Multilinguals and Wikipedia editing

Abstract

This article analyzes one month of edits to Wikipedia in order to examine the role of users editing multiple language editions (referred to as multilingual users). Such multilingual users may serve an important function in diffusing information across different language editions of the encyclopedia, and prior work has suggested this could reduce the level of self-focus bias in each edition. This study finds multilingual users are much more active than their single-edition (monolingual) counterparts. They are found in all language editions, but smaller-sized editions with fewer users have a higher percentage of multilingual users than larger-sized editions. About a quarter of multilingual users always edit the same articles in multiple languages, while just over 40% of multilingual users edit different articles in different languages. When non-English users do edit a second language edition, that edition is most frequently English. Nonetheless, several regional and linguistic cross-editing patterns are also present.

User Reviews and Language

“…Although a small percentage of users, taken along with the single reviews that mixed multiple languages together, it is important for interface designers to consider bilingual users (including users who might read reviews in multiple languages but only write reviews in one language). Consistent with findings on Wikipedia [6] and Twitter [5], users writing reviews in more than one language were more active on TripAdvisor than users writing reviews in only one language. Among Table 1: Correlations and differences between the mean ratings for attractions given by speakers of a language compared to ratings given by speakers of all other languages.…”

“…Such research is important, along with other information such as rates of bilingualism, for interface designers to decide which foreign-language reviews to show first (if any) and how ratings from multiple languages should be averaged (if at all). At the same time, it is important to remember that many Internet users are bilingual [5,6]-perhaps even the majority [1,4]-and, designers should allow multilingual users access to content in their multiple languages.…”

“…For many large user-generated content platforms, less than half the content is in English [7,8] and many users do not speak English as a native language [5,6]. As Internet-penetration rates are already high in most Englishspeaking countries, future user growth (and the content contributed by these users) will be predominantly in nonEnglish languages [3].…”

Does Astronomy research become too dated for the public? Wikipedia citations to Astronomy and Astrophysics journal articles 1996-2014

“…Nonetheless, there are multilingual editors that contribute to multiple different versions or translate one version to another. They are especially important for smaller language versions of Wikipedia (Hale, 2014). Thus, although the language versions of Wikipedia can be independent, in practice there are likely to be substantial overlaps and patches of essentially identical pages.…”

Observing Social Machines Part 2

“…Many examples of individual social machines have received attention in the Web Science community, including Wikipedia [2], the Mechanical Turk [3], and Tumblr [4]. The methodologies for studying social machines are also discussed, for example in the development of Web Observatories [5][6].…”