Towards a diversity-minded Wikipedia.

ABSTRACTWikipedia is a top-ten Web site providing a free encyclopedia created by an open community of volunteer contributors. As investigated in various studies over the past years, contributors have different backgrounds, mindsets and biases; however, the effects - positive and negative - of this diversity on the quality of the Wikipedia content, and on the sustainability of the overall project are yet only partially understood. In this paper we discuss these effects through an analysis of existing scholarly literature in the area and identify directions for future research and development; we also present an approach for diversity-minded content management within Wikipedia that combines techniques from semantic technologies, data and text mining and quantitative social dynamics analysis to create greater awareness of diversity-related issues within the Wikipedia community, give readers access to indicators and metrics to understand biases and their impact on the quality of Wikipedia articles, and support editors in achieving balanced versions of these articles that leverage the wealth of knowledge and perspectives inherent to large-scale collaboration.