[Wiki-research-l] Re: [Announcement] A new formal collaboration in Research
Hi Martin, Regarding the concept of readability, the Knowledge Gap Taxonomy[1] uses the term very broadly. The Taxonomy has readability as one of only one of three components of “Accessibility”, and says that readability is about "Barriers for accessing or consuming information originating from content.” The gap addresses the important issue that some Wikipedia articles are difficult for their target audience to understand. I’m not super-familiar with the scholarship around readability, but the concept has come up in some discussions that I’ve been in recently. It seems that scholars tend to use a more narrow definition of readability, e.g. "Readability is the extent to which each sentence reads naturally, while comprehensibility is the extent to which the text as a whole is easy to understand.”[2] I’m not here to criticize the Taxonomy, but what it labels readability is what some researchers might call either text comprehensibiity or understandability. Readability is one of several factors that influence whether a reader will understand a piece of text.[3] To quantify progress in filling the relevant knowledge gap, research that looks at understandability holistically would be needed. References: 1) https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9e/The_Knowledge_Gaps_Taxonomy_Summary-and-Motivation.pdf , p. 4 2) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5998532/#bibr11-8755122517706978 3) https://www.ajol.info/index.php/spl/article/view/151787/141398 Cheers, Su-Laine (Wikipedia volunteer) > On Feb 15, 2023, at 6:57 AM, Martin Gerlach wrote: > > Hi Samuel, > thanks for your interest in this project. > Following up on your question, I want to share some additional background: > This work is part of our updated research roadmap to address knowledge gaps > [1], specifically, developing methods to measure different knowledge gaps > [2]. We have identified readability as one of the gaps in the taxonomy of > knowledge gaps [3]. However, we currently do not have the tools to > systematically measure readability of Wikipedia articles across languages. > Therefore, we would like to develop and validate a multilingual approach to > measuring readability. Furthermore, the community wishlist from the > previous year contained a proposal for a tool to surface readability scores > [4]; while acknowledging that this is a difficult task to scale to all > languages in Wikipedia. > Let me know if you have further comments, suggestions, or questions -- > happy to discuss in more detail. > Best, > Martin > > > [1] > https://diff.wikimedia.org/2022/04/21/a-new-research-roadmap-for-addressing-knowledge-gaps/ > [2] > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Knowledge_Gaps_3_Years_On#Measure_Knowledge_Gaps > [3] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Knowledge_Gaps_Index/Taxonomy > [4] > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_Wishlist_Survey_2022/Bots_and_gadgets/Readability_scores_gadget > > > On Tue, Feb 14, 2023 at 10:50 PM Samuel Klein wrote: > >> Fantastic. What a great teamn to work with. >> >> We definitely need multiple reading-levels for articles, which involves >> some namespace & interface magic, and new norm settings around what is >> possible. Only a few language projects have managed to bolt this onto the >> side of MediaWiki (though they include some excellent successes imo). >> Where does that fit into the research-practice-MW-WP roadmap? >> >> SJ >> >> On Tue, Feb 14, 2023 at 12:13 PM Martin Gerlach >> wrote: >> >>> Hi all, >>> >>> The Research team at the Wikimedia Foundation has officially started a >> new >>> Formal Collaboration [1] with Indira Sen, Katrin Weller, and Mareike >>> Wieland from GESIS – Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences to work >>> collaboratively on understanding perception of readability in Wikipedia >> [2] >>> as part of the Addressing Knowledge Gaps Program [3]. We are thankful to >>> them for agreeing to spend their time and expertise on this project in >> the >>> coming year. >>> >>> Here are a few pieces of information about this collaboration that we >> would >>> like to share with you: >>> * We aim to keep the research documentation for this project in the >>> corresponding research page on meta [2]. >>> * Research tasks are hard to break down and track in task-tracking >> systems. >>> This being said, the page on meta is linked to an Epic level Phabricator >>> task and all tasks related to this project that can be captured on >>> Phabricator will be captured under here [4]. >>> * I act as the point of contact for this research in the Wikimedia >>> Foundation. Please feel free to reach out to me (directly, if it cannot >> be >>> shared publicly) if you have comments or questions about the project. >>> >>> Best, >>> Martin >>> >>> [1] >>> https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Research/Formal_collaborations >>> [2] >>> >>> >> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Understanding_perception_of_readability_in_Wikipedia
[Wiki-research-l] Re: [Announcement] A new formal collaboration in Research
My interest is in the subset of superusers who spend thousands of hours caring about readability, who tend to gravitate towards entire projects like wikikids or simple . This is different from the value of measuring readability of all articles across many languages. But it points to an area where there are many people eager to get to work, except they lack a way to add a more-readable version of an article without arguing with everyone else who might have other use cases in mind (some of which may call for a less readable but more technically complet article). We need both (a way to have multiple levels of readability of a single article) and (a way to measure readability of any particular [version of an] article) to bridge the gap you're addressing :) On Wed, Feb 15, 2023 at 9:57 AM Martin Gerlach wrote: > Hi Samuel, > thanks for your interest in this project. > Following up on your question, I want to share some additional background: > This work is part of our updated research roadmap to address knowledge gaps > [1], specifically, developing methods to measure different knowledge gaps > [2]. We have identified readability as one of the gaps in the taxonomy of > knowledge gaps [3]. However, we currently do not have the tools to > systematically measure readability of Wikipedia articles across languages. > Therefore, we would like to develop and validate a multilingual approach to > measuring readability. Furthermore, the community wishlist from the > previous year contained a proposal for a tool to surface readability scores > [4]; while acknowledging that this is a difficult task to scale to all > languages in Wikipedia. > Let me know if you have further comments, suggestions, or questions -- > happy to discuss in more detail. > Best, > Martin > > > [1] > > https://diff.wikimedia.org/2022/04/21/a-new-research-roadmap-for-addressing-knowledge-gaps/ > [2] > > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Knowledge_Gaps_3_Years_On#Measure_Knowledge_Gaps > [3] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Knowledge_Gaps_Index/Taxonomy > [4] > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_Wishlist_Survey_2022/Bots_and_gadgets/Readability_scores_gadget > > > On Tue, Feb 14, 2023 at 10:50 PM Samuel Klein wrote: > > > Fantastic. What a great teamn to work with. > > > > We definitely need multiple reading-levels for articles, which involves > > some namespace & interface magic, and new norm settings around what is > > possible. Only a few language projects have managed to bolt this onto > the > > side of MediaWiki (though they include some excellent successes imo). > > Where does that fit into the research-practice-MW-WP roadmap? > > > > SJ > > > > On Tue, Feb 14, 2023 at 12:13 PM Martin Gerlach > > wrote: > > > > > Hi all, > > > > > > The Research team at the Wikimedia Foundation has officially started a > > new > > > Formal Collaboration [1] with Indira Sen, Katrin Weller, and Mareike > > > Wieland from GESIS – Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences to work > > > collaboratively on understanding perception of readability in Wikipedia > > [2] > > > as part of the Addressing Knowledge Gaps Program [3]. We are thankful > to > > > them for agreeing to spend their time and expertise on this project in > > the > > > coming year. > > > > > > Here are a few pieces of information about this collaboration that we > > would > > > like to share with you: > > > * We aim to keep the research documentation for this project in the > > > corresponding research page on meta [2]. > > > * Research tasks are hard to break down and track in task-tracking > > systems. > > > This being said, the page on meta is linked to an Epic level > Phabricator > > > task and all tasks related to this project that can be captured on > > > Phabricator will be captured under here [4]. > > > * I act as the point of contact for this research in the Wikimedia > > > Foundation. Please feel free to reach out to me (directly, if it cannot > > be > > > shared publicly) if you have comments or questions about the project. > > > > > > Best, > > > Martin > > > > > > [1] > > > > https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Research/Formal_collaborations > > > [2] > > > > > > > > > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Understanding_perception_of_readability_in_Wikipedia > > > [3] https://research.wikimedia.org/knowledge-gaps.html > > > [4] https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T325815 > > > > > > -- > > > Martin Gerlach (he/him) | Senior Research Scientist | Wikimedia > > Foundation > > > ___ > > > Wiki-research-l mailing list -- wiki-research-l@lists.wikimedia.org > > > To unsubscribe send an email to > > wiki-research-l-le...@lists.wikimedia.org > > > > > > > > > -- > > Samuel Klein @metasj w:user:sj +1 617 529 > 4266 > > ___ > > Wiki-research-l mailing list -- wiki-research-l@lists.wikimedia.org > > To unsubscribe send an email to >
[Wiki-research-l] Re: [Announcement] A new formal collaboration in Research
Hi Samuel, thanks for your interest in this project. Following up on your question, I want to share some additional background: This work is part of our updated research roadmap to address knowledge gaps [1], specifically, developing methods to measure different knowledge gaps [2]. We have identified readability as one of the gaps in the taxonomy of knowledge gaps [3]. However, we currently do not have the tools to systematically measure readability of Wikipedia articles across languages. Therefore, we would like to develop and validate a multilingual approach to measuring readability. Furthermore, the community wishlist from the previous year contained a proposal for a tool to surface readability scores [4]; while acknowledging that this is a difficult task to scale to all languages in Wikipedia. Let me know if you have further comments, suggestions, or questions -- happy to discuss in more detail. Best, Martin [1] https://diff.wikimedia.org/2022/04/21/a-new-research-roadmap-for-addressing-knowledge-gaps/ [2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Knowledge_Gaps_3_Years_On#Measure_Knowledge_Gaps [3] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Knowledge_Gaps_Index/Taxonomy [4] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_Wishlist_Survey_2022/Bots_and_gadgets/Readability_scores_gadget On Tue, Feb 14, 2023 at 10:50 PM Samuel Klein wrote: > Fantastic. What a great teamn to work with. > > We definitely need multiple reading-levels for articles, which involves > some namespace & interface magic, and new norm settings around what is > possible. Only a few language projects have managed to bolt this onto the > side of MediaWiki (though they include some excellent successes imo). > Where does that fit into the research-practice-MW-WP roadmap? > > SJ > > On Tue, Feb 14, 2023 at 12:13 PM Martin Gerlach > wrote: > > > Hi all, > > > > The Research team at the Wikimedia Foundation has officially started a > new > > Formal Collaboration [1] with Indira Sen, Katrin Weller, and Mareike > > Wieland from GESIS – Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences to work > > collaboratively on understanding perception of readability in Wikipedia > [2] > > as part of the Addressing Knowledge Gaps Program [3]. We are thankful to > > them for agreeing to spend their time and expertise on this project in > the > > coming year. > > > > Here are a few pieces of information about this collaboration that we > would > > like to share with you: > > * We aim to keep the research documentation for this project in the > > corresponding research page on meta [2]. > > * Research tasks are hard to break down and track in task-tracking > systems. > > This being said, the page on meta is linked to an Epic level Phabricator > > task and all tasks related to this project that can be captured on > > Phabricator will be captured under here [4]. > > * I act as the point of contact for this research in the Wikimedia > > Foundation. Please feel free to reach out to me (directly, if it cannot > be > > shared publicly) if you have comments or questions about the project. > > > > Best, > > Martin > > > > [1] > > https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Research/Formal_collaborations > > [2] > > > > > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Understanding_perception_of_readability_in_Wikipedia > > [3] https://research.wikimedia.org/knowledge-gaps.html > > [4] https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T325815 > > > > -- > > Martin Gerlach (he/him) | Senior Research Scientist | Wikimedia > Foundation > > ___ > > Wiki-research-l mailing list -- wiki-research-l@lists.wikimedia.org > > To unsubscribe send an email to > wiki-research-l-le...@lists.wikimedia.org > > > > > -- > Samuel Klein @metasj w:user:sj +1 617 529 4266 > ___ > Wiki-research-l mailing list -- wiki-research-l@lists.wikimedia.org > To unsubscribe send an email to wiki-research-l-le...@lists.wikimedia.org > ___ Wiki-research-l mailing list -- wiki-research-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe send an email to wiki-research-l-le...@lists.wikimedia.org
[Wiki-research-l] Re: [Announcement] A new formal collaboration in Research
Fantastic. What a great teamn to work with. We definitely need multiple reading-levels for articles, which involves some namespace & interface magic, and new norm settings around what is possible. Only a few language projects have managed to bolt this onto the side of MediaWiki (though they include some excellent successes imo). Where does that fit into the research-practice-MW-WP roadmap? SJ On Tue, Feb 14, 2023 at 12:13 PM Martin Gerlach wrote: > Hi all, > > The Research team at the Wikimedia Foundation has officially started a new > Formal Collaboration [1] with Indira Sen, Katrin Weller, and Mareike > Wieland from GESIS – Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences to work > collaboratively on understanding perception of readability in Wikipedia [2] > as part of the Addressing Knowledge Gaps Program [3]. We are thankful to > them for agreeing to spend their time and expertise on this project in the > coming year. > > Here are a few pieces of information about this collaboration that we would > like to share with you: > * We aim to keep the research documentation for this project in the > corresponding research page on meta [2]. > * Research tasks are hard to break down and track in task-tracking systems. > This being said, the page on meta is linked to an Epic level Phabricator > task and all tasks related to this project that can be captured on > Phabricator will be captured under here [4]. > * I act as the point of contact for this research in the Wikimedia > Foundation. Please feel free to reach out to me (directly, if it cannot be > shared publicly) if you have comments or questions about the project. > > Best, > Martin > > [1] > https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Research/Formal_collaborations > [2] > > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Understanding_perception_of_readability_in_Wikipedia > [3] https://research.wikimedia.org/knowledge-gaps.html > [4] https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T325815 > > -- > Martin Gerlach (he/him) | Senior Research Scientist | Wikimedia Foundation > ___ > Wiki-research-l mailing list -- wiki-research-l@lists.wikimedia.org > To unsubscribe send an email to wiki-research-l-le...@lists.wikimedia.org > -- Samuel Klein @metasj w:user:sj +1 617 529 4266 ___ Wiki-research-l mailing list -- wiki-research-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe send an email to wiki-research-l-le...@lists.wikimedia.org
[Wiki-research-l] Re: [Announcement] A new formal collaboration in Research
On Tue, 8 Feb 2022 at 12:14, Martin Gerlach wrote: > a new Formal Collaboration How best can this project be modelled, on Wikidata? The items for the participants are listed below > The following formal collaborators (cc-ed) will contribute to this > program: > Dani S. Bassett, Q18097511 - https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q18097511 > David Lydon-Staley, Q110855923 - https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q110855923 > Shubhankar Patankar, Q110855913 - https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q110855913 > Dale Zhou Q103806476 - https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q103806476 > (all University of Pennsylvania), and > Perry Zurn (American University). Q89847178 - https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q89847178 > Martin Gerlach Q87709892 - https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q87709892 -- Andy Mabbett @pigsonthewing https://pigsonthewing.org.uk ___ Wiki-research-l mailing list -- wiki-research-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe send an email to wiki-research-l-le...@lists.wikimedia.org
