WikiWho

Data

wikipedia edit analytics

SHOW HN2020

WikiWho

Explore Wikipedia edits made by institutions, companies and governments

ailef.tech

#wikipedia edits#ip address#government edits#corporate edits#wikiscanner

246points
59comments
#193of 3,028 in 2020
Top 7%of 2020 by points

How HN took it

DebatedReal support and real criticism

7 positive, 6 neutral or asking, 0 mixed, 8 critical, out of 21 comments about the project. Thread score 0.00.

Idea: 4 for, 2 againstDesign: 0 for, 4 againstExecution: 0 for, 2 against

The thread, comment by comment

Each row is a top-level comment and its replies, in HN's order. Select a cell to open that comment on HN.

positive neutral or mixed critical about another commenter or something else the maker

What HN said

What people liked

  • Neat and interesting idea, useful for transparency

    From 3 comments
    • This is really neat. Great work!
      jimbob45 on HN
    • This is very welcome, because it's a side of WP content that isn't very transparent without a lot of time-consuming scrounging. Hopefully others can build on this foundation.
      8bitsrule on HN
    • Wow. This is really, really cool. Having this level transparency on who is spreading narratives or propaganda in what way is very interesting. In my few brief searches on some…
      charlchi on HN

Objections

  • Attribution by IP is flawed: accounts, VPNs and shared IPs skew results

    From 3 comments
    • This is really cool! But the approach seems a little flawed, as edits are attributed based on IP address. If I understand correctly that means it: - doesn't capture edits made…
      rkagerer on HN
    • Institutions, companies and governments can't bother to edit from a VPN, or from a tethered cell phone?
      gruez on HN
    • You are totally right. I was thinking the IP address issue could be solved by adding a feature to crowdsource information about IP addresses from users, or maybe using APIs like…
      ailef on HN
  • Title overstates it; companies do not edit, individual employees do

    From 2 comments
    • I find the title and article a bit misleading. Like "companies" dont edit wikipedia, usually it's a random dude forgetting to log with his phone to correct spelling, a gross…
      xwolfi on HN
    • You do realize that if an employer makes an edit during work, the IP will be of the company. Your title makes it seem like it's the official stance of the whole company.
      DonCopal on HN
  • Font is too small and does not scale with page zoom

    From 3 comments
    • The text is almost unreadably small in firefox on a 1366x768 monitor. Screenshot: https://0x0.st/i1K2.png
      moonchild on HN
    • Is it just me or the font on WikiWho really small? Also it doesn't seem to scale correctly with page zoom for some reason.
      Evidlo on HN
    • Not just you! Some text doesn't scale at all.
      O_H_E on HN

Requests

  • Fix small font and zoom scaling

    From 3 comments
    • The text is almost unreadably small in firefox on a 1366x768 monitor. Screenshot: https://0x0.st/i1K2.png
      moonchild on HN
    • Is it just me or the font on WikiWho really small? Also it doesn't seem to scale correctly with page zoom for some reason.
      Evidlo on HN
    • Thanks for this feedback, I'll try to fix this as soon as possible.
      ailef on HN
  • Find negative or controversial edits automatically

    From 1 comment
    • I find the title and article a bit misleading. Like "companies" dont edit wikipedia, usually it's a random dude forgetting to log with his phone to correct spelling, a gross…
      xwolfi on HN

Questions

  • How to deal with edits from VPNs or accounts that bypass IP attribution

    From 2 comments
    • Institutions, companies and governments can't bother to edit from a VPN, or from a tethered cell phone?
      gruez on HN
    • This is really cool! But the approach seems a little flawed, as edits are attributed based on IP address. If I understand correctly that means it: - doesn't capture edits made…
      rkagerer on HN

Alternatives named

  • WikiScanner, the earlier site that did this

    From 1 comment
    • 12 years ago there used to be a fantastic tool called WikiScanner that did exactly this. It made headlines for revealing edits by intelligence agencies and corporate character…
      vector_spaces on HN
  • WikiWho (wikiwho.net), a similarly named project

    From 1 comment

Category, keywords, summaries and labels on this page were made by AI (Thread Reader v2) and not checked by hand. Each point links to the comments it came from.

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