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Wikipedia International: How Editorial Wars Vary Dramatically By Language

A study has identified the online encyclopedia's most controverial topics by language. Ironically, the study may also offer clues for all about how to resolve conflicts.

Online squabbles
Online squabbles
David Larousserie

PARIS — Wikipedia is more than a popular online encyclopedia. It is also a battlefield for intellectuals, as the volunteer editors who create the content correct each other without end until they finally reach a hypothetical consensus.

Yet, according to an international team of researchers from the Universities of Oxford and Budapest, the subjects of these fights vary widely depending on the language. The research, carried out as part of the European project ICTeCollective, quantifies the differences in the nature of controversial subjects, according to both geographical and cultural origins.

People don’t brawl over the same topics on the French Wikipedia as they do on the German, Hebrew or Czech versions. The French squabble mostly about political and ideological subjects, such as Ségolène Royal (the 2007 Socialist Party presidential candidate who lost to Nicolas Sarkozy), socialism or Russian President Vladimir Putin. The Spanish, on the other hand, relish arguments about sport, while Arab speakers quarrel over religion.

Ten different languages were selected for the study, and 57% of the 1,000 “hot” topics identified were related to politics, religion and territory. Music, books and cinema accounted for 11%, while 6% had to do with science and technology. Of the 100 most contentious subjects, the French only share two with the Germans, the English and the Spanish: homeopathy and Jesus. With the Germans only, the French share a vivid passion for psychoanalysis, Osama Bin Laden, Roger Federer and racism. And along with the Spanish, the French get worked up about Augusto Pinochet. As a matter of fact, 81% of the 100 most controversial subjects in French are exclusively “national” and not shared with English, German or Spanish.

Less monolithic

The long article (published on arXiv.org), which will be included in a book about Wikipedia in 2014, swarms with figures and charts. The method established by the research team in 2012 consists of attributing a unique footprint to each version of an article so that they can later analyze, for instance, how many times a specific version came back online. That data would show that an editor has been fighting with another by republishing an older version of the article.

“These specialists offer an operational definition of contentious topics, independently from languages,” explains Alexandre Hocquet from the University of Lorraine who has been involved in some of Wikipedia’s editorial wars. “It is thus possible to compare, which makes our vision of Wikipedia less monolithic.”

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Photo: mikeedesign

This method had already enabled researchers to study the dynamic of controversies — in other words, slow consensus, impossible consensus or one with pauses and resumption of hostilities, etc. This time, they looked at Wikipedia articles that had been published before March 2010 in 10 different languages. It represents about five million texts with 27 million contributors.

The editorial wars that are common to different cultures could thus be quantified by their geographical location. “We were surprised to observe that topics such as religion or territories are a source of conflicts,” says Taha Yasseri, one of the authors of the articles. “We thought that more modern subjects such as science would cause more disputes.”

Janos Kertész, another co-author, says the quantitative results can be interesting to study other fields of collaboration and conflicts, which is an important subject in sociology. “We would also like to test the theoretical model of conflict analysis that we created on other cases than that of Wikipedia,” he says. And from a practical point of view, identifying problems and following them in real time can also be useful to Wikipedia administrators to improve the system’s efficiency.

All these studies are already inspiring the authors, giving them new research ideas. They think that bringing in “foreign” editors could help moderate discussions and end debates. Similarly, it would be useful to resort to discussion lists instead of quarreling, deleting new versions and publishing older ones.

Wikipedia is already a model for large-scale collaborative work, but will it also become a place of experimentation on how to resolve conflicts?

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FOCUS: Russia-Ukraine War

Kherson, Where War Survivors Must Now Escape The Flood

The evacuation of residents from flood-affected localities continues after the destruction of the Nova Kakhovak dam. Evacuees report that they have been bombarded by Russian missiles and fear the presence of mines in the water.

Photo of a woman after the destruction of the Nova Kakhovak dam.

A woman is seen during the aftermath of the destruction of the Nova Kakhovak dam.

Yevhen Buderatsky and Yevhen Rudenko and Yana Osadcha

KHERSON — “Finally, dry land...” The words were repeated by multiple evacuees forced to leave their homes over the past 48 hours in the wake of the explosion that destroyed the Nova Kakhovka dam.

Stay up-to-date with the latest on the Russia-Ukraine war, with our exclusive international coverage.

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For the residents of Kherson and the surrounding area, the past 15 months have included a Russian occupation, Ukrainian liberation, and frequent artillery shelling. But on Tuesday, they woke up to a different kind of test of their survival skills.

The major breach of the dam flooded the settlements near the Dnipro river, forcing thousands to evacuate. The floodwaters have even submerged the low-lying districts of Kherson, the major city in the area, where levels have been known in the past to rise to the second or third floors of apartment buildings.

But now, the flooding is bound to be both more severe, and more widespread. In certain areas, the only mean of transport is by boat.

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