Abstract:
Wikipedia articles are known for their exhaustive knowledge and
extensive collaboration. Users perform various tasks that include
editing in terms of adding new facts or rectifying some mistakes,
looking up new topics, or simply browsing. In this paper, we investigate the impact of gradual edits on the re-positioning and
organization of the factual information in Wikipedia articles. Literature shows that in a collaborative system, a set of contributors are
responsible for seeking, perceiving, and organizing the information.
However, very little is known about the evolution of information
organization on Wikipedia articles. Based on our analysis, we show
that in a Wikipedia article, the crowd is capable of placing the factual information to its correct position, eventually reducing the
knowledge gaps. We also show that the majority of information rearrangement occurs in the initial stages of the article development
and gradually decreases in the later stages.
Our findings advance our understanding of the fundamentals
of information organization on Wikipedia articles and can have
implications for developers aiming to improve the content quality
and completeness of Wikipedia articles.
