1. What and how users read:
Transforming reading preferences and behavior into
valuable feedback for the Wikipedia community
Wikimania 2014 | August 8, 2014 | Track: Wikimedia Inspiration
Claudia Müller-Birn & Janette Lehmann!
photo credit: marissa, CC BY 2.0

2. We know YOU!
2photo credit: philosophygeek CC BY-SA 2.0

3. 3
Included research papers: 477
Criteria of inclusion: Often cited
Included years: 2003 - 2012
Number of groups: 6
Sources: English-language databases, peer-reviewed journal articles, doctoral theses
Visualizationisbasedon(Okolietal.,2012)

4. 4
Included research papers: 477
Criteria of inclusion: Often cited
Included years: 2003 - 2012
Number of groups: 6
Sources: English-language databases, peer-reviewed journal articles, doctoral theses
Visualizationisbasedon(Okolietal.,2012)

5. ‣ Second-class members of an
online community (Preece et al. 2004)
‣ “Lurkers” or “free-riders”
(e.g., Nonnecke, 2000, Nonnecke, 2004)
‣ More resource-taking than value-
adding(Kollock, 1990)
‣ Only valuable when they become
active contributors (Preece et al. 2004)
5
photo credit:
claudia müller-birn, CC BY 2.0

6. Why might it be useful to
know your readers better?!
6

7. Why might it be useful to
know your readers better?!
7
As a user, I have a better reading experience, so I return more often,
and eventually become a contributor.
As an editor, I can use reading time
as an additional measure for article quality.
As an author, I feel that my work is more valuable
when an increasing number of readers access “my” articles.
As an interface designer, I can adapt the article presentation
by considering the exploration reading pattern.
…

8. Let’s make the first step!
8photo credit: DonToofee CC BY-SA 2.0

9. 9
(1)We studied people’s reading preferences,
i.e. what they read.
!
!

10. Reading preferences
10
Biography
Entertainment
List
Tech
History
Misc
Health
Leisure
Sport
Places
Adult
Culture/Belief
0 0.125 0.25 0.375 0.5
2.6%
2.6%
2.8%
3%
3.2%
3.4%
3.8%
4.4%
5%
7.6%
17.4%
44.2%

11. 11
(1)Does an article’s popularity change over
time?
!
!
people’s reading preferences

12. Three patterns of readers’ interests
12
2011-09 2011-12 2012-03 2012-06 2012-09
One direction
Proportion of users
0
0.0020
Constant interest!
!
‣ Regularly accessed articles, sometimes
only for fact finding
‣ Examples: Albert Einstein, Facebook, IMDB
Peak interest!
!
‣ Death of people, game and movie releases
‣ Examples: Whitney Houston, The Hunger
Games, 2012 Phenomenon
Increasing/decreasing interest!
!
‣ Items that became popular/loose popularity
during our observation period
‣ Examples: One direction, Instagram

13. 13

14. 14
(1)Does an article’s popularity change over
time?
!
(2)Do readers interests relate to editors
preferences?
✔
people’s reading preferences

15. 15
Preference matrix

16. 16

17. 17
(1)We studied people’s reading preferences,
i.e. what they read.
!
(2)We analyzed people’s reading behaviors,
i.e. how they read.
✔

18. Example of a reading session on Wikipedia
18
0.5min 1.8min 2min
Session statistics
article views: 3
session articles: 5
reading time: 4.3min
session
starts
session
ends
time

19. Two exemplary reading patterns
19
Focus Exploration
!
!
Article Views ~ ↑↑
Reading Time ↑ ~
Session Articles ↓↓ ↑↑
~ on average
↓ little below average ↑ little above average
↓↓ well below average ↑↑ far above average
-1.0
0.5
-0.5
0.0
1.0
-1.0
0.5
-0.5
0.0
1.0

20. Explicit feedback
with the AFT
20
Implicit feedback
with reading behavior
Readers
give
suggestions
Readers
read
articles
Editors
make
improvements
Graphic created by Fabrice Florin, CC BY-SA 3.0

21. Wrapping up
‣ Data on readers are already available, but their
potential has not being fully exploited
‣ Reading behavior provides an alternative way to think
about readers but an application is not available yet
21photo credit: marissa, CC BY 2.0

22. !
Many thanks to the co-authors of our research paper:
David Laniado, Mounia Lalmas, Andreas Kaltenbrunner
!
For more information:
http://janette-lehmann.de/docs/pub2014_ht.pdf
Thank you.
22These slides are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.
Check out the review by Piotr on Wikimedia Research Newsletter (vol 4, issue 7, July 2014)

23. References
‣ C. Okoli, M. Mehdi, M. Mesgari, F. Å. Nielsen, and A. Lanamäki. The People’s Encyclopedia Under the
Gaze of the Sages: A Systematic Review of Scholarly Research on Wikipedia. http://ssrn.com/
abstract=2021326, 2012.
‣ J. Preece, B. Nonnecke, and D. Andrews. The top five reasons for lurking: improving community
experiences for everyone. Comp. in Human Behavior, 20(2), 2004.
‣ B. Nonnecke and J. Preece. Lurker demographics: counting the silent. In Proc. CHI (2000).
‣ B. Nonnecke, J. Preece and D. Andrews. What lurkers and posters think of each other. In Proc. HICSS
(2004).
‣ P. Kollock. The economies of online cooperation: Gifts and public goods in cyberspace. In Communities
in Cyberspace, pages 220–239. Routledge, 1990.
23These slides are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.