Wikipedia, a compendium of information that serves as a reference for all kinds of queries on the Internet, and that in addition to being available online can also be downloaded for offline consultation, is able to keep permanently updated and constantly growing thanks to the selfless work of thousands of editors who, over the 20 years of the platform’s existence, have contributed to add content.
Wikipedia assigns mentors to guide new editors in their work of correcting and improving the contents of the online encyclopedia.
In order to try to improve this multicontribution system Wikimedia Foundation, the organization that manages the platform, has decided to evolve the tools that allow to add content to disinterested contributors. in a way that facilitates their work.
This includes, for example, suggestions for coping more easily with the first steps when it comes to cross-linking articles to other content already on Wikipedia. In this way, the links between the community of editors are strengthened and, to improve the experience of new editors, they will be assigned a mentor from among a group of more senior editors.
A mentor will be available to answer their questions. Also, at the beginning of their work, they will be given advice on how to perform minor corrections and rectifications in their contents, a task in which they will be assisted by a machine learning system trained specifically for this task by Wikimedia.
The Wikimedia Foundation has adopted this system after detecting a notable incidence of new editors leaving shortly after starting their work as a result of the mistakes they made and because they lacked the knowledge to cope with some tasks. Another drawback was the rejection that many new editors felt when the content they contributed was rejected or rectified. Something that has become relatively common in recent times since, due to the authority as a source of knowledge attributed to Wikipedia, there have been numerous cases of editors who have added controversial information (when not outright false or in derogatory terms).
Some of this work is now supervised by these mentors. In the case of the most extensive version of Wikipedia, the one in English, there are 86 of these minors, the overall total being 584. the 122,000 editors who in the last month have contributed to the English version alone.s of Wikipedia.
In those first steps as Wikipedia editor, newcomers are taught on the basis of entrusting them with simple tasks, such as making minor corrections or adding relevant imagesThis work is sometimes suggested by the aforementioned machine learning mechanism, capable of detecting the type of content of interest to the new editor and thus providing him with tasks aligned with his thematic preferences.
In addition, some of these basic tasks are so simple to perform that, according to the Wikimedia Foundation, it is enough to operate the assignment with a single finger from the cell phone while traveling on the bus.
Finally, and both for the novice editor to check the effect of their contribution and, via gamification, to encourage them to continue, they receive information on the increase in the number of views of Wikipedia pages after having been corrected or enriched by their work. According to data from the Wikimedia Foundation, this process increases interest in continuing the work of editing content by 16%.
