2025:Program/Is the Wikipedia Library being used well?
Session title: Is the Wikipedia Library being used well?
- Session type: Lightning talk
- Track: Lightning Talk Showcase
- Language: en
We now have a plethora of resources on the Wikipedia Library but is that largess actually feeding well into the projects? I suggest that Wikipedia "reading clubs" might be needed to browse through material and I also have a feature suggestion based on ant-foraging behaviour that might help increase the efficiency with which editors find and share information resources.
Description
An informal analysis of just one of the Wikipedia Library resources, the JHU MUSE project, suggests that a large amount of material is not even being used on Wikipedia articles. Perhaps Wikipedia editors could form interest-specific reading groups to better process the sources. Perhaps AI could examine new publications and suggest relevant articles to improve. And perhaps we can improve the Wikipedia interface to alert other editors to the discovery of valuable sources.
- How does your session relate to the event theme, Wikimania@20 – Inclusivity. Impact. Sustainability?
I think there are many people out on the Internet who do not know about Wikipedia Library and there is a substantial number of book readers and bibliophiles who do not edit Wikipedia. They are an important target audience who can be invited into the project in new ways.
- What is the experience level needed for the audience for your session?
Everyone can participate in this session
Resources
Speakers
- Shyamal
- An editor on the English Wikipedia for the last couple of decades with an interest in STEM areas particularly around biology, I am also involved in outdoor ecology education. I have been promoting Wikipedia editing especially among the academically-oriented in India.
- My lightning talk at Wikimania will be about the Wikipedia Library and how its use might be enhanced by looking at it through the lens of evolutionary biology with parallels to social organisms, stigmergy, and information foraging.