For This Author, 10,000 Wikipedia Articles Is a Good Days Work Sverker Johanssons automated computer program helps him turn out millions of Wikipedia articles. Hes a hero to some, but others question the technique. FALUN, Sweden— Sverker Johansson could be the most prolific author youve never heard of. Volunteering his time over the past seven years publishing to Wikipedia, the 53-year-old Swede can take credit for 2.7 million articles, or 8.5% of the entire collection, according to Wikimedia analytics, which measures the sites traffic. His stats far outpace any other user, the group says. He has been particularly prolific cataloging obscure animal species, including butterflies and beetles, and is proud of his work highlighting towns in the Philippines. About one-third of his entries are uploaded to the Swedish language version of Wikipedia, and the rest are composed in two versions of Filipino, one of which is his wifes native tongue. An administrator holding degrees in linguistics, civil engineering, economics and particle physics, he says he has long been interested in the origin of things, oh, everything. It isnt uncommon, however, for Wikipedia purists to complain about his method. That is because the bulk of his entries have been created by a computer software program—known as a bot. Critics say bots crowd out the creativity only humans can generate. Mr. Johanssons program scrubs databases and other digital sources for information, and then packages it into an article. On a good day, he says his Lsjbot creates up to 10,000 new entries. On Wikipedia, any registered user can create an entry. Mr. Johansson has to find a reliable database, create a template for a given subject and then launch his bot from his computer. The software program searches for information, then publishes it to Wikipedia. Bots have long been used to author and edit entries on Wikipedia, and, more recently, an increasingly large amount of the sites new content is written by bots. Their use is regulated by Wikipedia users called the Bot Approvals Group. While Mr. Johansson works to achieve consensus approval for his project, he and his bot-loving peers expect to continue facing resistance. There is a vocal minority who dont like it, he said during a recent speech on his work. Still, he soldiers on. Im doing this to create absolute democracy online, Mr. Johansson said recently while sitting in front of a computer at his office at Swedens Dalarna University. Wikipedia, he reckons, should someday be able to tell people everything about everything. His bot, which took him months worth of programming to create, is a step toward achieving that goal sooner rather than later—even if the entries it creates are bare-boned stubs containing basic information. Achim Raschka is one of the people who would like Mr. Johansson to change course. The 41-year-old German Wikipedia enthusiast can spend days writing an in-depth article about a single type of plant. I am against production of bot-generated stubs in general, he said. He is particularly irked by Mr. Johanssons Lsjbot, which prizes quantity over quality and is not helping the readers and users of Wikipedia. Mr. Raschka says these items only contain more or less correct taxonomic information, not what the animal looks like and other important things. Others have echoed his concerns on public chat forums, comparing Mr. Johansson to rambot, a bot used to add county and city articles in the U.S., that contain only the most rudimentary information. Sverker Johansson Wikipedia, a collaboratively edited Internet encyclopedia, is supported by the nonprofit Wikimedia Foundation. Volunteers write Wikipedias 30 million articles in 287 languages. A representative didnt respond to requests for comment. Mr. Johansson admits Lsjbots entries can be boring, but argues there is value. Take, for instance, an item the Lsjbot created for Swedish Wikipedia in 2012 on Basey, a city of about 44,000 in the Philippines. It contains coordinates, population and other details. At the top of the page, a disclosure notes the entry was created by Lsjbot. Last year, when Typhoon Yolanda hit Southeast Asia, newspapers ran headlines saying people died in Basey. Mr. Johansson had already created his entry on Basey, allowing people to access a map, an image and information on where it is. Mr. Johansson says the short stubs allow other writers—who know more about each particular subject—to fill in additional information later. While bots are speedy and largely accurate, he says errors can happen. For instance, his software used to only use information recorded in the Latin alphabet. When a project was done that needed bird photos, the bot turned to the Russian version of Wikimedia Commons, which provides millions of free-to-use images. But at the time, Lsjbot couldnt read Cyrillic and made mistakes. Mr. Johansson later altered the software to address the glitch. Currently, the most likely subjects for bots to tackle are technical, ranging from chemical elements to astronomical objects. They can be helpful in broadening a subject, such as the animal kingdom. While tigers and elephants have plenty of entries, worms and insects are underrepresented, Mr. Johansson says. Sverker Johansson can take credit for 2.7 million Wikipedia articles. Most were created using a computer program, or bot, that he made. Ellen Emmerentze Jervell/The Wall Street Journal His ability to document relatively obscure facts helps him combat one of the biggest problems he sees in the Wikipedia community. Many entries, he argues, are made by white male nerds. On Swedish Wikipedia, for instance, he says, there are more than 150 articles on characters from The Lord of the Rings, and fewer than 10 about people from the Vietnam War. I have nothing against Tolkien and I am also more familiar with the battle against Sauron than the Tet Offensive, but is this really a well-balanced encyclopedia? Mr. Johansson says his bot could be an inspiration to future authors who have knowledge outside the typical interests of standard Wikipedia contributors. He says a computer program cant write about everything. Wikipedia also needs writers to describe sentiments, literary quality, those kinds of things—my bot wont ever be able to do that, he says. There are plenty who see value in his mission. Lennart Gulbrandsson, a representative for Wikipedia in Sweden, says Sverkers work has proven its value and many skeptics have converted into believers. Mr. Johansson says he is pained by those who continue to criticize him. It saddens me that some dont think of Lsjbot as a worthy author, he said. I am a person; I am the one who created the bot. Without my work, all these articles would never have existed.
Posted on: Mon, 14 Jul 2014 11:08:48 +0000
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