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Wikidatians are born: paths to full participation in a collaborative structured knowledge base

Wikidatians are born: paths to full participation in a collaborative structured knowledge base
Wikidatians are born: paths to full participation in a collaborative structured knowledge base
We investigated how participation evolves in Wikidata as its editors become established members of the community. Originally conceived to support Wikipedia, Wikidata is a collaborative structured knowledge base, created and maintained by a large number of volunteers, whose data can be freely reused in other contexts. Just like in any other online social environment, understanding its contributors’ pathways to full participation helps Wikidata improve user experience and retention.

We analysed how participation changes in time under the frameworks of legitimate peripheral participation and activity theory. We found out that as they engage more with the project, “Wikidatians” acquire a higher sense of responsibility for their work, interact more with the community, take on more advanced tasks, and use a wider range of tools. Previous activity in Wikipedia has varied effects. As Wikidata is a young community, future work should focus on volunteers with little or no experience in similar projects and specify means to improve critical aspects such as engagement and data quality.
4354-4363
University of Hawaiʻi
Piscopo, Alessandro
0cf9852e-96f2-4658-be4d-c7a5ac330c0d
Phethean, Christopher
270f7f09-f94e-4d74-bfbf-2f2700d1572f
Simperl, Elena
40261ae4-c58c-48e4-b78b-5187b10e4f67
Piscopo, Alessandro
0cf9852e-96f2-4658-be4d-c7a5ac330c0d
Phethean, Christopher
270f7f09-f94e-4d74-bfbf-2f2700d1572f
Simperl, Elena
40261ae4-c58c-48e4-b78b-5187b10e4f67

Piscopo, Alessandro, Phethean, Christopher and Simperl, Elena (2017) Wikidatians are born: paths to full participation in a collaborative structured knowledge base. In Proceedings of the 50th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences. University of Hawaiʻi. pp. 4354-4363 . (doi:10.24251/HICSS.2017.527).

Record type: Conference or Workshop Item (Paper)

Abstract

We investigated how participation evolves in Wikidata as its editors become established members of the community. Originally conceived to support Wikipedia, Wikidata is a collaborative structured knowledge base, created and maintained by a large number of volunteers, whose data can be freely reused in other contexts. Just like in any other online social environment, understanding its contributors’ pathways to full participation helps Wikidata improve user experience and retention.

We analysed how participation changes in time under the frameworks of legitimate peripheral participation and activity theory. We found out that as they engage more with the project, “Wikidatians” acquire a higher sense of responsibility for their work, interact more with the community, take on more advanced tasks, and use a wider range of tools. Previous activity in Wikipedia has varied effects. As Wikidata is a young community, future work should focus on volunteers with little or no experience in similar projects and specify means to improve critical aspects such as engagement and data quality.

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Accepted/In Press date: 11 September 2016
e-pub ahead of print date: 4 January 2017
Published date: 4 January 2017
Venue - Dates: 50th Hawaii International conference on Systems Science (HICSS-50), , Honolulu, United States, 2017-01-04 - 2017-01-07
Organisations: Web & Internet Science

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 401755
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/401755
PURE UUID: 27bf49d5-a43d-4445-89e9-16cd144bb0c2
ORCID for Alessandro Piscopo: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0002-0362-4826
ORCID for Christopher Phethean: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0001-7697-6585
ORCID for Elena Simperl: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0003-1722-947X

Catalogue record

Date deposited: 21 Oct 2016 11:13
Last modified: 16 Mar 2024 05:37

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Contributors

Author: Alessandro Piscopo ORCID iD
Author: Elena Simperl ORCID iD

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