My presentation about the Ushahidi "Understanding Sources" project covering how Wikipedians verified information during the first days of the 2011 Egyptian revolution article.

1. Managing sources during high
volume news events
hford@ushahidi.com
@hfordsa
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Understanding_sources

2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Aude/Egypt

3. Research questions
How are Wikipedians managing
social media sources?
What verification challenges were
they facing?
How can help editors manage
sources better during high
volume news events?

4. Ranking
Variable 1
Variable 2
Variable 3
vote
Source

5. 1. Defining concepts

6. Sources play 2 important roles
• Verify facts • Directly represented (sometimes)
• Verify importance • Summaries require interpretation
(and in rapidly evolving news
events that interpretation often
hasn’t arrived)
xkcd

8. sources
‘on the books’ source=
1. Use only reliable sources
2. Use predominantly secondary
sources
3. Ensure verifiability

9. Social media sources
are allowed!
- Policy doesn’t specify media
but warns to be careful
- WP:Twitter sources can be used
as sources on themselves
- Self-published expert sources
may be considered reliable
sources

10. Primary sources are
allowed!
- and in fact, are the only sources
available near an event
- but policy states that the
majority of sources should be
secondary

11. 2011 Egyptian revolution article
http://sonetlab.fbk.eu/wikitrip/#|en|2011_Egyptian_Revolution

12. How did editors verify?
• Avoiding single sources
• “Wait and see”
• Reading/watching the source to see whether
it has been accurately reflected
• Counting

14. Suez Jan 26/27
Reports of Army involvements are refuted on Twitter, sometimes quite
strongly; all reliable tweets seem to mention paramilitary riot police only
(using Fahd (armored personnel carrier) which the Army also uses, hence
the apparent confusion).
Suez city center apparently cordoned off, curfew in effect, internet and
phone (mobile and landlines) capped or intermittent at best, possibly
blackout. Watercannons, dozens injured. Best source so far: http://
www.youtube.com/watch?v=yIfGGo6G-4Q (Arabic) possibly useful
(mainstream media blog) http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/blog/2011/jan/26/
egypt-protests —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.196.206.14 (talk)
01:29, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

17. context
Ranking independent
variable 1
Variable 1
independent
Variable 2
variable 2
Variable 3
vote
Source

18. Indep. variables
Are the majority of sources
secondary?
What is the article about?
How recent is the event being
discussed?

19. hford@ushahidi.com
@hfordsa
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Understanding_sources