Approaches to Understanding Indigenous Content Production on Wikipedia

Abstract

With over 6 million articles and 38 million editors, English Wikipedia is one of the largest peer produced and edited encyclopedias on the Internet. Some attribute this success to the peer production process which allows many to contribute. However, not all articles are created equally, or evolve similarly, in terms of quality and amount of attention they receive from the editing community. We examine pages with geotagged content in English Wikipedia in four categories, places with Indigenous majorities (of any size), Rural places, Urban Clusters, and Urban areas. We find significant differences in quality and editor attention for articles about places with Native American majorities, as compared to other places.