1. Q-SORT kick-off meeting
Science and Wikimedia
Q-SORT kick-off meeting
October 2nd 2017
Giuseppe Profiti
Wikimedia Italia
presentarsi

2. Outline
Wikipedia and Wikimedia
History
5 pillars of Wikipedia
Reliability
Sources
Neutral point of view
Peer review
Science and Wikipedia

3. Outline
Wikipedia and Wikimedia
History
5 pillars of Wikipedia
Reliability
Sources
Neutral point of view
Peer review
Science and Wikipedia

4. Enciclopedie tradizionali: limitate dallo spazio, ferme nel tempo
CC-BY-SA 3.0 by Codex (Wikimedia Commons)

5. History: the ancestor Created in 2000 by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger
“Free content”
Expert editors
Peer review

6. History: Wikipedia
In 2001 Wikipedia is launched
Everybody can contribute
Wiki refers to the editing software, allowing distributed writing

7. History: Wikipedia in 2002

8. History: how the two encyclopedias fared
In 1 year:
Nupedia has 12 articles
Wikipedia reaches articles
2003: Nupedia is closed
Wikipedia today:
in English, over 5 milion articles
in Italian, over 1 milion articles

9. Wikipedia and Wikimedia
Wikimedia Foundation
Based in San Francisco
Collects donations
Develops the software and runs the infrastructure
Wikimedia chapters
Affiliated organizations, officially recognized
Run events and promote free and open culture
Example: Wikimedia Italy
Wikipedian in Residence in Museums
Wiki Loves Monuments photographic contest

10. Outline
Wikipedia and Wikimedia
History
5 pillars of Wikipedia
Reliability
Sources
Neutral point of view
Peer review
Science and Wikipedia

11. 5 pillars of Wikipedia
Wikipedia is an encyclopedia
Wikipedia is written from a neutral point of view
Wikipedia is free content that anyone can use, edit, and distribute
Wikipedia's editors should treat each other with respect and civility
Wikipedia has no firm rules

12. Outline
Wikipedia and Wikimedia
History
5 pillars of Wikipedia
Reliability
Sources
Neutral point of view
Peer review
Science and Wikipedia

13. Sources for statements
Not acceptable: “as everybody knows”
Source: where does the information come from?(book, journal, website, etc.)
References: for each statement

15. Outline
Wikipedia and Wikimedia
History
5 pillars of Wikipedia
Reliability
Sources
Neutral point of view
Peer review
Science and Wikipedia

16. Neutral point of view and completeness
“Case” Philip Roth
Edits by advertising agencies and governments
Completeness
Example: on the MPR vaccine, one section about the Wakefield case, so the reader can access sources about it

17. Outline
Wikipedia and Wikimedia
History
5 pillars of Wikipedia
Reliability
Sources
Neutral point of view
Peer review
Science and Wikipedia

18. Peer review “Everybody can edit, then it is not reliable”
Everybody can fix mistakes
Sources and text can be compared
Edit history helps
“Amateurs can edit experts’ text”
Both need to provide sources supporting the text
Il primo è un esempio di slippery slope
Il secondo è un appello all'autorità, come se i grandi saggisti non avessero editor per i tomi che pubblicano.
No true scotsman: “non è esperto” “non è esperto in quel settore” ecc ecc
Manca “è piena di cultura pop e poca scienza”

19. Reliability
Pharmacology articles get 99.7% accuracy, compared to university textbooks
Kräenbring, J., et al, “Accuracy and Completeness of Drug Information in Wikipedia: A Comparison with Standard Textbooks of Pharmacology”. PLoS One 9. doi: /journal.pone
Articles on controversial topics are edited often
Wilson, A.M., Likens, G.E., “Content Volatility of Scientific Topics in Wikipedia: A Cautionary Tale”. PLoS One 10, e doi: /journal.pone

20. Outline
Wikipedia and Wikimedia
History
5 pillars of Wikipedia
Reliability
Sources
Neutral point of view
Peer review
Science and Wikipedia

21. Academy and Wikipedia
Among first results for 70% of search results for queries including keywords about health and diseases
Laurent, Michaël R., and Tim J. Vickers. "Seeking health information online: does Wikipedia matter?." Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association 16.4 (2009):
Most checked resource in medical field
Heilman, James M., and Andrew G. West. "Wikipedia and medicine: quantifying readership, editors, and the significance of natural language." Journal of medical Internet research 17.3 (2015): e62.
It is used a information source by 50 to 70% of medical doctors in Canada
Heilman, James M., et al. "Wikipedia: a key tool for global public health promotion." Journal of medical Internet research 13.1 (2011): e14

22. Academy and Wikipedia /2
PFAM imports and exports data to it
Subject in at least 6234 papers
Useful to increase students’ writing skills
Azzam, Amin et al. “Why Medical Schools Should Embrace Wikipedia: Final- Year Medical Student Contributions to Wikipedia Articles for Academic Credit at One School.” Academic Medicine 92.2 (2017): 194–200. PMC. Web. 10 Apr
International Society for Computational Biology (ISCB) runs edit-a-thons at their annual meeting
PLOS Computational Biology and PLOS Genetics have “Topic pages”

23. Academy and Wikipedia /3
Wikipedia may shape the language of science
Thompson, Neil and Hanley, Douglas, Science Is Shaped by Wikipedia: Evidence from a Randomized Control Trial (September 19, 2017). Available at SSRN:
Nature News doi: /nature
Not only articles
Wikimedia Commons hosts pictures
Useful for reaching out to the wide public
Wikidata hosts linked information
Wikiversity and Wikibooks host courses and manuals

24. NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, CC-BY-SA

25. Questions? Giuseppe Profiti giuseppe.profiti@wikimedia.it
Thank you!
Questions?
Giuseppe Profiti