On the credibility of wikipedia

Abstract

User interfaces play a critical role on the credibility of authoritative information sources on the Web. Citation and referencing mechanisms often provide the required support for the independent verifiability of facts and, consequently, influence the credibility of the conveyed information. Since the quality level of these references has to be verifiable by users without any barriers, user interfaces cannot pose problems on accessing information. This paper presents a study about the influence of accessibility of user interfaces on the credibility of Wikipedia articles. We have analysed the accessibility quality level of the articles and the external Web pages used as authoritative references. This study has shown that there is a discrepancy on the accessibility of referenced Web pages, which can compromise the overall credibility of Wikipedia. Based on these results, we have analysed the article referencing lifecycle (technologies and policies) and propose a set of improvements that can help increasing the accessibility of references within Wikipedia articles.