My first question is whether or not you think this metric or some variant can be used to detect current conflict in articles (rather than the existence of past conflict). My thinking is that if conflict can be detected early, it may be possible for the peacemakers to guide the conflict to a consensus rather than attempt to do so once hostilities are well-established.
Another question relates to warring editors. If I read it right, you looked for pairs (or groups) of editors that were reverting one another’s changes (i.e. an edit war) in an article. However, is conflict limited to just one article? Is it possible that warring editors on one article may then engage in conflicts over other articles simultaneously or later, either because of the same issue that caused the earlier disagreements or because they had developed a dislike for one another and were ready to find excuses to be unpleasant to each other. That is, are we just looking at articles that are controversial (in some way) or are we also looking at pairs (or groups) of editors who are actively hostile to one another. It might be interesting to know if editors who have been involved in edit wars go on to peacefully co-exist with one another on other articles, go to war with them over other articles, or simply never happen to encounter each other again (WP being a big place). If they do go on to war again, was it because they are both active on articles within similar categories (e.g. sexuality) or because one/both is stalking the other (which you might suspect if they had conflicts across a range of topics, especially where one of them had no prior edit history in that category (e.g. start warring over Ben Franklin and then continue it in Pumpkin).
Thank you for sharing your paper. I found it very interesting that there are good metrics that enable detection of articles with conflict. I have a couple of questions, which might well go beyond your current study but I’d welcome your thoughts.
My first question is whether or not you think this metric or some variant can be used to detect current conflict in articles (rather than the existence of past conflict). My thinking is that if conflict can be detected early, it may be possible for the peacemakers to guide the conflict to a consensus rather than attempt to do so once hostilities are well-established.
Another question relates to warring editors. If I read it right, you looked for pairs (or groups) of editors that were reverting one another’s changes (i.e. an edit war) in an article. However, is conflict limited to just one article? Is it possible that warring editors on one article may then engage in conflicts over other articles simultaneously or later, either because of the same issue that caused the earlier disagreements or because they had developed a dislike for one another and were ready to find excuses to be unpleasant to each other. That is, are we just looking at articles that are controversial (in some way) or are we also looking at pairs (or groups) of editors who are actively hostile to one another. It might be interesting to know if editors who have been involved in edit wars go on to peacefully co-exist with one another on other articles, go to war with them over other articles, or simply never happen to encounter each other again (WP being a big place). If they do go on to war again, was it because they are both active on articles within similar categories (e.g. sexuality) or because one/both is stalking the other (which you might suspect if they had conflicts across a range of topics, especially where one of them had no prior edit history in that category (e.g. start warring over Ben Franklin and then continue it in Pumpkin).
Kerry
From: wiki-research-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:wiki-research-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Taha Yasseri
Sent: Friday, 22 June 2012 8:15 AM
To: Research into Wikimedia content and communities
Subject: [Wiki-research-l] Dynamics of Conflicts in Wikipedia
Dear Wikipedia researchers!
Our manuscript on is now released by PLoS ONE and available at: http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0038869
I would delightedly take your comments and remarks.
bests
.Taha
Dr. Taha Yasseri.
---------------------------------------------
www.phy.bme.hu/~yasseri
Department of Theoretical Physics
Institute of Physics
Budapest University of Technology and Economics
Budafoki út 8.
H-1111 Budapest, Hungary
tel: +36 1 463 4110
fax: +36 1 463 3567
---------------------------------------------
--
Taha.
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