News

Category: Projects/Initiatives

Artificial intelligence service “ORES” gives Wikipedians X-ray specs to see through bad edits

When anyone can edit any page of one of the biggest websites in the world, how can you evaluate all those changes? A Wikimedia Foundation research scientist and a team of volunteers has developed an artificial intelligence service to handle some of the highest-volume crowdsourcing issues on the internet.

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Engaging women to narrow the gender gap: Andrea Kleiman

Since 2011, Kleiman has contributed tens of thousands of edits and arranged workshops for women in Argentina and Uruguay.

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News on Wikipedia: Editors document Kansas City Royals’ World Series win

This week, the Kansas City Royals defeated the New York Mets to claim their first World Series in thirty years—and Wikipedia's editors were quick to react to the news.

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See the stunning winning photographs from Wiki Loves Earth 2015

Wiki Loves Earth, a photo competition where participants picture protected areas and upload their photos to Wikimedia Commons, was held internationally for the second time in 2015 and gathered 26 countries. The contest is over, and we are now able to present the international winners.

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Should I pay for a Wikipedia article?

At the end of August, volunteer editors on the English Wikipedia blocked 381 user accounts for so-called “black hat” editing—or more specifically, undisclosed paid advocacy. As the Wikimedia Foundation’s blog post defined it, undisclosed paid advocacy is “the practice of accepting or charging money to promote external interests on Wikipedia without revealing their affiliation, in violation of….

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The first smile and photobomb ever photographed

Six months of work at the National Library of Wales is already showing great benefits.

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Writing an open-access encyclopedia in a closed-access world

On Friday, Elsevier, one of the world’s largest academic publishers, announced its recent partnership with the Wikipedia Library—a program that helps editors access reliable sources to improve Wikipedia. The collaboration gave 45 ScienceDirect accounts to Wikipedia volunteers, to use the database’s scholarly literature for research when writing and editing the encyclopedia. The announcement led to….

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Hundreds of “black hat” English Wikipedia accounts blocked following investigation

After weeks of investigation, volunteer editors on English Wikipedia announced today that they blocked 381 user accounts for undisclosed paid advocacy.

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Despite headlines, frequent edits don’t cause inaccuracy

Wikipedia is the encyclopedia anyone can edit. It didn’t surprise us to learn that articles considered to be controversial are frequently edited.

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Wikipedia is better equipped to deal with systemic bias than traditional publishers

In 2010, the artists Ditte Ejlerskov and EvaMarie Lindahl contacted Taschen, a book publisher, to point out that out of 97 volumes published in the Basic Art series, only five included women: Tamara de Lempicka, Maria Helena Vieira da Silva, Frida Kahlo, Georgia O’Keeffe, and Jeanne-Claude (who shares a volume and a Wikipedia article with her collaborator and husband Christo). Taschen asked the pair about which….

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