uncovering spin and bias on wikipedia using wikiwash

Introducing WikiWashA tool for uncovering spin on Wikipedia

Rob KenediEntrepreneur-In-Residence, @twg

Today, some of the most relevant stories can only be told by poring over datasets and crunching numbers in Excel. It’s imperative reporters have tools to find the stories hidden in the data.

-Luke Simcoe, Data Journalist, Metro News Canada

“

Currently, English Wikipedia includes 4,740,371 articles.More than 800 new articles are added every single day. *

*Source: Wikipedia

There is no political power without control of the archive, if not of memory.

-Jacques Derrida (1998)

“

WikiWash decreases spin and bias on Wikipedia, by holding those making changes accountable.

How does it do that?

•Real-Time

•Open Source

•Works with Wikipedia’s API

•Built in Javascript

•Export your data

•Uses Node.js, Express.js, Angular.js, Socket.IO

•Free!

wikiwash.metronews.ca

Roadblocks & lessons learned.

Fixes, features…. the future?

•Make it sticky: Email user

when big changes happen

•Add other languages

•Access to Wikipedia’s firehose

•Big Data!

•Should the scroll start from the first

edit, or from the top?

•Show next/previous navigator

•Embed edit function

So, what’s next for WikiWash?

Image credit: Ellen Rixford

1. Fork the project on Github to help us improve it.

github.com/twg/wikiwash

2. Send us your feedback, ideas and feature requests.

wikiwash@twg.ca

3. Talk to us about a live demo of WikiWash for your newsroom.*

*Or anything else

The world needs more tools like WikiWash

So, what are we waiting for?

hello@twg.ca twg.ca @twg