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3D representation of 30 days of Wikipedia talk-page revisions, of which 1092 contained toxic language (shown as red if live, gray if reverted) and 164,102 were non-toxic (shown as dots).

Quantification of types of harassment experienced by Wikipedia users.

Wikipedia

Percentage of attacking comments attributed to Wikipedia editors at different activity levels.

Chart by Nithum Thain/Hlud

We've all heard anecdotes about trolling on Wikipedia and other social platforms, but rarely has anyone been able to quantify levels and origins of online abuse. That's about to change. Researchers with Alphabet tech incubator Jigsaw worked with Wikimedia Foundation to analyze 100,000 comments left on English-language Wikipedia. They found predictable patterns behind who will launch personal attacks and when.

The goal of the research team was to lay the groundwork for an automated system to "reduce toxic discussions" on Wikipedia. The team's work could one day lead to the creation of a warning system for moderators. The researchers caution that this system would require more research to implement, but they have released a paper with some fascinating early findings.

To make the supervised machine-learning task simple, the Jigsaw researchers focused exclusively on ad hominem or personal attacks, which are relatively easy to identify. They defined personal attacks as directed at a commenter (i.e., "you suck"), directed at a third party ("Bill sucks"), quoting an attack ("Bill says Henri sucks"), or just "another kind of attack or harassment." They used Crowdflower to crowdsource the job of reviewing 100,000 Wikipedia comments made between 2004-2015. Ultimately, they used over 4,000 Crowdflower workers to complete the task, and each comment was annotated by 10 different people as an attack or not.

Once the researchers had their dataset, they trained a logistic regression algorithm to recognize whether a comment was a personal attack or not. "With testing, we found that a fully trained model achieves better performance in predicting whether an edit is a personal attack than the combined average of three human crowd-workers," they write in a summary of their paper on Medium.

The researchers unleashed their algorithm on Wikipedia comments made during 2015, constantly checking results for accuracy. Almost immediately, they found that they could debunk the time-worn idea that anonymity leads to abuse. Although anonymous comments are "six times more likely to be an attack," they are less than half of all attacks on Wikipedia. "Similarly, less than half of attacks come from users with little prior participation," the researchers write in their paper. "Perhaps surprisingly, approximately 30% of attacks come from registered users with over a 100 contributions." In other words, a third of all personal attacks come from regular Wikipedia editors who contribute several edits per month. Personal attacks seem to be baked into Wikipedia culture.

The researchers also found that a large percentage of attacks come from a very small number of "highly toxic" Wikipedia contributors. Eighty percent of personal attacks on Wikipedia come from people who rarely make personal attacks. But a whopping 9% of attacks in 2015 came from 34 users who had made 20 or more personal attacks during the year. "Significant progress could be made by moderating a relatively small number of frequent attackers," the researchers note. This finding bolsters the idea that problems in online communities often come from a small minority of highly vocal users.

Depressingly, the study also found that very few personal attacks are moderated. Only 17.9% of personal attacks lead to a warning or ban. Attackers are more likely to be moderated if they have launched a number of attacks or have been moderated before. But still, this is an abysmal rate of moderation for the most obvious and blatant form of abuse that can happen in a community.

The researchers conclude their paper by calling for more research. Wikipedia has released a dump of all talk-page comments to the site between 2004-1015 via Figshare, so other researchers will have access to the same dataset that the Jigsaw team did. Understanding how attacks affect other users is urgent, say the researchers. Do repeated attacks lead to user abandonment? Are some groups attacked more often than others? The more we know, the closer we get to having good tools to aid moderators. Such tools, the researchers write, "might be used to help moderators build dashboards that better visualize the health of Wikipedia conversations or to develop systems to better triage comments for review."

Listing image by Hoshi Ludwig

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Handful of highly toxic Wikipedia editors cause 9% of abuse on the site - Ars Technica

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This weeks Wikipedia: Fact or Fiction? guest is drumming legend Gene Hoglan. Watch thrash metals otherworldly Atomic Clock prove and disprove whats written about him online in this exclusive segment!

You may know Hoglan as the percussionist for Testament, Dethklok, Death, Strapping Young Lad, Dark Angel and a ton of other bands, but Genes family calls him Eugene Victor Hoglan II. But wait why is he Gene II instead of Gene Jr.? Hoglan explains in this fresh clip.

Gene actually watched the Kerry King episodes of Wikipedia: Fact or Fiction? and was anxious to clear up something the Slayer shredder credited as false. Contrary to what King remembers, Hoglan recalls being Slayers light engineer and roadie back in the bands early years and never taking any photos of the thrashers. Perhaps Kerry got Gene confused with The Atomic Clocks sister? Thats what Hoglan thinks!

The funniest tale from this Wiki episode comes from the band Zimmers Hole, which was lovingly named after Dean Zimmer, a late friend of the band who loved chasing people with his buttcheeks spread during parties. Hoglan confirms this entry, adding that Zimmer chose who he chased with his sphincter extremely carefully.

Check out the Gene Hoglan episode of Wikipedia: Fact or Fiction? above! HoglansThe Atomic Clock: The Clock Strikes Two drumming DVD will be released Feb. 3 and can be pre-ordered here while Canadian pre-orders can be placed at this location.

Dethklok Wikipedia: Fact or Fiction?

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Slayers Kerry King Wikipedia: Fact or Fiction? (Part 1)

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Gene Hoglan Plays 'Wikipedia: Fact or Fiction?' - Loudwire - Loudwire

In this completely revised, Remix version of his highly-acclaimed memoir, White Like Me, Tim Wise explores how racial identity and whiteness influence the lives of white Americans, by examining how they have impacted his own life. Wise examines what it means to be white in a nation created for the benefit of those who are white like him, and how privilege seeps into every institutional arrangement, from education to employment to the justice system. Importantly, he also discusses the ways that white privilege can ultimately harm its recipients in the long run and make progressive social change less likely. Through personal storytelling and convincing analysis, Wise makes the case that racial inequity and white privilege are real and persistent threats to personal and collective well-being, but that resistance to white supremacy and racism is possible.

James Loewen, best-selling author of Lies My Teacher Told Me, and Sundown Towns calls White Like Me:

the most important memoir by a white person about how race and racism affect everyday life since Lois Mark Stalveys The Education of a WASP. And, as with Stalvey, after reading Wise, white readers are energized to join the fray and reduce racism in our society.

Author and long-time liberation activist Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz calls White Like Me:

A brilliant and personal deconstruction of institutionalized white supremacy in the United StatesIt is a beautifully written, heartfelt memoir.

And Publishers Weekly, speaking of the books first edition, called it invigorating.

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Tim Wise White Like Me: Reflections on Race from a ...

Internationally-known anti-racism author and speaker Tim Wise will be at Washburn University on Friday to hold a community conversation on race and justice.

Bruce Mactavish, assistant history professor and associate dean of Washburns college of arts and sciences, said he first met Wise nine years ago when Wise was honored in 2008 in Topeka as an Oliver L. Brown distinguished visiting scholar for diversity issues at Washburn.

He comes armed with a great deal of facts, Mactavish said of lectures regarding white privilege and racism he has heard Wise deliver. Hell engage an audience in a way you just cant ignore.

Wise is well-known for his speeches on what white people dont know or understand about racism. In many of his lectures, he cites a 1963 Gallup poll that found 60 percent of white people believed African-Americans were treated as equally as they were in their communities. The same poll, he said, showed that percentage increased to 75 percent in 1967, the year before the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated and before the Fair Housing Act was signed into law.

Even more tellingly, in 1962, fully 85 percent of whites told Gallup that black children had the same chance as white children to obtain a high quality education, Wise wrote in a national media opinion piece in 2015. Such beliefs might strike us as delusional in retrospect, of course, but thats the point: Unless we believe that white Americans have somehow become amazingly attuned to the experiences of persons of color in the last half-century (and more so than those people of color are, with regard to their own experiences) even as our parents and grandparents clearly failed to discern truth from fiction it seems that we should probably think twice before trusting white perceptions when it comes to the state of racial discrimination in this country.

Mactavish said he admires the way Wise can talk about the complexities of white privilege and racism.

These issues are hard to talk about, he said. Theyre hard to talk about in the classroom.

On Friday, Wise will speak from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. during the Washburn faculty luncheon at the Memorial Union. At 3:30 p.m., he will be the guest speaker for KTWUs Minds that Matter program at White Concert Hall. Wise will also have two book signings, one at Memorial Union at 1:3o p.m. and another at 6 p.m. in the vestibule at White Concert Hall.

Other sponsors of Wises visit include the Washburn University Foundation via the Ruth Garvey Cochener Fink Visiting Professors of Leadership and the Washburn University Office of University Diversity and Inclusion.

Contact reporter Angela Deines at (785) 295-1143 or @AngelaDeines on Twitter.

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Tim Wise, anti-racism author and speaker, will speak Friday at ... - Topeka Capital Journal

Details Last Updated on February 9th, 2017 February 9th, 2017 Written by Chuck Samples

Emporia State UniversityBlack History Month celebrationcomes with a highlightof ESU'sfirst Social Justice & Equity Lecture.

Tim Wise, one of the nations most prominent anti-racist activists and educators,has traveled to Emporia today to speak to thepublicabout the importance of social justiceactivism. Wise's visit comes on the same day as the roll out of the new ESU's diversity, equity and inclusion plan. Jason Brooks, Assistant Dean of Students, indicated that thiswas just a happy coincidence.

Brooks this event, by no coincidence, takes place duringBlack History Month, a event Brooks says Emporia State prides itself on celebrating.

Wise is the author of seven books, including his highly-acclaimed memoir, White Like Me: Reflections on Race from a Privileged Son." His latest book, Under the Affluence: Shaming the Poor, Praising the Rich and Sacrificing the Future of America." The event will take place a 6pm, at Albert Taylor Hall, it is free to the public and does not require a ticket. Brooks said that this is an invitation to the table for everyone to sit down with Wise.

Emporia State University has its first Social Justice and Equity Lecture on Thursday.

Tim Wise, the author of "White Like Me: Reflections on Race from a Privileged Son" and six other books, will be the featured speaker. Wise has spent 25 years talking with audiences about racism and equality matters. His latest book, "Under the Affluence: Shaming the Poor, Praising the Rich and Sacrificing the Future of America," was published two years ago.

Wise has also made several network TV news appearances, including appearances on CNN, MSNBC, NPR, ABC and CBS.

The lecture will be at Albert Taylor Hall starting at 6 pm. The event is free and the public is encouraged to attend.

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Noted activist Tim Wise giving ESU's first Social Justice and Equity lecture Thursday - KVOE