Sverker Johansson: Writing Wikipedia articles by the million
Writing Wikipedia articles by the million
A project for creating Wikipedia articles for all living species in several different languages is currently in progress. The project uses bot software to read biological databases and convert database entries to human-readable articles about each species. To date, about three million articles have been created in three different languages, and several more languages are in the pipeline.
I will present my experiences in managing this project, as well as
reflections on what can and cannot be done with bot software, and what should and should not be done. Bot writing and manual writing are complementary tools, that both have a place in making the sum of all human knowledge accessible to every single person.
Download video: http://videos.fscons.org/fscons/2013/c444_-_2013-11-10_1715_-_writing_wikipedia_articles_by_the_million_-_sverker_johansson_-_60.ogv