Submissions:2025/WikiSignals
This submission has been noted and is pending review for WikiConference North America 2025.
Title:
- WikiSignals
Type of session:
- Lecture (15-30 min)
Session theme(s):
- Credibility
Abstract:
WikiSignals is a proposed credibility-related Wikipedia Editing Tool.
Determining the reliability of a source isn't easy. But data to make that determination is easily available. WikiSignals compiles that data so Wikipedians can better evaluate source credibility.
Overview
Wikipedia's core mission is to be a source of credible information. This requires maintaining the credibility of not only internal articles but also external references. Wikipedia has a Perennial Sources list that ranks sources by their reliability. However, this list is only available for a handful of languages. The Wikipedia English is the the most developed and even that ranks only a few hundred websites (out of countless millions).
WikiSignals aims to close this gap. Participants in the WikiCred initiative are developing a Wikipedia editing tool that provides reliability-related signals for sources being considered for citations, references, and external-link lists. It also returns domain-level website data, including global traffic rank, registration date, and social media usage statistics — information useful for judging the quality of the reference.
Project
The WikiSignals tool can expand to assist with other editing tasks. We plan to interview Wikipedia editors to find pain points that WikiSignals might address, particularly with respect to the editing workflow. Our broader goal is to become part of an effort to build a comprehensive reference dataset of credibility indicators for news outlets, science journals, and other source types. Our WikiSignals project page has more info.
This project is a collaboration between Veri.FYI, Factiverse, SimPPL, AfroCrowd, Iffy.news, and the Internet Archive Reference Explorer: organizations pioneering efforts to improve access to source-credibility information.
Author name(s):
Wikimedia username(s):
- Localmotion127, SwapneelM, Gautek, Hearvox
Affiliated organization(s):
Estimated length of session
- 30–50 minutes
Will you be presenting remotely?
- I will present in-person
Okay to livestream?
- Livestreaming is okay
Previously presented?
- No
Special requests: