Edit 2018/Lightning Talk on Homoglyphs: 2024/Main Page

Title

Lightning Talk on Homoglyphs

Theme (optional)

Tech & Tools

Academic Peer Review option

No

Type of submission

Unconference—Lightning talk

Author

Trey Jones

E-mail address

treywikimedia.org

Wikimedia username

TJones WMF

Affiliation(s) (optional)

Wikimedia Foundation

Abstract

The string “ᎳⅰkіСоnfеrеnce Νοrth ᗅmeriⅽa” is made up of a mixture of Latin, Cyrillic, Greek, Cherokee, Canadian Syllabics, and Roman numeral characters. Characters that look like other characters in a different script are called “homoglyphs”, and in the right font, Latin, Cyrillic, and Greek letters are almost indistinguishable, for example: A/Α/А, M/Μ/М, O/Ο/О, or T/Τ/Т.

Homoglyphs—introduced accidentally or through vandalism—make finding the words that contain them all but impossible.

In this very brief talk, I’ll tell how I discovered Wikipedia’s homoglyph problem, became obsessed with finding and fixing homoglyphs, demo a semi-automated tool for doing so, and discuss plans for a future project to try to solve the problem once and for all!

Length of presentation

~5 minutes

Special requests

Need to be able to connect my computer to a projector

Preferred room size

Wherever the other lightning talks are!

Have you presented on this topic previously? If yes, where/when?

Yes: Lightning talk at the Haystack Relevance Conference (April 2018)

If you will be incorporating a slidedeck during your presentation, do you agree to upload it to Commons before your session, with a CC-BY-SA 4.0 license, including suitable attribution in the slidedeck for any images used?

I’ll have a brief demo but no slide deck.

Will you attend WikiConference North America if your submission is not accepted?

Yes

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