Improving the troubled relationship between Scientists and Wikipedia
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This document discusses improving the relationship between scientists and Wikipedia. It notes that Wikipedia often lacks basic biographical information about notable scientists. A Wikipedian in Residence program was established at the Royal Society to address this issue through edit-a-thons and releasing portraits and data under open licenses. This led to improved coverage of Fellows of the Royal Society on Wikipedia. The document advocates for expanding such programs to other scientific organizations to increase representation of scientists on Wikipedia.
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Improving the troubled relationship between Scientists and Wikipedia
- 1. Improving the troubled relationship between Scientists & Wikipedia Duncan Hull @dullhunk University of Manchester & John Byrne User:Johnbod Wikipedian in Residence Royal Society & CRUK Wikipedia Science Conference @WellcomeTrust London 2nd & 3rd September 2015
- 2. Wikipedia doesn’t love scientists… Wikipedia Scientists
- 3. Wikipedia doesn’t love scientists… Wikipedia Scientists Wikipedia has NOTHING to say about many notable Scientists
- 4. “Mutual Ignorance” Wikipedia Scientists Wikipedia has NOTHING to say about many notable Scientists “I use Wikipedia, but I’m unlikely to edit it”
- 5. The “distorted mirror of Wikipedia”…
- 6. The “distorted mirror of Wikipedia”… “Wikipedia failed in covering notable scholars properly ... might be producing an inaccurate image of academics on the front end of science.” Samoilenko & Yasseri (2014) Quantitative analysis of Wikipedia coverage, EPJ Data Science http://doi.org/66r via the Oxford Internet Institute (OII)
- 7. …typically lack very basic information 1. Education? no X 2. Research? nada X 3. Career? nope X 4. Funding? E.g. orcid.org non X 5. Publications? [Citation-needed] doi.org naw X 6. Collaborators, PhD students & postdocs? nein X 7. Pictures? (CC-BY / CC-BY-SA license) null X If wiki-biographies exist…
- 8. Credit: Randall Munroe https://xkcd.com/773/ Universities typically don’t provide this information…
- 9. https://xkcd.com/773/ Universities typically don’t provide this information… (if you are lucky)
- 10. http://www.phdcomics.com/comics.php?f=1487 “Everything you ever wanted to know about your Professor from ten years ago” –Jorge Cham …Academic homepages don’t either…
- 11. Wikipedia loves celebrities… e.g. every tiny detail of Beckham’s life is documented at http://enwp.org/Dav id_Beckham yet it has nothing to say about equivalent scientists
- 12. Many notable scientists are Fellows of the Royal Society (FRS) Darwin Newton Turing Hodgkin Einstein Hawking Berners-Lee Geim Ramakrishnan Blackburn
- 13. Many notable scientists are Fellows of the Royal Society (FRS) Darwin Newton Turing Hodgkin Einstein Hawking Berners-Lee Geim Ramakrishnan Blackburn approx: 50 new Fellows / year for 350 years 8000 Fellows (since 1660) 1400 Living (FRS) 160 Foreign (ForMemRS) 160 Women 280 Nobels ( )
- 14. “Recognise, promote and support excellence in science and to encourage the development and use of science for the benefit of humanity” “… every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge” Note significant overlap
- 15. How about a Wikipedian in Residence @RoyalSociety?
- 16. How about a Wikipedian in Residence @RoyalSociety? YES!
- 18. Results: Edit-a-thons • 3 public edit-a-thons, focused on diversity particularly Women in Wikipedia • Internal training sessions ran at the Royal Society http://enwp.org/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Royal_Society • Ongoing relationship and understanding between Royal Society and Wikipedia editors
- 19. Results: Data published • 118 high quality, high-resolution portraits published CC-BY-SA (2014 & 2015) • https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Images _released_by_the_Royal_Society • Biographical data published at http://www.royalsociety.org released CC-BY-SA allowing easier re-use on Wikipedia and elsewhere • Journal subscription offer renewed & extended to 75 subscriptions http://enwp.org/Wikipedia:Royal_Society_Journals
- 20. Results: FRS coverage 100% of Female Fellows and FRS from 2014/5 have wiki-biographes On average, 30% of 1000 fellows elected in last 20 years have no wiki-biography at all (300 total)
- 21. Results: Impact • Images (e.g. in 22 different languageshttps://commons.wikime dia.org/wiki/File:Professor_Martin_Hair er_FRS.jpg ) • Data widely re-used and highly visible & accessible
- 22. Results: Impact Data from 1. http://stats.grok.se/ 2. https://tools.wmflabs.org/glamtools/baglama2/ 3. https://blog.wikimedia.org/2014/09/11/new-images-released-are-quickly-put-to-use/ • Images: about 40k page views a month, biggest spike 100k views (due to Fields Medal) • Biography pages: ~1k page views per month (for http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki )
- 24. via Google’s Knowledge Graph using data from Wikipedia Wiki-biographies rank highly in search results, often top result or on the first page
- 25. Where next? • We need more scientist editors to help… – Better reflect Scientists (and Science) in Wikipedia – Create new biographies that don’t exist yet – Improve existing biographies • Maybe if Wikipedia loved scientist a bit more, they might be more inclined to edit it? • More pictures available under CC-BY license e.g. – royalsociety.org/library/collections – https://pictures.royalsociety.org • More learned societies (and funding bodies) to employ wikipedians in residence
- 26. Where next? Wikipedians in residence at European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO), Academy of Medical Sciences, Royal Academy of Engineering, Zoological Society of London, Institute of Physics, Linnean Society, IET, Royal Astronomical Society, Royal Society of Biology… etc
- 27. web wiki-loves-scientists.org.uk twitter @wikiscientists • Wikipedia pages (and data) are used by thousands of people (and machines) around the globe: 26 million page views per hour* • Entertaining to edit biographies of scientists you don’t know personally for Neutral Point of View (NPOV) • Might encourage more scientist editors? *According to https://wikimania2015.wikime dia.org/wiki/Submissions/The _next_million_articles_in_Wik ipedia
- 28. Acknowledgements • Paul Nurse @TheCrick, Francis Bacon, Emma Tennant, David Silverthorne, Aosaf Afzal @RoyalSociety • Martin Poulter, University of Bristol @mlpoulter • Wikimedia UK @WikimediaUK • All the contributors to wiki-biographies (too numerous to mention here)
- 29. Image credits • "Mad scientist transparent background" by Converted to PNG by User:Wapcaplet.Converted from PNG to SVG by User:Antilived.Background removed by User:Zzyzx11. - Image:Mad scientist.svg (Caricature of a mad scientist drawn by User:J.J.). Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mad_scientist_transparent_background.svg • "Broken heart" by Corazón.svg: User:Fibonacciderivative work: Eviatar Bach (talk) - Corazón.svg. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Broken_heart.svg • "Jorge Cham-EPFL mg 2892" by Rama - Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0 fr via Wikimedia Commons - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Jorge_Cham-EPFL_mg_2892.jpg • "GodfreyKneller-IsaacNewton-1689" by Sir Godfrey Kneller - http://www.newton.cam.ac.uk/art/portrait.html. Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:GodfreyKneller-IsaacNewton-1689.jpg • "Charles Darwin by Julia Margaret Cameron 2" by Julia Margaret Cameron - Reprinted in Charles Darwin: His Life Told in an Autobiographical Chapter, and in a Selected Series of His Published Letters, edited by Francis Darwin. London: John Murray, Albemarle Street. 1892.Scanned by User:Davepape. Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Charles_Darwin_by_Julia_Margaret_Cameron_2.jpg • "Beckswimbledon" by Brian MInkoff-London Pixels - Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Beckswimbledon.jpg • "Albert Einstein (Nobel)" by Unknown - Official 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics photograph. Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Albert_Einstein_(Nobel).png • "Alan Turing Aged 16" by Unknown - http://www.turingarchive.org/viewer/?id=521&title=4. Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Alan_Turing_Aged_16.jpg • "Paul Nurse portrait" by Not specified in the OTRS submission - OTRS submission by Ryoko Mandeville on behalf of Paul Nurse. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Paul_Nurse_portrait.jpg • "Dorothy Hodgkin Nobel" by Unknown - http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/chemistry/laureates/1964/. Via Wikipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Dorothy_Hodgkin_Nobel.jpg • "Stephen Hawking.StarChild" by NASA - Original. Source (StarChild Learning Center). Directory listing.. Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Stephen_Hawking.StarChild.jpg • "Sir Tim Berners-Lee" by Paul Clarke - Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sir_Tim_Berners-Lee.jpg • Andre Geim "Andre Geim 2010-1" by Holger Motzkau 2010, Wikipedia/Wikimedia Commons (cc-by-sa-3.0). Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Andre_Geim_2010-1.jpg • "Nobel Prize 2009-Press Conference KVA-08" by © Prolineserver 2010, Wikipedia/Wikimedia Commons (cc-by-sa-3.0). Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Nobel_Prize_2009-Press_Conference_KVA-08.jpg • "Elizabeth Blackburn CHF Heritage Day 2012 Rush 001" by Chemical Heritage Foundation. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons – "Elizabeth Blackburn CHF Heritage Day 2012 Rush 001" by Chemical Heritage Foundation. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Elizabeth_Blackburn_CHF_Heritage_Day_2012_Rush_001.JPG • "Professor Martin Hairer FRS" by Royal Society uploader - Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Professor_Martin_Hairer_FRS.jpg • "WMUK Royal Society Diversity editathon 2014-03-25 05" by Chris McKenna - Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:WMUK_Royal_Society_Diversity_editathon_2014-03-25_05.jpg • "Boys image in a distorting mirror" by Gaius Cornelius - Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Boys_image_in_a_distorting_mirror.jpg • "Nobel Prize" by Photograph: JonathunderMedal: Erik Lindberg (1873-1966) - Derivative of File:NobelPrize.JPG. Via Wikipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Nobel_Prize.png • "Love Heart with arrow" by Nevit Dilmen (talk) - Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Love_Heart_with_arrow.svg
Editor's Notes
- If wikipedia biographies exist they tend to commit at least one of seven deadly sins of omission. Where was the scientists educated? What is their research about? What has their career been and how did they become wikipedia notable? Where did they get their funding from? (can be millions from taxpayers) Where are the publications and results? Who are their collaborators? Who were their PhD students and postdocs? Last but not least, no high quality image of scientist available under an appropriate license
- You might say, so what? Let the Universities provide this information. But Universities often do a bad job of providing this information… as pointed out by Randall Munroe of XKCD
- You’ll be lucky if you can find basic information on a university website
- You might also say, leave the scientists to desribe themselves to the world on their academic homepage. But this are typically very dated and not written from a very neutral point of view (NPOV)
- Compare the situation with how wikipedia LOVES celebrities. The encyclopedia tells you all about EVERY goal David Beckham scored for Manchester United because it CELEBRATES celebrities BUT has NOTHING to say about many leading scientists – this needs to change.
- Where can we go to find notable scientists? The Royal Society. Many distinguished members, nobel laureates from the last 350 years to the present day (not just UK)
- Where can we go to find notable scientists? The Royal Society. Many distinguished members, nobel laureates from the last 350 years to the present day (not just UK)
- The royal society and wikipedia have similar goals (although their approaches are very different)
- I put this to Paul Nurse via an email (never seriously expected a reply)
- Thankfully he agreed and they employed a part-time wikipedian in residence for 6(?) months