Wikipedia’s Known Unknowns:
An analysis of Wikipedia entries reveals the world’s knowledge deserts
Remarkably, there are more Wikipedia articles written about Antarctica than all but one of the 53 countries in Africa (or perhaps more amazingly, there are more Wikipedia articles written about the fictional places of Middle Earth and Discworld than about many countries in Africa, Asia, and the Americas).
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/dec/02/wikipedia-known-unknowns-geotagging-knowledge (via)
Tom 10:33 am on December 4, 2009 Permalink
It seems unremarkable to me. For most of the world, it is much easier to get to a copy of LoTR than to another country, and it is much easier to glean detailed knowledge from a book than by visiting a country. For some reason comparisons like these vex me. Contrasting numbers of articles about real countries is more meaningful (setting aside antarctica which is populated by scientists with very little to do outside of work), but is this evidence of more than well known disparities in computer access and education? Or do we really want the guy in Bakersfield who is writing his 11th article about Discworld to switch to writing about agricultural practices in Uganda?
Jason 10:48 am on December 4, 2009 Permalink
Good point on the fictional places — more equal access to the content certainly plays an important role there. Apples and oranges with fictional and physical places, then.
Another question, though, is: Do we want a different guy in Bakersfield to learn more about Uganda and contribute to the minimal articles on that country rather than adding even more articles about already well documented European countries?
Lots of follow-on questions are raised, too: about the percentage of Wikipedia articles sourced locally vs. remotely and about the challenges of education in both developing (access) and developed (content) nations.
Tom 1:29 pm on December 4, 2009 Permalink
Yes, I agree re the other guy in Bakersfield, and that raises the issue of how to make that possible in a meaningful way. I think that the ideal is for people who live in or have passed through a place to be the ones writing about it. But, given the various barriers, how do you provide a reasonable path for our hypothetical Bakersfield guy to start writing about Uganda? Alternatively, I was in Brazil for nearly a week earlier this year. There is a vast amount I don’t know, but perhaps I picked up something that could fill a gap…. Perhaps, in a not very distant future, my travels could be tracked, and if places where I spent time could be cross-referenced with wikipedia articles and those brought to my attention, now we could be getting somewhere. I could tell you quite a bit about the Rio airport, for example, especially if you need to find a bench to spend the night on.