Wikipediocracy

Another experiment showing how influential Wikipedia is on the real world: Adding two paragraphs of text & nice pictures to randomly selected articles about small European cities led to an over 9% increase in hotel stays; the edit is worth $190k per year!

Probably not the most scientifically rigorous study but still interesting.

And a selected quote tweet on it (CSB related).

Cue a flood of local tourist boards trying to find good paid editors. Tarting up an existing article slightly must be easier to get away with than creating a new article.

If true, the main factor must be apparent lack of prominent English language websites about those 'small cities' of Europe.

Now if this is grassroots based, it's kind of cool (that's not $190K for the WMF). I know I've added photos and text to a touristy town I've lived in (without being paid to) and if that makes it easier for COVID to find it and for local merchants to pay more taxes to improve the hospital system, so much the...

Why did the study design (apparently) contain multiple cities in the control group, but only one city in the test group? That feels like a poorly-made decision.

thekohser wrote: ↑

Tue Sep 15, 2020 1:30 pm

Why did the study design (apparently) contain multiple cities in the control group, but only one city in the test group? That feels like a poorly-made decision.

However, maybe for various reasons they deemed only one city suitable for the analysis. Still, even if so, they should have explained their reasoning.

WanderingGuest wrote: ↑

Sun Sep 13, 2020 6:55 pm

Another experiment showing how influential Wikipedia is on the real world: Adding two paragraphs of text & nice pictures to randomly selected articles about small European cities led to an over 9% increase in hotel stays; the edit is worth $190k per year!

Probably not the most scientifically rigorous study but still interesting.

And a selected quote tweet on it (CSB related).

I'd say any good scientist would note that it's a stretch to extrapolate results from a study looking at places and compare that to scientists' articles.

ArmasRebane wrote: ↑

Fri Sep 18, 2020 3:04 pm

I'd say any good scientist would note that it's a stretch to extrapolate results from a study looking at places and compare that to scientists' articles.

Indeed. However, I don't think the original poster was commenting on scientists; that was a later contributor. Sprucing up a short biography isn't going to excite many people.

ArmasRebane wrote: ↑

Fri Sep 18, 2020 3:04 pm

I'd say any good scientist would note that it's a stretch to extrapolate results from a study looking at places and compare that to scientists' articles.

Unless someone is hoping to increase tourism to scientists.

AngelOne wrote: ↑

Sat Sep 19, 2020 2:24 am

ArmasRebane wrote: ↑

Fri Sep 18, 2020 3:04 pm

I'd say any good scientist would note that it's a stretch to extrapolate results from a study looking at places and compare that to scientists' articles.

Unless someone is hoping to increase tourism to scientists.

The Michael Faraday (T-H-L) memorial in London is a very minor tourist attraction.

The next logical step in the Wikipedia editor's argument will be that tenure review should be based upon the faculty member's Wikipedia biography rather than a portfolio of published research papers and expert comments.

eagle wrote: ↑

Fri Sep 25, 2020 4:32 pm

The next logical step in the Wikipedia editor's argument will be that tenure review should be based upon the faculty member's Wikipedia biography rather than a portfolio of published research papers and expert comments.

Obviously. What do experts know? Crowdsourcing is much better. But how many non-tenured scientists would pass WP:PROF and get an article?