Wikipedia a trusted source on Ebola; Wikipedia study labeled government waste; football biography goes viral

Noam Cohen reports in The New York Times (October 26) that Wikipedia's "Ebola Virus Disease article has had 17 million page views in the last month," an indication of the public's reliance on the online encyclopedia. The day a second nurse was diagnosed with Ebola in Dallas, the article had 2.5 million views, 60% of the 3.5 million views the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported for their portal on the topic. A Google search for Ebola listed the Wikipedia article first until recent tweaks placed it below the CDC. Cohen's article shows a screen shot from Bing that also places the Ebola Virus Disease article prominently.

In noting that Wikipedia has gone from "the butt of jokes for being the site where visitors could find anything, true or not," to a source of trusted information, Cohen quotes one of the 2004 founders of WikiProject Medicine, Dr. Jacob de Wolff (User:Jfdwolff): "It is because Wikipedia is such a recognized brand — obviously the C.D.C. is still much more authoritative than we will ever be — that people will click on that (Wikipedia) link."

Cohen also quotes Dr. James Heilman (User:Doc James), a Canadian emergency physician and president of the Wiki Project Med Foundation: "Wikipedia is a do-ocracy. Those who do the most, do have a greater influence. A key group of us keep an eye on articles that have become more popular to make sure that Wikipedia’s most-read content is of a reasonably high standard."

Cohen notes that early in Wikipedia's existence, many questioned how much trust could be placed in an "encyclopedia that anyone can edit." However, as it improved over time, Wikipedia has instituted more controls as well. For instance, the Ebola virus disease is semiprotected so that only autoconfirmed users can edit it. Those who are unregistered or non-confirmed users can suggest edits at the "separately maintained page," which is the article's talk page, "where (confirmed) editors ... review them and decide whether to incorporate them." He also notes that editors' scrutiny for the article's sources is more thorough than other articles, and that many "newspaper articles, for example, do not cut it."

A dissenting note came earlier this year from a study in the May issue of the Journal of the American Osteopathic Association which found "many errors" in Wikipedia articles about the ten most costly medical conditions in the US. KAIT reported (October 3) on the study and the comments of Dr. Shane Speights of St. Bernards Medical Center. Speights cited unspecified errors in Wikipedia's Ebola article and objected to the article's use of sources other than "journal articles and studies".

CNN, Bloomberg News, and Buzzfeed are among the media outlets highlighting the appearance of a Wikipedia study on US Senator Tom Coburn's annual "Wastebook". Coburn, a Republican who represents the state of Oklahoma, has been dubbed "Senator No" for his strident opposition to government spending, at times even objecting to otherwise widely popular allocations of government funds, such as relief aid for the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy or funds for the investigation of crimes involving child pornography and civil rights.

Coburn's office annually releases a compilation of government spending on what it dubs "silly, unnecessary, and low priority projects", with attention-grabbing descriptions that often make their way into news headlines. This year's Wastebook, which will be the last due to Coburn's retirement next January, announces on its cover "Monkeys Gambling With Your Money" and "NASA's Out of this World Golf Clubs".

As Roll Call describes it:

Research grants from the National Science Foundation have been a frequent target for Coburn and the Wastebook. The NSF has a $7 billion annual budget, which is about 0.18 percent of US federal government spending. Coburn's Wastebook has described projects and experiments funded by the NSF with colorful phrases like "gambling monkeys" and "mountain lions on a treadmill". Scientists charge that Coburn's descriptions lack "nuance" or are outright misleading, by inadequately describing, omitting, or misrepresenting their scientific value. One scientist targeted by Coburn told Live Science "It is unfortunate and sad that public safety and well-being is being threatened by politicians' hasty efforts to promote their political agendas."

Appearing as number 89 in the 2014 Wastebook are NSF grants totaling $202,000 to sociologists Julia Adams of Yale University and Hannah Brückner of New York University Abu Dhabi for their ongoing study of "systemic gender bias" in Wikipedia (see previous Signpost coverage). Gender bias on Wikipedia has been the subject of much study and conversation on Wikipedia, in the Wikimedia Foundation, and from outside Wikipedia. Of this, the Wastebook cites only Amanda Filipacchi's 2013 New York Times opinion column on Wikipedia's categorization of female novelists (see previous Signpost coverage). The Wastebook counters this with an opinion column from a fellow at the conservative Manhattan Institute for Policy Research which declares that "the New York Times and feminists should stop hyperventilating about the web site's gender gap."

Yahoo! Eurosport UK marveled (October 27) at the lengthy Wikipedia article for nineteen year old footballer Fraser Hobday, goalkeeper for Highland Football League team Huntly F.C.. Media outlets noted that the article, at 3271 words, was longer than Wikipedia articles for notable professional players like Joe Hart. The article contained minute details of his football career dating back to primary school and biographical details such as his current job as a trainee chef. Following the story's publication, Hobday's Wikipedia article was heavily edited, repeatedly vandalized, reduced to two sentences, and proposed for deletion. The article also went viral, making Hobday "something of a folk hero on social media" according to the Daily Mirror (October 28). The Mirror noted the many favorable tweets about Hobday's article, including one from BBC journalist Jeremy Vine: "Far and away the best entry on Wikipedia, ever ever". Hobday spoke to the Daily Mail (October 28), saying that the article was written by his older sister Heather because "We knew Wikipedia doesn't allow you to add your own entries so I can't write it." While many journalists thought that some of the details in Hobday's article were presented humorously, Hobday insisted that the article was a serious one: "it's basically an online CV." Despite this, he said it was the subject of teasing from his teammates: "They'd say 'what's Fraser doing tonight?', 'probably updating his Wikipedia page'." The Daily Telegraph (October 29) noted the irony that while Wikipedia's rules prevent self-promotion such as Hobday's, the article has made him famous, at least temporarily.

Editor's note, November 1: Hobday's article has been deleted by an English Wikipedia administrator after a short deletion discussion.

• "Writing her place": The Pacific Northwest Inlander profiles (October 29) User:Figureskatingfan, her work on articles related to Maya Angelou, and her efforts to address gender bias on Wikipedia.
• "Create, expand, and translate Wikipedia articles related to global affairs": Ann Marie Deer Owens wrote that Vanderbilt Central Library will host their second edit-a-thon in Vanderbilt News (October 29). It will occur on Saturday, November 1, 2014, from 10am-4pm at the Jean and Alexander Heard Library at Vanderbilt University. The edit-a-thon, called “Global Exchanges: Using Wikipedia to Create Worldwide Connections,” is free and the public is invited. The event organizers ask that attendees RSVP here at the event page, where there is additional information about the edit-a-thon.
• Interviews: Re/Code discussed (October 28) its interview with Wikimedia Foundation executive director Lila Tretikov at the Code/Mobile conference. Her predecessor Sue Gardner was interviewed (October 25) by Slush in advance of her appearance at the Slush conference in Helsinki, Finland in November.
• Premature news: Clarín and other Argentinian news outlets are reporting (October 28) on an IP edit on the Spanish Wikipedia predicting a November death for novelist Claudia Piñeiro and her subsequent request for help on Twitter to fix the article and find the identity of the hoaxer.
• Tune in Monday: Jimmy Wales appeared on the October 27 episode of the podcast The James Altucher Show.
• Pakistani Twitter bot: Anum Pasha from The Express Tribune profiles (October 26) Irfan Ahmed, operator of the Twitter bot PakistanEdits. Unlike similar Twitter bots that have been in the news in recent months which retweet edits from particular governmental bodies or organizations (see recent Signpost coverage), PakistanEdits tweets edits from any IP address located within Pakistan. Ahmed hopes to promote the creation of quality Wikipedia content related to Pakistan.
• Another sticky wicket: At Wimbledon this summer, when Maria Sharapova said that she did not know who legendary Indian cricket player Sachin Tendulkar was, she set off a wave of nationalistic internet ire, which has also targeted others who admitted they were unaware of Tendulkar, including actress Hansika Motwani. The Deccan Chronicle reports (October 25) on how Jimmy Wales, unaware of Tendulkar or the controversy, got caught up in it. Wales was posed the question on Quora and replied "I don't think we have ever met. I had to Google his name to find out who he is. I would imagine he'd have to do the same to find out who I am." Wales soon won over outraged commenters by replying to another question by posting the YouTube video of the song "Sachin Anthem" by Dhanush.
• Book grants: The Arabic Literature (in English) blog discusses (October 24) a grant program run by the Wikimedia Foundation and The Wikipedia Library to provide books to editors on the Arabic Wikipedia.
• Editathons: The Sydney Morning Herald reports on the October 24 Art and Feminism Editathon at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney, Australia. The Rocky Mountain Collegian reports on the October 21 editathon at the University of Colorado's Morgan Library.
• Photographing the gender gap: Following an outcry regarding a list of 100 contemporary photographers published on the blog of Selektor Magazine that only included eight women, photographer Tammy Mercure produced her own list of 70 women (October 15) and wrote "I've been slowly making Wikipedia pages for notable woman photographers and it has been really eye-opening on what Wikipedia considers credible resources and how few are available online for undeniably notable women."

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• Both the third and fourth sentences of the article in the New York Times, a US newspaper, mention the World Health Organization (WHO) website as well as that of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the national public health institute of the US. The Signpost story does not mention the WHO website at all. The current Ebola epidemic has caused at least 4,922 deaths, of which one has been in the US. Qwfp (talk) 20:41, 31 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Qwfp, while it is true that the New York Times (NYT) does discuss WHO, the summary that I wrote concentrated on comparing page views for the CDC & Wikipedia. The NYT did not report any page counts for the WHO. I was also writing late at night to ensure I made Wednesday's deadline. If I had more time, I may have written a fuller account.

I have the utmost respect for the WHO. Until recently, I was a part-time reference librarian at a university with a nursing school. When nursing students came to me for international statistics for their epidemiology papers, I always gave them a Google query, like this one for Ebola statistics: (site:who.org OR site:int) -site:wipo.int ebola statistic*. Of course, who.int always was prominent, with a few other international sites appearing further down in the results. In case you were wondering, the "-site:wipo.int" excludes the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), since pages from that source pretty much only refer to drug patents.

While the summary may have come off as North American-centric, I do not think that page views of en.wikipedia are exclusively from that region. The 840,000,000 English speakers (first & second language) is more than double than the combined population of Canada & the U.S.

In the future, I will try to remember the international reach of Wikipedia & include that perspective when appropriate. I also invite you to look at anything that I have written before publication in Signpost. I find that my imperfect work benefits greatly from the polishing of other editors.

Thanks, Peaceray (talk) 05:52, 2 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• Regarding your story "Biography of teenage footballer becomes viral sensation", now the article has been deleted after discussion and overwhelming consensus at that. So viral no more? Newspapers still may mention him, but when you go to see what they are all talking about in Wikipedia, there will be no trace but this sad page: page 1. By the way all history on the page has been removed as well. So you can't go back and see the earlier history at least. But at least we've got his photo in Signpost... werldwayd (talk) 00:40, 2 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• Is anyone else seeing a lot of white space? I tried to fix it but then the politician ended up in the section on the footballer and the footballer got moved to another section.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 21:25, 3 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]