DC Session 2 Wikimedia

Sunoikisis Digital Classics, Spring 2020

Session 2. Using Wikipedia and other Wikimedia data in research

Thursday Jan 23, 16:00 UK = 17:00 CET

Convenors: Gabriel Bodard, Emma Bridges (Institute of Classical Studies), Pietro Liuzzo (Hamburg), Richard Nevell (Wikimedia Foundation)

YouTube link: https://youtu.be/PG8mrk1NUnU

Slides: Emma's

Session outline

1. Using Wikipedia in research
2. The Wikimedia family of projects and Linked Open Data
3. Editing Wikipedia, discussion
4. Case study: Women's Classical Committee
5. Case study: Crosscultural Afterlives of Classical Sites
6. Exercise

In preparation for this session, please create an account on Wikipedia, if you do not already have one. Whatever you do, please do not wait to create a new account at the last minute in the classroom, as this is likely to trigger anti-bot software!

Seminar readings

• Heberlein, Regine (2019). "On the Flipside: Wikidata for Cultural Heritage Metadata through the Example of Numismatic Description." IFLA WLIC 2019 - Athens, Greece - Libraries: dialogue for change in Session 206 - Art Libraries with Subject Analysis and Access. Available: http://library.ifla.org/id/eprint/2492
• Pietro Maria Liuzzo, Andrea Zanni etal. (2014), "The EAGLE Mediawiki." In Information Technologies for Epigraphy and Cultural Heritage Proceedings of the First EAGLE International Conference (edd. Orlandi, Santucci, et al.). La Sapienza Università Editrice. Pp. 187–201. Available: https://www.eagle-network.eu/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/Paris-Conference-Proceedings.pdf

Further reading

• Anon (2016). "Gender by Language" Wikidata Human Gender Indicators. Available: http://whgi.wmflabs.org/gender-by-language.html
• Tilmar Bayer (2015). "How many women edit Wikipedia?" Wikimedia Foundation Blog. Available: https://blog.wikimedia.org/2015/04/30/how-many-women-edit-wikipedia
• Bosse, A. (2019). "Standards: Dimensions of Data: Place." In edd. Hotson & Wallnig, Reassembling the Republic of Letters in the Digital Age. Göttingen University Press. Pp. 79–96. Available: https://doi.org/10.17875/gup2019-1146 [Discusses aligning gazetteer to Wikidata]
• Dunn, S. And Hedges, M. (2013). "Crowd-sourcing as a Component of Humanities Research Infrastructures." International Journal of Humanities and Arts Computing 7.1, 147-169. Available: http://dx.doi.org/10.3366/ijhac.2013.0086
• Lori Jones & Rochard Nevell (2016). "Plagued by Doubt and Viral Misinformation: The Need for Evidence-based Use of Historical Disease Images." The Lancet Infectious Diseases 16(10), pp. e235–e240. Available: http://hdl.handle.net/10871/27873
• Leonard, Victora (2019). "How can historians achieve inclusivity in digital archives?" Historical Transactions 2019-12-16. Available: https://blog.royalhistsoc.org/2019/12/16/how-can-historians-achieve-inclusivity-in-digital-archives/
• Martin L. Poulter (2017). "Probing Parliament(s) with Wikidata." Wiki Playtime 2017-02-07. Available: https://medium.com/wiki-playtime/probing-parliament-s-with-wikidata-8cdb54e5221b
• Neil Thompson & Douglas Hanley (2018). "Science Is Shaped by Wikipedia: Evidence From a Randomized Control Trial." MIT Sloan Research Paper No. 5238-17. Available http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3039505 (not OA)
• The WCC project page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Women%27s_Classical_Committee/Tools_and_guides

Exercise

1. Create an account on Wikipedia, and log in.
2. Either create a new page of your own, or expand one which needs further detail, on a topic of academic interest to you.
   • If you wish to create a new page you could start by looking at one of the lists of ‘red links’ which identify pages which need creating. The #WCCWiki project has a list of pages to create/expand here. There are also lists of Wikipedia red links by topic; those which may be of interest include archaeology, literature and philosophy.
   • For short articles that you may improve, you can browse the many “stub” categories in Wikipedia. For example there are many stub pages under Greek mythology, Ancient Roman People, Archaeology, Classical Studies. The most recently created pages in WCC are also likely to need improvement.
3. For either your newly-created page or the page you have edited which was created by someone else, add it to your watchlist by clicking on the ‘Watchlist’ link at the top of the page. You will then receive notifications when someone makes a change to the page. Over the rest of the semester, observe the changes which are made to the page (remember to take a look at the ‘Talk’ page as well as the main content, as this is where editors will post notes about issues) and be prepared to discuss these in class. You can also get a clear idea of exactly what changes have been made by clicking the ‘View history’ tab for your page, and then comparing selected revisions.
4. You are also encouraged to look at each other’s pages, contribute to the discussion pages, and suggest things your colleagues might improve. This is a collaborative exercise!