<
https://theconversation.com/we-analysed-35-000-wikipedia-entries-about-australian-places-some-of-them-sanitise-history-241364>
"Wikipedia articles related to Australia are overwhelmingly centred on cities,
new research has found, with negative aspects of a place sometimes “sanitised”
in articles by editors – avoiding mention of discriminatory Australian
government policies or violence against First Nations peoples.
Debate around central questions of Australian history and identity is sparking
conflict between editors, with place names especially contentious. Only around
6% of Australian places are given their First Nation names on Wikipedia, along
with an English one.
Yet while many parts of the nation are not represented, especially near the
arid centre, a series of well-developed articles have been written about
fictional places.
These include a 5,000-word article about Erinsborough, the fictional Melbourne
suburb where TV soap
Neighbours is set (edited by 252 people). Other articles
about fictional places include Mount Thomas, the town where TV series
Blue
Heelers was set, and Summer Bay, the setting of TV soap
Home and Away.
We analysed more than 35,000 entries about Australian places in the primary
English-language edition of Wikipedia, including more than half a million edits
to these articles. We also interviewed 14 active editors of articles about
Australia. Ours is the first project to analyse Australian Wikipedia entries.
We found many Wikipedia editors experienced burnout after being embroiled in
disputes about contentious topics. The most controversial issues included
republicanism, colonisation and place names.
Anyone can edit Wikipedia. But most editors can also override the edits of
others. When editors repeatedly disagree about the content of a page, the
result is an “edit war”.
In June 2023, for instance, the Queensland government officially renamed Fraser
Island K’Gari. This decision sparked a year-long “edit war” about whether or
not the relevant Wikipedia article should reflect this new name. The conflict
finally ended in June 2024 with the decision to move the Fraser Island entry
permanently to a new article named K’Gari.
Another contentious article is that on Barmah National Park. Analysis of the
“talk” pages, which record all edits made, shows there has been a long-running
dispute over whether horses in the national park should be considered “wild” or
“feral”. More than half the edits made to the article have been reverted by
other editors.
Why does this matter? Wikipedia is the world’s largest encyclopedia. The site
and its associated platforms are core components of our knowledge ecosystem,
used to train large language models like ChatGPT and a data source for Google
infoboxes and voice assistants such as Siri and Alexa.
Understanding what Wikipedia says about Australia – and what is left out – is
therefore crucial."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
