2021:Submissions/Spotting and understanding translated material in Wikipedia articles
Speakers[edit | edit source]
Mark Shuttleworth & Janice Pan
Abstract[edit | edit source]
Wikipedia articles covering rapidly-developing news stories can plug important gaps between news reporting and history writing as narratives of increasing complexity gradually take shape. If we compare parallel articles in different language editions we find significant differences in point of view emerging, and it’s certainly not true that the English edition is a gold standard for the others. In all of this, translation, which can lurk in an article as a kind of invisible ‘dark matter’, is often used to add to its point of view. Following the principle of using Wikipedia to study Wikipedia, the lecture discusses how such analysis can probe to the complex narrative(s) of digital history. It will be illustrated from 2-3 article sets.
Session Outcomes[edit | edit source]
Although not always obvious, translation is often present in Wikipedia articles and can play a very significant role. Neutral point of view is basically impossible to achieve. The point of view of each of a set of parallel articles on the same topic will be very likely to be different.