Martin Dittus - Knowledge Equity and Spatial Justice on Wikipedia

Knowledge Equity
and Spatial Justice
on Wikipedia
Martin Dittus, @dekstop
Mark Graham, @geoplace
Oxford Internet Institute
geography.oii.ox.ac.uk
Wikimania 2018 in Cape Town, 20th
July 2018

Slide 2
Knowledge Equity and Spatial Justice on Wikipedia
July 2018
Geographic representation on Wikipedia

Slide 3
July 2018
Many articles now have geotags…

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July 2018

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July 2018

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July 2018

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July 2018
In traditional geography, people and places are defined
by their physical locations and properties.
Yet our lives and the places we live in are increasingly
digital, and people and places are increasingly defined
by their virtual attributes and digital shadows.
Graham, Zook, Boulton (2013). Augmented Reality in Urban Places: contested content
and the duplicity of code.
Information geography: seeking to
understand an increasingly digital world

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July 2018
Who are the digital “haves”
and “have nots”?
Why do we see this imbalance of
representation?

Slide 10
July 2018
Local participation requires connectivity
The cost of broadband
subscriptions relative
to the gross national
income per capita, in
2013.
Graham et al. (2015),
“Towards a Study of
Information Geographies:
(im)mutable Augmentations
and a Mapping of the
Geographies of Information.”

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July 2018
Yet, broadband connectivity by
itself is likely not enough.

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July 2018
Uneven geographies of voice and participation
There is a link between broadband
connectivity and Wikipedia participation,
but connectivity alone is not enough.
The world’s economic peripheries are
“underparticipating” significantly: large
global populations are not represented
on Wikipedia.
Graham et al. (2015), “Digital Divisions of Labor
and Informational Magnetism: Mapping
Participation in Wikipedia”

Slide 13
July 2018
Some regions have greater influence
Regional imports: flows of Wikipedia
edits between world regions,
normalised for each target region.
The edges are coloured according to the source
region. Percentages denote self-edits (not
depicted).

Slide 14
July 2018
Some regions are “magnetic” / attractive
Regional exports: flows of Wikipedia
edits between world regions,
normalised for each source region.
The edges are coloured according to the source
region. Percentages denote self-edits (not
depicted).

Slide 16
July 2018
We are starting a new study to better
understand these relationships over time,
and at different spatial scales.

Slide 17
July 2018
This is an early preview:
please give us feedback!

Slide 18
July 2018
The world is rapidly moving online…
World Bank: Fixed broadband subscriptions – https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/IT.NET.BBND

Slide 19
July 2018
Has increased connectivity
improved global participation?
Are underrepresented regions catching
up with more mature regions?

Slide 20
July 2018
Anonymous editor location via GeoIP…

Slide 21
July 2018
An increase in broadband
connections is associated
with an increase in edits by
anonymous users across 214
countries.
(Spearman corr. coeff. 0.82, p<0.001)
Has connectivity increased participation?

Slide 22
July 2018
Total edits gained per million
added connections (adj.R2
=0.02)
Improved connectivity seems to help…
Edits of domestic content
only (adj.R2
=0.18)
Edits of foreign content
only (adj.R2
=0.22)
This growth association holds
in a regression model, even
when we account for the
general trend over time (a
decline in anonymous edits).
In other words, broadband is
equitable -- improved
connectivity helps address
some barriers to participation.

Slide 23
July 2018
Increase in edits of domestic content by
domestic editors per million added
broadband subscriptions, by global region,
with 95% confidence intervals.
However, this varies widely by region!

Slide 24
July 2018
Things are improving: in many regions, improved connectivity is
associated with increased local participation and overall growth.
However, there are indicators that inequality is also increasing.
North America and Europe still have highest activity levels, and
show the strongest response to increased connectivity.
I don’t think it’s enough to say that underrepresented regions are
“catching up” – it’s more complicated, outcomes vary by region.
Are underrepresented regions “catching up”?

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July 2018

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July 2018

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July 2018
Building capacity to tell your own story

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July 2018
Let’s look at some
urban regions…

Slide 31
July 2018
We chose 7 global cities…

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July 2018
Locations of geotagged articles

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July 2018
Share of edits from domestic IP addresses (in %)

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July 2018
Table Mountain & Cape Peninsula park
Magnetism % domestic edits

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July 2018
Who has edited articles about Cape Town?

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July 2018

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July 2018

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July 2018

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July 2018
Who owns, controls, shapes,
and has access to those
augmented and hybrid
digital/physical layers of place?

Slide 45
July 2018
Digital rights to the city
Data justice, as analogous to
spatial justice:
Data impacts how we perceive,
move through, and use space.
Joe Shaw and Mark Graham (eds.): Our
Digital Rights to the City. Meatspace Press 2017
https://meatspacepress.org/our-digital-rights-to-the-city/

Slide 47
July 2018
“We will strive to
counteract structural
inequalities to ensure a
just representation of
knowledge and people
in the Wikimedia
movement.”
Knowledge equity
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2017/Direction

Slide 48
July 2018
"Knowledge equity" is a powerful concept
For us, the term solves an important conceptual puzzle.
It suggests a central link between:
▪ the stuff that we work on,
▪ our individual acts and motivations,
▪ our collective purposes.
And it does it not by enforcing a particular procedure, but
by proposing an underlying set of values.

Slide 49
July 2018
Wikipedia is incredibly rare as a non-profit among the major
online platforms: it places collective benefit at its centre.
In this, it reconciles individual agency and collective purpose.
Cf. Ubuntu: the individual and the collective.
Further, equality always has been a core Wikipedia principle:
openness to those who could help themselves.
Wikipedia’s community model

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July 2018
Equal treatment vs.
equal opportunity

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July 2018
Knowledge equity is
inherently unfair!

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July 2018
David M. Smith (1994), “Geography and Social Justice”:
▪ Egalitarianism: equal distribution of wealth and power
▪ Utilitarianism: the greater good for the greatest number
▪ Libertarianism: value of the individual over the state
▪ Contractarianism: explicit agreements based on subjective
preferences
▪ Marxism: rewarding the full value of an individual’s contribution
▪ Communitarianism: shared practices and values over individual or
state interest
▪ Feminism: addressing power imbalances between groups
Seven conceptions of social justice

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July 2018
There is no single universal model. It's almost never “either/or”
– it's often “yes and”.
You can start by articulating:
What injustice are we seeking to address?
There is no perfectly “just” outcome. Not all tensions need to
be resolved; but awareness of them is important.
Which model of justice for Wikipedia?

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July 2018
Knowledge equity requires
us to actively engage!

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July 2018
Help make a case for knowledge equity
We still need better ways to explain to people why we care about
knowledge equity. It is not inherently clear to everyone.
Help us prepare a fact sheet. Can we identify concrete examples
of the impact of knowledge inequity?
Please share your experiences! martin.dittus@oii.ox.ac.uk
▪ Does community X feel well-represented by Wikipedia?
▪ What is the effect of missing information, misrepresentation,
perspective bias, or an absence of local perspectives?

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July 2018
In closing…

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July 2018
Despite its maturing age,
Wikipedia is still encountering
new frontiers.

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July 2018
Experiencing moments of
blindness and ignorance.

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July 2018
Seeking new answers to
complex puzzles.

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July 2018
Wikipedia is messy

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July 2018
Wikipedia has
transformative powers

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July 2018
A decade on, Wikipedia
remains a pioneering project

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July 2018
The world is watching with a
keen eye: it continues to learn
from your experiences.

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July 2018
What is the global future that
Wikipedia is helping to shape?

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July 2018
As the world is coming online,
are we addressing the concerns
of newly connected populations?

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July 2018
Who will be writing the Wikipedia
of the coming decade?

Slide 71
July 2018
Martin Dittus, @dekstop / martin.dittus@oii.ox.ac.uk
Digital Geography / Mapping our Digital Rights to the City
Oxford Internet Institute / geography.oii.ox.ac.uk
Thank you!

Martin Dittus - Knowledge Equity and Spatial Justice on Wikipedia

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