IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0020902.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Content Disputes in Wikipedia Reflect Geopolitical Instability

Author

Listed:
  • Gordana Apic
  • Matthew J Betts
  • Robert B Russell

Abstract

Indicators that rank countries according socioeconomic measurements are important tools for regional development and political reform. Those currently in widespread use are sometimes criticized for a lack of reproducibility or the inability to compare values over time, necessitating simple, fast and systematic measures. Here, we applied the ‘guilt by association’ principle often used in biological networks to the information network within the online encyclopedia Wikipedia to create an indicator quantifying the degree to which pages linked to a country are disputed by contributors. The indicator correlates with metrics of governance, political or economic stability about as well as they correlate with each other, and though faster and simpler, it is remarkably stable over time despite constant changes in the underlying disputes. For some countries, changes over a four year period appear to correlate with world events related to conflicts or economic problems.

Suggested Citation

  • Gordana Apic & Matthew J Betts & Robert B Russell, 2011. "Content Disputes in Wikipedia Reflect Geopolitical Instability," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 6(6), pages 1-5, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0020902
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0020902
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0020902
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0020902&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0020902?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kaufmann, Daniel & Kraay, Aart & Mastruzzi, Massimo, 2007. "Governance Matters VI: Aggregate and Individual Governance Indicators, 1996-2006," Policy Research Working Paper Series 4280, The World Bank.
    2. Réka Albert & Hawoong Jeong & Albert-László Barabási, 2000. "Error and attack tolerance of complex networks," Nature, Nature, vol. 406(6794), pages 378-382, July.
    3. Kaufmann, Daniel & Kraay, Aart & Mastruzzi, Massimo, 2007. "The worldwide governance indicators project : answering the critics," Policy Research Working Paper Series 4149, The World Bank.
    4. Jim Giles, 2005. "Internet encyclopaedias go head to head," Nature, Nature, vol. 438(7070), pages 900-901, December.
    5. Jeremy Ginsberg & Matthew H. Mohebbi & Rajan S. Patel & Lynnette Brammer & Mark S. Smolinski & Larry Brilliant, 2009. "Detecting influenza epidemics using search engine query data," Nature, Nature, vol. 457(7232), pages 1012-1014, February.
    6. Steven H. Strogatz, 2001. "Exploring complex networks," Nature, Nature, vol. 410(6825), pages 268-276, March.
    7. Stephen Oliver, 2000. "Guilt-by-association goes global," Nature, Nature, vol. 403(6770), pages 601-602, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Yang, Hyeonchae & Jung, Woo-Sung, 2016. "Structural efficiency to manipulate public research institution networks," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 110(C), pages 21-32.
    2. Yao, Jialing & Sun, Bingbin & Xi, lifeng, 2019. "Fractality of evolving self-similar networks," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 515(C), pages 211-216.
    3. Laurienti, Paul J. & Joyce, Karen E. & Telesford, Qawi K. & Burdette, Jonathan H. & Hayasaka, Satoru, 2011. "Universal fractal scaling of self-organized networks," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 390(20), pages 3608-3613.
    4. Prasanna Gai & Sujit Kapadia, 2011. "A Network Model of Super-Systemic Crises," Central Banking, Analysis, and Economic Policies Book Series, in: Rodrigo Alfaro (ed.),Financial Stability, Monetary Policy, and Central Banking, edition 1, volume 15, chapter 13, pages 411-432, Central Bank of Chile.
    5. Selen Onel & Abe Zeid & Sagar Kamarthi, 2011. "The structure and analysis of nanotechnology co-author and citation networks," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 89(1), pages 119-138, October.
    6. Qingmin Hao & Jim Huangnan Shen & Chien-Chiang Lee, 2023. "Risk contagion of bank-firm loan network: evidence from China," Eurasian Business Review, Springer;Eurasia Business and Economics Society, vol. 13(2), pages 341-361, June.
    7. Jose L Herrera & Ravi Srinivasan & John S Brownstein & Alison P Galvani & Lauren Ancel Meyers, 2016. "Disease Surveillance on Complex Social Networks," PLOS Computational Biology, Public Library of Science, vol. 12(7), pages 1-16, July.
    8. Knoll, Martin & Zloczysti, Petra, 2012. "The Good Governance Indicators of the Millennium Challenge Account: How Many Dimensions are Really Being Measured?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 40(5), pages 900-915.
    9. Kashyap, G. & Ambika, G., 2019. "Link deletion in directed complex networks," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 514(C), pages 631-643.
    10. Ying Duan & Xiuwen Fu & Wenfeng Li & Yu Zhang & Giancarlo Fortino, 2017. "Evolution of Scale-Free Wireless Sensor Networks with Feature of Small-World Networks," Complexity, Hindawi, vol. 2017, pages 1-15, July.
    11. Gao, Bo & Deng, Zhenghong & Zhao, Dawei, 2016. "Competing spreading processes and immunization in multiplex networks," Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, Elsevier, vol. 93(C), pages 175-181.
    12. Li, Xin-Feng & Lu, Zhe-Ming, 2016. "Optimizing the controllability of arbitrary networks with genetic algorithm," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 447(C), pages 422-433.
    13. Sun, Peng Gang & Che, Wanping & Quan, Yining & Wang, Shuzhen & Miao, Qiguang, 2022. "Random networks are heterogeneous exhibiting a multi-scaling law," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 587(C).
    14. Milena Oehlers & Benjamin Fabian, 2021. "Graph Metrics for Network Robustness—A Survey," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 9(8), pages 1-48, April.
    15. Tobin Im & Youngmi Choi, 2018. "Rethinking National Competitiveness: A Critical Assessment of Governmental Capacity Measures," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 135(2), pages 515-532, January.
    16. Johan Rose Santos & Nur Diana Safitri & Maya Safira & Varun Varghese & Makoto Chikaraishi, 2021. "Road network vulnerability and city-level characteristics: A nationwide comparative analysis of Japanese cities," Environment and Planning B, , vol. 48(5), pages 1091-1107, June.
    17. Yu, Shu & Beugelsdijk, Sjoerd & de Haan, Jakob, 2015. "Trade, trust and the rule of law," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 102-115.
    18. Kaufmann, Daniel & Kraay, Aart & Mastruzzi, Massimo, 2008. "Governance matters VII : aggregate and individual governance indicators 1996-2007," Policy Research Working Paper Series 4654, The World Bank.
    19. Jianxi Gao & Xueming Liu & Daqing Li & Shlomo Havlin, 2015. "Recent Progress on the Resilience of Complex Networks," Energies, MDPI, vol. 8(10), pages 1-24, October.
    20. Modjtaba Ghorbani & Matthias Dehmer & Frank Emmert-Streib, 2020. "Properties of Entropy-Based Topological Measures of Fullerenes," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 8(5), pages 1-23, May.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0020902. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.