This paper (first reference) is the result of a class project I was part of
almost two years ago for CSCI 5417 Information Retrieval Systems. It builds
on a class project I did in CSCI 5832 Natural Language Processing and which
I presented at Wikimania '07. The project was very late as we didn't send
the final paper in until the day before new years. This technical report was
never really announced that I recall so I thought it would be interesting to
look briefly at the results. The goal of this paper was to break articles
down into surface features and latent features and then use those to study
the rating system being used, predict article quality and rank results in a
search engine. We used the [[random forests]] classifier which allowed us to
analyze the contribution of each feature to performance by looking directly
at the weights that were assigned. While the surface analysis was performed
on the whole english wikipedia, the latent analysis was performed on the
simple english wikipedia (it is more expensive to compute). = Surface
features = * Readability measures are the single best predictor of quality
that I have found, as defined by the Wikipedia Editorial Team (WET). The
[[Automated Readability Index]], [[Gunning Fog Index]] and [[Flesch-Kincaid
Grade Level]] were the strongest predictors, followed by length of article
html, number of paragraphs, [[Flesh Reading Ease]], [[Smog Grading]], number
of internal links, [[Laesbarhedsindex Readability Formula]], number of words
and number of references. Weakly predictive were number of to be's, number
of sentences, [[Coleman-Liau Index]], number of templates, PageRank, number
of external links, number of relative links. Not predictive (overall - see
the end of section 2 for the per-rating score breakdown): Number of h2 or
h3's, number of conjunctions, number of images*, average word length, number
of h4's, number of prepositions, number of pronouns, number of interlanguage
links, average syllables per word, number of nominalizations, article age
(based on page id), proportion of questions, average sentence length. :*
Number of images was actually by far the single strongest predictor of any
class, but only for Featured articles. Because it was so good at picking out
featured articles and somewhat good at picking out A and G articles the
classifier was confused in so many cases that the overall contribution of
this feature to classification performance is zero. :* Number of external
links is strongly predictive of Featured articles. :* The B class is highly
distinctive. It has a strong "signature," with high predictive value
assigned to many features. The Featured class is also very distinctive. F, B
and S (Stop/Stub) contain the most information.
:* A is the least distinct class, not being very different from F or G. =
Latent features = The algorithm used for latent analysis, which is an
analysis of the occurence of words in every document with respect to the
link structure of the encyclopedia ("concepts"), is [[Latent Dirichlet
Allocation]]. This part of the analysis was done by CS PhD student Praful
Mangalath. An example of what can be done with the result of this analysis
is that you provide a word (a search query) such as "hippie". You can then
look at the weight of every article for the word hippie. You can pick the
article with the largest weight, and then look at its link network. You can
pick out the articles that this article links to and/or which link to this
article that are also weighted strongly for the word hippie, while also
contributing maximally to this articles "hippieness". We tried this query in
our system (LDA), Google (site:en.wikipedia.org hippie), and the Simple
English Wikipedia's Lucene search engine. The breakdown of articles occuring
in the top ten search results for this word for those engines is: * LDA
only: [[Acid rock]], [[Aldeburgh Festival]], [[Anne Murray]], [[Carl
Radle]], [[Harry Nilsson]], [[Jack Kerouac]], [[Phil Spector]], [[Plastic
Ono Band]], [[Rock and Roll]], [[Salvador Allende]], [[Smothers brothers]],
[[Stanley Kubrick]]. * Google only: [[Glam Rock]], [[South Park]]. * Simple
only: [[African Americans]], [[Charles Manson]], [[Counterculture]], [[Drug
use]], [[Flower Power]], [[Nuclear weapons]], [[Phish]], [[Sexual
liberation]], [[Summer of Love]] * LDA & Google & Simple: [[Hippie]],
[[Human Be-in]], [[Students for a democratic society]], [[Woodstock
festival]] * LDA & Google: [[Psychedelic Pop]] * Google & Simple: [[Lysergic
acid diethylamide]], [[Summer of Love]] ( See the paper for the articles
produced for the keywords philosophy and economics ) = Discussion /
Conclusion = * The results of the latent analysis are totally up to your
perception. But what is interesting is that the LDA features predict the WET
ratings of quality just as well as the surface level features. Both feature
sets (surface and latent) both pull out all almost of the information that
the rating system bears. * The rating system devised by the WET is not
distinctive. You can best tell the difference between, grouped together,
Featured, A and Good articles vs B articles. Featured, A and Good articles
are also quite distinctive (Figure 1). Note that in this study we didn't
look at Start's and Stubs, but in earlier paper we did. :* This is
interesting when compared to this recent entry on the YouTube blog. "Five
Stars Dominate Ratings"
http://youtube-global.blogspot.com/2009/09/five-stars-dominate-ratings.html…
I think a sane, well researched (with actual subjects) rating system
is
well within the purview of the Usability Initiative. Helping people find and
create good content is what Wikipedia is all about. Having a solid rating
system allows you to reorganized the user interface, the Wikipedia
namespace, and the main namespace around good content and bad content as
needed. If you don't have a solid, information bearing rating system you
don't know what good content really is (really bad content is easy to spot).
:* My Wikimania talk was all about gathering data from people about articles
and using that to train machines to automatically pick out good content. You
ask people questions along dimensions that make sense to people, and give
the machine access to other surface features (such as a statistical measure
of readability, or length) and latent features (such as can be derived from
document word occurence and encyclopedia link structure). I referenced page
262 of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance to give an example of the
kind of qualitative features I would ask people. It really depends on what
features end up bearing information, to be tested in "the lab". Each word is
an example dimension of quality: We have "*unity, vividness, authority,
economy, sensitivity, clarity, emphasis, flow, suspense, brilliance,
precision, proportion, depth and so on.*" You then use surface and latent
features to predict these values for all articles. You can also say, when a
person rates this article as high on the x scale, they also mean that it has
has this much of these surface and these latent features.
= References =
- DeHoust, C., Mangalath, P., Mingus., B. (2008). *Improving search in
Wikipedia through quality and concept discovery*. Technical Report.
PDF<http://grey.colorado.edu/mediawiki/sites/mingus/images/6/68/DeHoustMangalat…>
- Rassbach, L., Mingus., B, Blackford, T. (2007). *Exploring the
feasibility of automatically rating online article quality*. Technical
Report. PDF<http://grey.colorado.edu/mediawiki/sites/mingus/images/d/d3/RassbachPincock…>
Hoi,
I have asked and received permission to forward to you all this most
excellent bit of news.
The linguist list, is a most excellent resource for people interested in the
field of linguistics. As I mentioned some time ago they have had a funding
drive and in that funding drive they asked for a certain amount of money in
a given amount of days and they would then have a project on Wikipedia to
learn what needs doing to get better coverage for the field of linguistics.
What you will read in this mail that the total community of linguists are
asked to cooperate. I am really thrilled as it will also get us more
linguists interested in what we do. My hope is that a fraction will be
interested in the languages that they care for and help it become more
relevant. As a member of the "language prevention committee", I love to get
more knowledgeable people involved in our smaller projects. If it means that
we get more requests for more projects we will really feel embarrassed with
all the new projects we will have to approve because of the quality of the
Incubator content and the quality of the linguistic arguments why we should
approve yet another language :)
NB Is this not a really clever way of raising money; give us this much in
this time frame and we will then do this as a bonus...
Thanks,
GerardM
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: LINGUIST Network <linguist(a)linguistlist.org>
Date: Jun 18, 2007 6:53 PM
Subject: 18.1831, All: Call for Participation: Wikipedia Volunteers
To: LINGUIST(a)listserv.linguistlist.org
LINGUIST List: Vol-18-1831. Mon Jun 18 2007. ISSN: 1068 - 4875.
Subject: 18.1831, All: Call for Participation: Wikipedia Volunteers
Moderators: Anthony Aristar, Eastern Michigan U <aristar(a)linguistlist.org>
Helen Aristar-Dry, Eastern Michigan U <hdry(a)linguistlist.org>
Reviews: Laura Welcher, Rosetta Project
<reviews(a)linguistlist.org>
Homepage: http://linguistlist.org/
The LINGUIST List is funded by Eastern Michigan University,
and donations from subscribers and publishers.
Editor for this issue: Ann Sawyer <sawyer(a)linguistlist.org>
================================================================
To post to LINGUIST, use our convenient web form at
http://linguistlist.org/LL/posttolinguist.html
===========================Directory==============================
1)
Date: 18-Jun-2007
From: Hannah Morales < hannah(a)linguistlist.org >
Subject: Wikipedia Volunteers
-------------------------Message 1 ----------------------------------
Date: Mon, 18 Jun 2007 12:49:35
From: Hannah Morales < hannah(a)linguistlist.org >
Subject: Wikipedia Volunteers
Dear subscribers,
As you may recall, one of our Fund Drive 2007 campaigns was called the
"Wikipedia Update Vote." We asked our viewers to consider earmarking their
donations to organize an update project on linguistics entries in the
English-language Wikipedia. You can find more background information on this
at:
http://linguistlist.org/donation/fund-drive2007/wikipedia/index.cfm.
The speed with which we met our goal, thanks to the interest and generosity
of
our readers, was a sure sign that the linguistics community was enthusiastic
about the idea. Now that summer is upon us, and some of you may have a bit
more
leisure time, we are hoping that you will be able to help us get started on
the
Wikipedia project. The LINGUIST List's role in this project is a purely
organizational one. We will:
*Help, with your input, to identify major gaps in the Wikipedia materials or
pages that need improvement;
*Compile a list of linguistics pages that Wikipedia editors have identified
as
"in need of attention from an expert on the subject" or " does not cite any
references or sources," etc;
*Send out periodical calls for volunteer contributors on specific topics or
articles;
*Provide simple instructions on how to upload your entries into Wikipedia;
*Keep track of our project Wikipedians;
*Keep track of revisions and new entries;
*Work with Wikimedia Foundation to publicize the linguistics community's
efforts.
We hope you are as enthusiastic about this effort as we are. Just to help us
all
get started looking at Wikipedia more critically, and to easily identify an
area
needing improvement, we suggest that you take a look at the List of
Linguists
page at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_linguists. M
Many people are not listed there; others need to have more facts and
information
added. If you would like to participate in this exciting update effort,
please
respond by sending an email to LINGUIST Editor Hannah Morales at
hannah(a)linguistlist.org, suggesting what your role might be or which
linguistics
entries you feel should be updated or added. Some linguists who saw our
campaign
on the Internet have already written us with specific suggestions, which we
will
share with you soon.
This update project will take major time and effort on all our parts. The
end
result will be a much richer internet resource of information on the breadth
and
depth of the field of linguistics. Our efforts should also stimulate
prospective
students to consider studying linguistics and to educate a wider public on
what
we do. Please consider participating.
Sincerely,
Hannah Morales
Editor, Wikipedia Update Project
Linguistic Field(s): Not Applicable
-----------------------------------------------------------
LINGUIST List: Vol-18-1831
Hoi,
There is a request for a Wikipedia in Ancient Greek. This request has so far
been denied. A lot of words have been used about it. Many people maintain
their positions and do not for whatever reason consider the arguments of
others.
In my opinion their are a few roadblocks.
- Ancient Greek is an ancient language - the policy does not allow for
it
- Text in ancient Greek written today about contemporary subjects
require the reconstruction of Ancient Greek.
- it requires the use of existing words for concepts that did
not exist at the time when the language was alive
- neologisms will be needed to describe things that did not
exist at the time when the language was alive
- modern texts will not represent the language as it used to be
- Constructed and by inference reconstructed languages are effectively
not permitted
We can change the policy if there are sufficient arguments, when we agree on
a need.
When a text is written in reconstructed ancient Greek, and when it is
clearly stated that it is NOT the ancient Greek of bygone days, it can be
obvious that it is a great tool to learn skills to read and write ancient
Greek but that it is in itself not Ancient Greek. Ancient Greek as a
language is ancient. I have had a word with people who are involved in the
working group that deals with the ISO-639, I have had a word with someone
from SIL and it is clear that a proposal for a code for "Ancient Greek
reconstructed" will be considered for the ISO-639-3. For the ISO-639-6 a
code is likely to be given because a clear use for this code can be given.
We can apply for a code and as it has a use bigger then Wikipedia alone it
clearly has merit.
With modern texts clearly labelled as distinct from the original language,
it will be obvious that innovations a writers needs for his writing are
legitimate.
This leaves the fact that constructed and reconstructed languages are not
permitted because of the notion that mother tongue users are required. In my
opinion, this has always been only a gesture to those people who are dead
set against any and all constructed languages. In the policies there is
something vague "*it must have a reasonable degree of recognition as
determined by discussion (this requirement is being discussed by the language
subcommittee <http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Language_subcommittee>)."* It
is vague because even though the policy talks about a discussion, it is
killed off immediately by stating "The proposal has a sufficient number of
living native speakers to form a viable community and audience." In my
opinion, this discussion for criteria for the acceptance of constructed or
reconstructed languages has not happened. Proposals for objective criteria
have been ignored.
In essence, to be clear about it:
- We can get a code for reconstructed languages.
- We need to change the policy to allow for reconstructed and
constructed languages
We need to do both in order to move forward.
The proposal for objective criteria for constructed and reconstructed
languages is in a nutshell:
- The language must have an ISO-639-3 code
- We need full WMF localisation from the start
- The language must be sufficiently expressive for writing a modern
encyclopaedia
- The Incubator project must have sufficiently large articles that
demonstrate both the language and its ability to write about a wide range of
topics
- A sufficiently large group of editors must be part of the Incubator
project
Thanks,
GerardM
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Hello all!
Next Thursday's office hours will feature Véronique Kessler, the
Foundation's Chief Financial Officer. If you don't know
Naoko, you can get to know her at
<http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/V%C3%A9ronique_Kessler>.
Office hours on Thursday are from 2100 to 2200 UTC (3:00 PM - 4:00 PM PDT).
If you do not have an IRC client, there are two ways you can come chat
using a web browser: First is using the Wikizine chat gateway at
<http://chatwikizine.memebot.com/cgi-bin/cgiirc/irc.cgi>. Type a
nickname, select irc.freenode.net from the top menu and
#wikimedia-office from the following menu, then login to join.
Also, you can access Freenode by going to http://webchat.freenode.net/,
typing in the nickname of your choice and choosing wikimedia-office as
the channel. You may be prompted to click through a security warning.
It should be all right.
Please feel free to forward (and translate!) this email to any other
relevant email lists you happen to be on. Also note, this is
Veronique's first foray into IRC, so lets show her how welcoming we can
be! :-)
- --
Cary Bass
Volunteer Coordinator, Wikimedia Foundation
Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate
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Hi everyone,
The next strategic planning office hours are:
Tuesday from 20:00-21:00 UTC, which is:
Tuesday, 12-1pm PST
Tuesday, 3pm-4pm EST
There has been a lot of tremendous work on the strategy wiki the past
few months, and Task Forces are finishing up their work.
Office hours will be a great opportunity to discuss the work that's
happened as well as the work to come.
As always, you can access the chat by going to
https://webchat.freenode.net and filling in a username and the channel
name (#wikimedia-strategy). You may be prompted to click through a
security warning. It's fine. More details at:
http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/IRC_office_hours
Thanks! Hope to see many of you there.
____________________
Philippe Beaudette
Facilitator, Strategy Project
Wikimedia Foundation
philippe(a)wikimedia.org
mobile: 918 200-WIKI (9454)
Imagine a world in which every human being can freely share in
the sum of all knowledge. Help us make it a reality!
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate
As Liam said: Beautiful document. To enhance it for the non-English
speakers, is it possible to translate it? I began (for the French
language) but it would be a waste of time if it cannot be published in
French, or at least indicated on [1] there is a (eventually
unofficial) French version. There is also a lot of page layout which
must be adapted (are the sources of the PDF available? in a
Scribus/InDesign/other format).
Sébastien/Seb35
[1] http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Annual_Report
> From: Jay Walsh <jwalsh(a)wikimedia.org>
> To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List <foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
> Date: Fri, 22 Jan 2010 17:09:45 -0800
> Subject: [Foundation-l] 2008/2009 Wikimedia Foundation Annual Report
> Hi all,
>
> In the next day or so Rand and the fundraising team will be sending out an email to all of our donors (about 230,000 - thanks to a tremendous fundraiser) recapping the campaign sharing our 2nd annual report, which you can also read here:
>
> http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Annual_Report
>
> As with our previous year's report, we make an effort to describe the year's activities, our major accomplishments, our financial successes, and where we're heading in the coming year/years. This is a crucial tool for our fundraisers and for building strong relationships with our major stakeholders, and of course to let our chapters and our vast community of volunteers get a snapshot of our work. It's primarily intended to work as a print document, and one that quickly presents top-line data and key information, as well as a basic structured narrative about the Foundation and our volunteer community's work.
>
> You'll note that our report is out later than last year, and this isn't a pattern we'll duplicate :) We did spend more time on design and narrative this year, with the intention of bringing more depth to the story, especially in features like the center-spread anatomy of an article. We also wanted to put more of a forward-facing direction on the report. Optimally our report will always come out 2-3 months after the close of fiscal, as soon as our audited statements are complete.
>
> There's still more good work to be done, but it's a big leap from last year. This year's designers David Peters and Rhonda Rubenstein did a great job (collectively known as 'ExBrook design' here in SF http://www.exbrook.com/). Lane Hartwell's ccbysa photos feature prominently - she's been shooting our staff portraits for the last two years (http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Photography_by_Lane_Hartwell).
>
> We'll be starting work on the next edition in a few months. About 1500 copies will be printed here in the next week or so. We'll be sure to bring copies to the chapter meeting and of course Wikimania. We can ship some copies out as well if there's interest (but in limited quantities only, it's a pricy shipment after 10 locations :)
>
> Looking forward to hearing your thoughts!
>
> --
> Jay Walsh
> Head of Communications
> WikimediaFoundation.org
> blog.wikimedia.org
> +1 (415) 839 6885 x 609, @jansonw
Hi all,
In the next day or so Rand and the fundraising team will be sending out an email to all of our donors (about 230,000 - thanks to a tremendous fundraiser) recapping the campaign sharing our 2nd annual report, which you can also read here:
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Annual_Report
As with our previous year's report, we make an effort to describe the year's activities, our major accomplishments, our financial successes, and where we're heading in the coming year/years. This is a crucial tool for our fundraisers and for building strong relationships with our major stakeholders, and of course to let our chapters and our vast community of volunteers get a snapshot of our work. It's primarily intended to work as a print document, and one that quickly presents top-line data and key information, as well as a basic structured narrative about the Foundation and our volunteer community's work.
You'll note that our report is out later than last year, and this isn't a pattern we'll duplicate :) We did spend more time on design and narrative this year, with the intention of bringing more depth to the story, especially in features like the center-spread anatomy of an article. We also wanted to put more of a forward-facing direction on the report. Optimally our report will always come out 2-3 months after the close of fiscal, as soon as our audited statements are complete.
There's still more good work to be done, but it's a big leap from last year. This year's designers David Peters and Rhonda Rubenstein did a great job (collectively known as 'ExBrook design' here in SF http://www.exbrook.com/). Lane Hartwell's ccbysa photos feature prominently - she's been shooting our staff portraits for the last two years (http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Photography_by_Lane_Hartwell).
We'll be starting work on the next edition in a few months. About 1500 copies will be printed here in the next week or so. We'll be sure to bring copies to the chapter meeting and of course Wikimania. We can ship some copies out as well if there's interest (but in limited quantities only, it's a pricy shipment after 10 locations :)
Looking forward to hearing your thoughts!
--
Jay Walsh
Head of Communications
WikimediaFoundation.orgblog.wikimedia.org
+1 (415) 839 6885 x 609, @jansonw
Hi folks,
I'm delighted to announce that the Wikimedia Foundation's new Chief
Technical Officer is Danese Cooper, an experienced technology manager
and open-source evangelist. Danese will start with Wikimedia on
February 4, 2010.
As you know, we've been searching for a CTO since last fall, when
Brion announced his decision to leave Wikimedia for StatusNet. We were
looking for someone with plenty of leadership experience and a deep
understanding of open source technology, who could lead our technical
staff, evangelize on behalf of Mediawiki, and set up systems and
processes to help our staff and Wikimedia technology volunteers work
successfully together. Danese fits the bill on all counts: I'm very
happy she'll be joining us.
Danese has a wealth of experience in open source technology. Most
recently, she developed open source strategy for the tech start-up
REvolution Computing. Prior to that, she was Senior Director of Open
Source Strategies at Intel from 2005 until 2009, and Chief Open Source
Evangelist at Sun Microsystems from 1999 to 2005. In those roles, she
led or supported major open source initiatives, including Sun's
OpenOffice.org application suite, the Java platform, JXTA, NetBeans,
GridEngine, OpenSolaris and Intel's Channel Software Operations and
Moblin platform initiatives. Prior to working at Sun, she managed
technology teams at Symantec and at Apple Computing for a total of
nine years.
Danese is a Board member at the Open Source Initiative, the non-profit
organization that maintains the Open Source Definition and approves
open source software licenses. She is also a member of the Apache
Software Foundation, and serves on a Special Advisory Board for
Mozilla. Danese has lived and traveled internationally, particularly
in developing countries, and speaks several languages, including
French and Moroccan Arabic.
As CTO, Danese will be responsible for ensuring Wikipedia and the
other Wikimedia projects run reliably and perform well from a
technical standpoint. She will also be responsible for supporting the
development of Wikimedia's open source software stack including
MediaWiki, and for creating technical strategy and technical projects
to drive increases in Wikimedia projects' reach, quality and
participation. Her background as an evangelist will be particularly
important, because the health of the Wikimedia volunteer developer
community is critical to Wikimedia's ability to successfully serve
people in multiple geographies and languages.
All technical staff and contractors will report to Danese. Initially,
Danese will focus on filling some key staffing gaps, and on leading
the stabilization of Wikimedia's technology infrastructure: ensuring
predictable and secure operations and backups, improving monitoring,
APIs and database dumps, and establishing an additional US-based data
centre to give us safe fail-over capability. She has an important job
and lots to do: I ask you all to join me in welcoming and supporting
her.
Danese will begin her work February 3. Until June 30, Danese has a
standing one day/week commitment to support the code review process of
the SETI Institute.
Finally, I want to thank the Walker Talent Group
(www.walkertalentgroup.com) for its pro bono work helping recruit
Danese, as well as Advisory Board member Roger McNamee for introducing
Wikimedia to Walker. Their help is much appreciated.
Sue Gardner
Executive Director, Wikimedia Foundation
--
Sue Gardner
Executive Director
Wikimedia Foundation
415 839 6885 office
Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in
the sum of all knowledge. Help us make it a reality!
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate