A preliminary approach to knowledge integrity risk assessment in Wikipedia projects

Abstract: Wikipedia is one of the main repositories of free knowledge available today, with a central role in the Web ecosystem. For this reason, it can also be a battleground for actors trying to impose specific points of view or even spreading disinformation online. There is a growing need to monitor its "health" but this is not an easy task. Wikipedia exists in over 300 language editions and each project is maintained by a different community, with their own strengths, weaknesses and limitations. In this paper, we introduce a taxonomy of knowledge integrity risks across Wikipedia projects and a first set of indicators to assess internal risks related to community and content issues, as well as external threats such as the geopolitical and media landscape. On top of this taxonomy, we offer a preliminary analysis illustrating how the lack of editors' geographical diversity might represent a knowledge integrity risk. These are the first steps of a research project to build a Wikipedia Knowledge Integrity Risk Observatory.