Research:Mental Health Narratives on Wikipedia Talk Pages
This page documents a research project in progress.
Information may be incomplete and change as the project progresses.
Please contact the project lead before formally citing or reusing results from this page.
As an encyclopedic resource, Wikipedia prides itself on a neutral point of view and verifiable information. These policies are examples of the Wikipedian flavor of objectivity and journalistic integrity; it is necessary to create reliable and factual documents of knowledge. To that end, Wikipedia relies on a complex ecosystem of peer-governance, best practices, and codified policy. These well-documented policies create a sense of objectivity in Wikipedian governance that translates to its articles. In other words, instead of relying on personal stances of “right” and “wrong” when editing articles, Wikipedians can defer to the democratically created set of policies.
We are exploring how these dynamics play out on with mental health-related information on Wikipedia. Specifically, we are interested in the construction of mental health knowledge by analyzing the narrative arcs of mental health deliberation on Wikipedia. How do personal devices, such as personal motives and information, get wielded alongside objective devices, such as Wikipedia policy? We hypothesize that, given the personal nature of mental health experiences, policy gets wielded to further personal motivations. In effect, citing policy is a plot device in a larger story. In total, we propose the following research questions:
- How is policy wielded in mental health deliberations?
- What events and actions surround policy invocation in mental health deliberation?
- What personal positions do editors share about themselves and their mental health during deliberation?
Methods
editWe are using qualitative analysis methods suitable for observational data. Specifically, we are analyzing talk page discussions on mental health-related Wikipedia articles. We're currently using a mixture of narrative analysis---where we qualitatively code each discussion for a setup, potential conflict, and resolution---and trace ethnography, where we document whether the talk page discussion leads to an article change. Our main documents of analysis are article talk pages and article revision histories.
Timeline
editWe are currently in the analysis stage of this research (June - October 2024), where we are qualitatively analyzing talk page discussions. We plan to begin writing a research paper based on our analysis. We will post preliminary results as blog posts and ensure that accepted research manuscripts are freely available to the Wikipedia community.
Policy, Ethics and Human Subjects Research
editOur work does not interact with Wikipedians and is therefore IRB-exempt. However, we are specifically studying mental health-related discussions, which may contain personal disclosures and sensitive information. We are only keeping track of usernames to understand how talk page discussions influence article editing behavior. We will not publish any findings, including preliminary data, that contain Wikipedian's usernames or other identifying information.
Results
editNo formal results yet. Stay tuned, though!
Resources
editWe plan to release summaries of our results as blog posts on the GroupLens Research blog at grouplens.org