Profiling wikipedia contributors

Abstract

Wikipedia is a large web based, free online encyclopedia of various articles where

everyone with internet access can contribute and edit articles collaboratively. This

community of contributors is known as Wikipedians. Visitors or contributors do not need

specialized qualifications to contribute to an article. This means that people of all ages and

cultural and social backgrounds can write Wikipedia articles. As the number of articles and

their contributors are increasingly growing at a fast rate, the number of disputes occurring

among the contributors is also increasing.

This means that articles that are contributed may not be completely accurate and are based

on the contributor’s beliefs which may differ and conflict with the opinions of others. Such

articles with controversial content due to disputes where contributors are not able to come

to a mutual/common conclusion is what this project aims to work on.

This project will identify controversial articles in Wikipedia and study the contribution

behavior of contributors in Wikipedia by trying to understand the possible patterns sharing

among Wikipedia contributors.