Re: [Wiki-research-l] Dynamics of Conflicts in Wikipedia
Thank you for sharing your paper. I found it very interesting that there are good metrics that enable detection of articles with conflict. I have a couple of questions, which might well go beyond your current study but Id welcome your thoughts. My first question is whether or not you think this metric or some variant can be used to detect current conflict in articles (rather than the existence of past conflict). My thinking is that if conflict can be detected early, it may be possible for the peacemakers to guide the conflict to a consensus rather than attempt to do so once hostilities are well-established. Another question relates to warring editors. If I read it right, you looked for pairs (or groups) of editors that were reverting one anothers changes (i.e. an edit war) in an article. However, is conflict limited to just one article? Is it possible that warring editors on one article may then engage in conflicts over other articles simultaneously or later, either because of the same issue that caused the earlier disagreements or because they had developed a dislike for one another and were ready to find excuses to be unpleasant to each other. That is, are we just looking at articles that are controversial (in some way) or are we also looking at pairs (or groups) of editors who are actively hostile to one another. It might be interesting to know if editors who have been involved in edit wars go on to peacefully co-exist with one another on other articles, go to war with them over other articles, or simply never happen to encounter each other again (WP being a big place). If they do go on to war again, was it because they are both active on articles within similar categories (e.g. sexuality) or because one/both is stalking the other (which you might suspect if they had conflicts across a range of topics, especially where one of them had no prior edit history in that category (e.g. start warring over Ben Franklin and then continue it in Pumpkin). Kerry _ From: wiki-research-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:wiki-research-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Taha Yasseri Sent: Friday, 22 June 2012 8:15 AM To: Research into Wikimedia content and communities Subject: [Wiki-research-l] Dynamics of Conflicts in Wikipedia Dear Wikipedia researchers! Our manuscript on is now released by PLoS ONE and available at: http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0038869 I would delightedly take your comments and remarks. bests .Taha Dr. Taha Yasseri. - www.phy.bme.hu/~yasseri Department of Theoretical Physics Institute of Physics Budapest University of Technology and Economics Budafoki út 8. H- Budapest, Hungary tel: +36 1 463 4110 fax: +36 1 463 3567 - -- Taha. ___ Wiki-research-l mailing list Wiki-research-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l
Re: [Wiki-research-l] Dynamics of Conflicts in Wikipedia
Hi Kerry, There have been several nationalistic and or religious disputes that have involved the same protagonists over numerous articles on that contentious topic. Pretty much any topic that is controversial in real life will be controversial on Wikipedia, with the added possibility that the Internet is a wonderful device for putting people into contact with people from very different cultures and with viewpoints that might not exist in their real life society/culture/country One good list of things that have been controversial on Wikipedia is the list of general sanctions decreed by ARBCOM http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Arbitration/Active_sanctions#General_sanctions TTFN WereSpielChequers On 25 June 2012 08:26, Kerry Raymond kerry.raym...@gmail.com wrote: ** ** ** ** ** Thank you for sharing your paper. I found it very interesting that there are good metrics that enable detection of articles with conflict. I have a couple of questions, which might well go beyond your current study but I’d welcome your thoughts. ** ** My first question is whether or not you think this metric or some variant can be used to detect current conflict in articles (rather than the existence of past conflict). My thinking is that if conflict can be detected early, it may be possible for the peacemakers to guide the conflict to a consensus rather than attempt to do so once hostilities are well-established. ** ** Another question relates to warring editors. If I read it right, you looked for pairs (or groups) of editors that were reverting one another’s changes (i.e. an edit war) in an article. However, is conflict limited to just one article? Is it possible that warring editors on one article may then engage in conflicts over other articles simultaneously or later, either because of the same issue that caused the earlier disagreements or because they had developed a dislike for one another and were ready to find excuses to be unpleasant to each other. That is, are we just looking at articles that are controversial (in some way) or are we also looking at pairs (or groups) of editors who are actively hostile to one another. It might be interesting to know if editors who have been involved in edit wars go on to peacefully co-exist with one another on other articles, go to war with them over other articles, or simply never happen to encounter each other again (WP being a big place). If they do go on to war again, was it because they are both active on articles within similar categories (e.g. sexuality) or because one/both is stalking the other (which you might suspect if they had conflicts across a range of topics, especially where one of them had no prior edit history in that category (e.g. start warring over Ben Franklin and then continue it in Pumpkin). ** ** Kerry ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** -- *From:* wiki-research-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto: wiki-research-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org] *On Behalf Of *Taha Yasseri *Sent:* Friday, 22 June 2012 8:15 AM *To:* Research into Wikimedia content and communities *Subject:* [Wiki-research-l] Dynamics of Conflicts in Wikipedia ** ** Dear Wikipedia researchers! Our manuscript on is now released by PLoS ONE and available at: http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0038869 I would delightedly take your comments and remarks. bests .Taha Dr. Taha Yasseri. - www.phy.bme.hu/~yasseri http://www.phy.bme.hu/%7Eyasseri Department of Theoretical Physics Institute** of **Physics Budapest** **University of Technology and Economics Budafoki út 8. H- Budapest**, **Hungary tel: +36 1 463 4110 fax: +36 1 463 3567 - -- Taha. ___ Wiki-research-l mailing list Wiki-research-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l ___ Wiki-research-l mailing list Wiki-research-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l
Re: [Wiki-research-l] Dynamics of Conflicts in Wikipedia
hi, My first question is whether or not you think this metric or some variant can be used to detect current conflict in articles (rather than the existence of past conflict). My thinking is that if conflict can be detected early, it may be possible for the peacemakers to guide the conflict to a consensus rather than attempt to do so once hostilities are well-established. the simplest approach would be to automatically detect 3R violations (or 2R, if it made sense). best, dj ___ Wiki-research-l mailing list Wiki-research-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l
Re: [Wiki-research-l] Dynamics of Conflicts in Wikipedia
Dear Kerry, Thank you for the comment and questions. Actually what comes in the following is not published and completly proven, these are just some preliminary results which are going to be completed soon. My first question is whether or not you think this metric or some variant can be used to detect current conflict in articles (rather than the existence of past conflict). My thinking is that if conflict can be detected early, it may be possible for the peacemakers to guide the conflict to a consensus rather than attempt to do so once hostilities are well-established. yes and no. Actually the metric is especially more sensitive to the bigger wars, and assuming that wars are fairly small at the beginning, it makes it a bit difficult to use the metric as a monitoring tool. However, as the fights get a bit serious, the metric grows fast enough and in principle could be used to monitor and detect medium size conflicts. As for prediction (this is also often asked), unfortunately our efforts fail, especially in the case of external-driven-conflicts. For instance when something in real world happens and leads to a burst of aggressive activities, since we are not able to predict that external event, all our predictive modellings fail. Another question relates to warring editors. If I read it right, you looked for pairs (or groups) of editors that were reverting one another’s changes (i.e. an edit war) in an article. However, is conflict limited to just one article? Is it possible that warring editors on one article may then engage in conflicts over other articles simultaneously or later, either because of the same issue that caused the earlier disagreements or because they had developed a dislike for one another and were ready to find excuses to be unpleasant to each other. That is, are we just looking at articles that are controversial (in some way) or are we also looking at pairs (or groups) of editors who are actively hostile to one another. It might be interesting to know if editors who have been involved in edit wars go on to peacefully co-exist with one another on other articles, go to war with them over other articles, or simply never happen to encounter each other again (WP being a big place). If they do go on to war again, was it because they are both active on articles within similar categories (e.g. sexuality) or because one/both is stalking the other (which you might suspect if they had conflicts across a range of topics, especially where one of them had no prior edit history in that category (e.g. start warring over Ben Franklin and then continue it in Pumpkin). Actually your suspicion is very much relevant! We started following active warriors. We observed not only same people and same pairs appear in articles topically related, but also they cause conflicts around the same topics in other language Wikipedias! Actually it is difficult to determine that the fighting pairs are more fighting because of their beliefs and opinions or it has become more personal after a while of fighting. But I think the first case is more likely, as we could see the same pairs more in the rather related topics whereas if it is a personal fight it would spread into completely different topics. Now our focus is mainly on users than articles and we are trying to find activity patterns of trouble makers. thanks again for the questions, .taha On Mon, Jun 25, 2012 at 9:26 AM, Kerry Raymond kerry.raym...@gmail.comwrote: ** ** ** ** ** Thank you for sharing your paper. I found it very interesting that there are good metrics that enable detection of articles with conflict. I have a couple of questions, which might well go beyond your current study but I’d welcome your thoughts. ** ** My first question is whether or not you think this metric or some variant can be used to detect current conflict in articles (rather than the existence of past conflict). My thinking is that if conflict can be detected early, it may be possible for the peacemakers to guide the conflict to a consensus rather than attempt to do so once hostilities are well-established. ** ** Another question relates to warring editors. If I read it right, you looked for pairs (or groups) of editors that were reverting one another’s changes (i.e. an edit war) in an article. However, is conflict limited to just one article? Is it possible that warring editors on one article may then engage in conflicts over other articles simultaneously or later, either because of the same issue that caused the earlier disagreements or because they had developed a dislike for one another and were ready to find excuses to be unpleasant to each other. That is, are we just looking at articles that are controversial (in some way) or are we also looking at pairs (or groups) of editors who are actively hostile to one another. It might be interesting to know if editors who have been involved in edit wars go on to peacefully
