An algorithm for controlled text analysis on Wikipedia

Anonymous

Keywords: Wikipedia, computational social science, text analysis, bias, social bias

TL;DR: We provide and evaluate algorithms for matching Wikipedia pages based on common traits, which can be used to analyze bias on Wikipedia in a controlled setting

Abstract: While numerous work has examined bias on Wikipedia, most approaches fail to control for possible confounding variables. In this work, given a target corpus for analysis (e.g. biography pages about women), we present a method for constructing a control corpus that matches the target corpus in as many attributes as possible, except the target attribute (e.g. the gender of the subject). This methodology can be used to analyze specific types of bias in Wikipedia articles, for example, gender or racial bias, while minimizing the influence of confounding variables.