We improve Wikipedia through code
We develop software solutions to collect and analyze Wikipedia data accumulated over 23 years and billions of edits.
- Collect detailed information about articles, edits and their authors. Find anomalies in the data stream.
- Identify spam, vandalism, and botnets that autocracies and corporations use to spread misinformation.
Mission
Wikipedia is one of the most important and popular sources of information. Therefore, it is daily put to the test by spammers, vandals, lobbyists, and propagandists.
At the same time, the encyclopedia does not have effective protection against destructive activity, especially if well-planned. The detection of well-constructed attacks often lags behind for years, and the search for violators remains a laborious manual process.
We have started developing services for monitoring Wikipedia and simplifying our own research tasks. Now we are testing ideas on the Russian Wikipedia and using the system to track articles about Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
We want to create a threat monitoring system and scale it to the largest language sections of Wikipedia. Our goal is to be prepared for the future and new threats: GPT-like spam and in general the widespread use of artificial intelligence in managing all kinds of attacks.
Hopes & Fears
In 2024, our activity is focused around 3 tasks:
- Development of non-public services for investigative tasks.
- Release of a public system to monitor articles and topics in many language sections at once.
- Collecting detailed statistics on editor activity in Wikipedia's largest language sections.
About
We are a non-profit research project with one wikipedia researcher and two programmers. We have been running the project since 2021.
We want to always remain non-profit forever. We also know how we can make money in the long run to expand and fund our research activities.
Wikiganda.org
Wikiganda is our publishing and investigative project. One of our priorities is to search for government propaganda and corporate misinformation on Wikipedia.
Wikify.io capabilities are used to find and track suspicious editors, hidden botnets, conflicting articles and hot topics.
[by invitation]: Services
A family of microservices for analyzing the flow of edits and events in the Russian-language Wikipedia extends the standard features of the encyclopedia and allows you to see more.
The system is still in its early stages. We give limited access and only to trusted Wikipedia editors.
Contacts
Contact us by wikify-io@wikiganda.org or telegram @gruznov if you are:
¶ a researcher or journalist and need specific data - we'll help you get it.
¶ a Wikipedian and have noticed some weirdness - we are ready to investigate the case.
¶ a developer, and you have specific ideas or would like to work with us to develop Wikipedia on a volunteer or paid basis.
¶ you can help as an advisor to our project, or provide funding or help with promotion.