Workshop on Wikipedia Research 2006

At the 2006 International Symposium on Wikis a Workshop on Wikipedia Research was held by Jakob Voss and Angela Beesley on August, 23th (half a day) in Odense, Denmark.

Abstract

Wikimedia Foundation's wikis - first of all the Wikipedia project to create a free encyclopaedia - play an important role in wiki's success. Wikipedia is currently the 17th most visited website worldwide so it's of general public interest to find out more about its structure and processes. Research on Wikipedia is supported by making its data publically available. Wikipedians reflect a lot on their project and there is a small but growing number of scientific papers in Wikipedia research. Most of the large wikis use the same MediaWiki-engine like Wikipedia so general wiki research can also profit from Wikipedia research. However it is difficult to analyze Wikipedia without basic knowledge of its particularities and some involvement in the community. This workshop wants to bring together people interested in further wikipedia research. A short overview of current Wikipedia research will be given as well as some practical guidelines on methods how to analyze data and where to get in contact with the community. Together we want to talk about differences and commonalities of Wikipedia and other wikis and hot topics in Wikipedia research.

About the authors: Jakob Voss is tightly involved in the German Wikipedia project. He got his degree in library and information science with a Masters thesis about Wikipedia and maintains a weblog and a bibliography on Wiki(pedia) research. He is member of the board of Wikimedia Germany. Angela Beesley is a member of the Board of Wikimedia Foundation since June 2004.

How to participate

You have to register for WikiSym 2006. It's 600 DKK (~80€/103$) for the workshop (500 DKK (~67€/86$) until June 19) at 23th and and between 1500 DKK (~201€/257$) and 4000 DKK (~536€/687$) for the WikiSym at 21th/22th - so you better register quickly!
Put yourself in the following list or send a mail with the information to Jakob Voss. Name and interests are needed, mail is neede at least for the organizer. If you don't want to show up in this list with all information, just say so and your data will only be included in the printed list of participants.
Have a look at the position paper (will be published by end of June)

Maybe you will also be asked to submit a small position paper (1 page) later

Suggestions and wishes are welcome!

Upper limit of participants: 20 (depends on registration)

Participants

Name	Affiliation	Homepage	Email	Wiki-user page(s)	Interests in Wikipedia-Research
Jakob Voss	Wikimedia Germany	http://jakobvoss.de	jakob.voss(ä)nichtich.de	[1]	general, esp. knowledge organization
Andrea Forte (depending on the rest of the schedule)	Georgia Institute of Technology	http://www.cc.gatech.edu/~aforte	aforte(att)cc(.)gatech(.)edu	Andicat	W as a community; sociological and educational perspectives
Finn Årup Nielsen	Technical University of Denmark	http://www.imm.dtu.dk/~fn/	fn(att) imm. dtu. dk.	fnielsen	machine learning, neuroinformatics
Sander Spek	Universiteit Maastricht, The Netherlands	http://www.cs.unimaas.nl/s.spek	s.spek(at)cs.unimaas.nl	SanderSpek	patterns and organisation in a non-organised environment
...

Agenda

minimal introduction into Wikipedia structure
short overview of current Wikipedia research
1. Short presentations of participants?
practical guidelines on methods how to analyze data and where to get in contact with the community
differences and commonalities of Wikipedia and other wikis
hot topics in Wikipedia research
?

External links

Wikimania 2006/Program/Research thingy - similar workshop at Wikimania 2006 (August 4 – August 6)