Is Wikidata as transparent as it seems?; Wikimedia Fund-raising drive launches
Wikidata: optimised for machines, not humans
This week, Slate commented on how, with Google sourcing more and more content automatically from databases such as Wikidata, with little human intervention, misinformation can spread quickly (Nov. 30). The article points towards a search for Jerusalem, which comes up with the result "Capital of Israel" in the Google Knowledge Graph, even though the city's status is in fact intensely contested. The author, Mark Graham from the Oxford Internet Institute, argues that as much information and sources are stripped away, it can easily lead to less transparency on where information comes from, and a lack of context when interpreting it.
| “ | ... because of the ease of separating content from containers, the provenance of data is often obscured. Contexts are stripped away, and sources vanish into Google’s black box. For instance, most of the information in Google’s infoboxes on cities doesn’t tell us where the data is sourced from. | ” |
Does the Wikimedia Foundation really need more money?
Following the launch of the Wikimedia Foundation's annual English-speaking fund-raising drive this week, The Washington Post published a piece (December 2), commenting that the language of the banner may well lead readers to think ...
| “ | ... that the world's seventh-largest site risks going dark if you don't donate. In reality, that couldn’t be further from the case | ” |
| “ | At other nonprofits, of course, even those in the media space, fundraising drives rarely provoke such contempt | ” |
In brief
- "Monkey see, monkey sue...?": Arstechnica covers latest developments in the PETA lawsuit against David Slater[citation needed] over the monkey selfies (December 5). PETA asserts that Naruto, the monkey named in their complaint, actually holds the rights, a claim disputed by the defendants, who argue that even if a monkey could hold the copyright, Naruto wasn't the monkey who operated the camera's shutter, and the suit should be dismissed on these grounds alone.
- Vandalism following Syria vote: the Express reports (December 4) that, following a House of Commons vote to authorise air-strikes on Syria, several Labour defectors had their Wikipedia articles vandalised, including Hilary Benn.
- VIP access after Wikipedia vandalism: Several articles, including ones in the Guardian, BBC and Independent, were written about a fan gaining backstage access at a performance by Peking Duk, after adding himself as family on the artist's Wikipedia article (December 3).
- Jimmy Wales to lobby China: Channel News Asia reports (December 2) that Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales plans to fly out to China in the next few weeks to discuss getting Wikipedia unblocked in China.
- Artificial Intelligence tool launched: MIT Technology Review (November 30), the BBC (December 2) and others reported on the launch of ORES (Objective Revision Evaluation Service) this week. The tool aims to automatically flag up low-quality edits to articles. (Read more in The Wikimedia Blog.)
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