Edit 2019/Mitigating risk in Wikipedia content: Submissions:2019/“Wikipedians are born, not made” – applying the learnings from a 10-year-old research paper after all

This submission has been accepted for WikiConference North America 2019.

The creation and management of content on Wikipedia is rarely considered from the perspective of the risks involved in these activities.

This session will begin with a brief presentation on basic risk identification, assessment and mitigation principles, and will apply them to the creation and management of content on English Wikipedia. Focus will be on safety, reputational, human factors, financial and maintenance risks, using actual content to illustrate these risks.

As a group, the participants will identify several specific risks that apply to Wikipedia content. The participants will then break into groups to identify existing and prospective risk mitigation possibilities that apply to those risks. Existing risk mitigation practices may include policies, guidelines, and common practices. Prospective risk mitigation practices may include modifications of existing policies, development of new practices, and other ideas generated by the participants.

At the end of the workshop, the participants will come together to report on their discussions and critique/support existing and prospective risk mitigation practices.