikipedia editors and web user communities to enrich the world’s largest source of encyclopedic knowledge.

Developing Students’ Scientific Literacy through Wikipedia Digital Library

“…After learning activities using the Wikipedia digital library, there was a significant change (very easy), including student activities in understanding and interpreting the outcomes of statistical calculations (B4, B5, B6). These findings reinforce that the Wikipedia digital library helps students understand literature containing statistical data such as graphics [2], [22]. Information in the form of graphs or statistical data available on the Wikipedia digital library provides opportunities for students to practice understanding and interpreting the outcomes of statistical calculations.…”

“…That's because Wikipedia is the largest and most free encyclopedic knowledge source. Wikipedia is among the most visited websites worldwide [2], after Google, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Baidu. The popularity of Wikipedia is due to the completeness of its topics, both in social and scientific aspects.…”

Disappearing without a Trace: Coverage, Community, Quality, and Temporal Dynamics of Wikipedia Articles on Endangered Brazilian Indigenous Languages

“…Given its popularity and accessibility, many researchers have conducted studies in Wikipedia, exploring various aspects of the platform, such as its content, structure, and social dynamics. Those studies have provided insights into issues such as automatically assessing article quality (Dalip et al 2009;Shen, Qi, and Baldwin 2017), analyzing citations (Piccardi et al 2020;Baigutanova et al 2023), images (He et al 2018;Rama et al 2022), andinfo-boxes (Graells-Garrido, Lalmas, andMenczer 2015;Lewoniewski 2017) or understanding readers' preferences (Lehmann et al 2014). Other works focused on identifying underrepresented groups (Graells-Garrido, Lalmas, and Menczer 2015;Mandiberg 2023;Gallert et al 2016;Sethuraman, Grinter, and Zegura 2020;Hoenen and Rahn 2021) and the asymmetry of the coverage across different language versions (Hale 2015;Graham 2011;Lemmerich et al 2019;Roy, Bhatia, and Jain 2020;Ashrafimoghari 2023).…”

A Large-Scale Characterization of How Readers Browse Wikipedia

“…Previous work investigated the reasons that lead readers to consume Wikipedia content (Singer et al 2017), finding differences by time and country (Lemmerich et al 2019). Complementary studies focus on consumption dynamics (Ratkiewicz et al 2010;Ribeiro et al 2021;Lehmann et al 2014;TeBlunthuis, Bayer, and Vasileva 2019) and interaction with various article elements, such as citations (Maggio et al 2020;Piccardi et al 2020), external links (Piccardi et al 2021), and images (Rama et al 2021). Significant attention is also dedicated to navigating from page to page to understand the mechanism that allows users to move across content in a natural setup (Piccardi et al 2023;Piccardi, Gerlach, and West 2022;Trattner et al 2012;Helic et al 2013;Singer et al 2014;Lamprecht et al 2017;Gildersleve and Yasseri 2018;Dimitrov et al 2019) or in lab-based settings, such as wiki games (West, Pineau, and Precup 2009;West and Leskovec 2012b;Helic 2012;West and Leskovec 2012a;Scaria et al 2014;Koopmann et al 2019).…”