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How can we make Wikipedia Talk pages easier for readers, editors, and administrators to use? What kind of structure can be added? ...

How can we make Wikipedia Talk pages easier for readers, editors, and administrators to use? What kind of structure can be added?

Symposium on Applied Computing (SAC 2011) paper presentation slides from Taichung, Taiwan

Abstract:
Wikipedia’s article discussion spaces (“Talk pages”) form a large and growing proportion of the encyclopedia, used for collaboration and article improvement. So far there is no in-depth account of how article Talk pages are used, what is wrong with them, and how they can be improved. This paper reports on three contributions promoting the under- standing of and improvement of these spaces:
(1) Wikipedia editor interviews provide an increased understanding of readers’ and editors’ needs,
(2) a large-scale comparative content analysis adds to knowledge of what kinds of discussions and coordination occur on Talk pages,
(3) a prototype bookmarklet-based system, which we test in a formative user evaluation, integrates lightweight semantics.

Full paper at http://jodischneider.com/pubs/sac2011.pdf