Lifting the veil: improving accountability and social transparency in Wikipedia with WikiDashboard

Abstract

Wikis are collaborative systems in which virtually anyone can edit anything. Although wikis have become highly popular in many domains, their mutable nature often leads them to be distrusted as a reliable source of information. Here we describe a social dynamic analysis tool called WikiDashboard to investigate how the tool can improve social transparency and accountability on Wikipedia articles. Early reactions from users suggest that increased transparency can affect users trust and interpretation of Wikipedia articles.