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Knowledge categorization affects popularity and quality of Wikipedia articles

Overview of attention for article published in PLOS ONE, January 2018
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About this Attention Score

  • In the top 25% of all research outputs scored by Altmetric
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age (89th percentile)
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age and source (86th percentile)

Mentioned by

blogs
1 blog
twitter
11 X users
wikipedia
2 Wikipedia pages
reddit
1 Redditor

Citations

dimensions_citation
26 Dimensions

Readers on

mendeley
29 Mendeley
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Title
Knowledge categorization affects popularity and quality of Wikipedia articles
Published in
PLOS ONE, January 2018
DOI 10.1371/journal.pone.0190674
Pubmed ID
Authors

Jürgen Lerner, Alessandro Lomi

Abstract

The existence of a shared classification system is essential to knowledge production, transfer, and sharing. Studies of knowledge classification, however, rarely consider the fact that knowledge categories exist within hierarchical information systems designed to facilitate knowledge search and discovery. This neglect is problematic whenever information about categorical membership is itself used to evaluate the quality of the items that the category contains. The main objective of this paper is to show that the effects of category membership depend on the position that a category occupies in the hierarchical knowledge classification system of Wikipedia-an open knowledge production and sharing platform taking the form of a freely accessible on-line encyclopedia. Using data on all English-language Wikipedia articles, we examine how the position that a category occupies in the classification hierarchy affects the attention that articles in that category attract from Wikipedia editors, and their evaluation of quality of the Wikipedia articles. Specifically, we show that Wikipedia articles assigned to coarse-grained categories (i. e., categories that occupy higher positions in the hierarchical knowledge classification system) garner more attention from Wikipedia editors (i. e., attract a higher volume of text editing activity), but receive lower evaluations (i. e., they are considered to be of lower quality). The negative relation between attention and quality implied by this result is consistent with current theories of social categorization, but it also goes beyond available results by showing that the effects of categorization on evaluation depend on the position that a category occupies in a hierarchical knowledge classification system.

X Demographics

X Demographics

The data shown below were collected from the profiles of 11 X users who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 29 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
Unknown 29 100%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Researcher 8 28%
Student > Ph. D. Student 4 14%
Student > Bachelor 3 10%
Professor > Associate Professor 3 10%
Student > Master 2 7%
Other 3 10%
Unknown 6 21%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Social Sciences 3 10%
Medicine and Dentistry 3 10%
Computer Science 3 10%
Agricultural and Biological Sciences 3 10%
Engineering 2 7%
Other 6 21%
Unknown 9 31%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 18. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 15 June 2023.
All research outputs
#2,010,879
of 24,821,035 outputs
Outputs from PLOS ONE
#24,941
of 214,952 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#45,533
of 453,509 outputs
Outputs of similar age from PLOS ONE
#481
of 3,496 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 24,821,035 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 91st percentile: it's in the top 10% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 214,952 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 15.7. This one has done well, scoring higher than 88% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 453,509 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done well, scoring higher than 89% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 3,496 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has done well, scoring higher than 86% of its contemporaries.