Quantcast
ZME Science
  • News
  • Environment
  • Health
  • Future
  • Space
  • Features
    Menu
    Natural Sciences
    Health
    History & Humanities
    Space & Astronomy
    Technology
    Culture
    Resources
    Natural Sciences

    Physics

    • Matter and Energy
    • Quantum Mechanics
    • Thermodynamics

    Chemistry

    • Periodic Table
    • Applied Chemistry
    • Materials
    • Physical Chemistry

    Biology

    • Anatomy
    • Biochemistry
    • Ecology
    • Genetics
    • Microbiology
    • Plants and Fungi

    Geology and Paleontology

    • Planet Earth
    • Earth Dynamics
    • Rocks and Minerals
    • Volcanoes
    • Dinosaurs
    • Fossils

    Animals

    • Mammals
    • Birds
    • Fish
    • Reptiles
    • Amphibians
    • Invertebrates
    • Pets
    • Conservation
    • Animals Facts

    Climate and Weather

    • Climate Change
    • Weather and Atmosphere

    Geography

    Mathematics

    Health
    • Drugs
    • Diseases and Conditions
    • Human Body
    • Mind and Brain
    • Food and Nutrition
    • Wellness
    History & Humanities
    • Anthropology
    • Archaeology
    • Economics
    • History
    • People
    • Sociology
    Space & Astronomy
    • The Solar System
    • The Sun
    • The Moon
    • Planets
    • Asteroids, Meteors and Comets
    • Astronomy
    • Astrophysics
    • Cosmology
    • Exoplanets and Alien Life
    • Spaceflight and Exploration
    Technology
    • Computer Science & IT
    • Engineering
    • Inventions
    • Sustainability
    • Renewable Energy
    • Green Living
    Culture
    • Culture and Society
    • Bizarre Stories
    • Lifestyle
    • Art and Music
    • Gaming
    • Books
    • Movies and Shows
    Resources
    • How To
    • Science Careers
    • Metascience
    • Fringe Science
    • Science Experiments
    • School and Study
    • Natural Sciences
    • Health
    • History and Humanities
    • Space & Astronomy
    • Culture
    • Technology
    • Resources
  • Reviews
  • More
    • Agriculture
    • Anthropology
    • Biology
    • Chemistry
    • Electronics
    • Geology
    • History
    • Mathematics
    • Nanotechnology
    • Economics
    • Paleontology
    • Physics
    • Psychology
    • Robotics
  • About Us
    • About
    • The Team
    • Advertise
    • Contribute
    • Privacy Policy
    • Contact
No Result
View All Result
ZME Science

No Result
View All Result
ZME Science

Home → Science

This author edits 10,000 Wikipedia entries a day

Henry Conrad by Henry Conrad
January 16, 2023
in Research, Science

wikipedia-bot
Photo: prisonplanet.com

Sverker Johansson could encompass the definition of prolific. The 53-year-old Swede has edited so far 2.7 million articles on Wikipedia, or 8.5% of the entire collection. But there’s a catch – he did this with the help of a bot he wrote. Wait, you thought all Wikipedia articles are written by humans?

A good day’s work

“Lsjbot”, Johansson’s prolific bot, writes around 10,000 Wikipedia articles each day, mostly cataloging obscure animal species, including butterflies and beetles, as well as towns in the Philippines. About one-third of his entries are uploaded to the Swedish Wikipedia, while the rest are written in two versions of Filipino, his wife’s native tongue.

Judging from this master list, there are a myriad of Wikipedia bots, like the famous ram bot, which is used to generate articles on U.S. cities and counties. In fact, half of all Wiki entries are written by bots, and the Lsjbot is the most prolific of them all.

So, how does the bot writes anything that a human can remotely understand? Well, computer semantics have come a long way, and to Johansson’s credit, who holds degrees in linguistics, civil engineering, economics, and particle physics, he did a pretty good job. His algorithm pulls out information from credible sources, rehashes the information, and arranges any figures, important numbers, or categories in a predefined narrative. Don’t imagine the bot edits a whole novel, though.

wiki_bot
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

Lsjbot’s entries are categorized by Wikipedia as stubs – pages that contain only the most important, basic bits of information. This is why his bot works so well for animal species or towns, where it can make sense to automatize the process. In fact, if Wikipedia has a chance of reaching its goal of encompassing the sum of the whole human knowledge, it needs bots. It needs billions of entries, and this is no task a community of humans can achieve alone, not even one as active and large as Wikipedia.

Some people are against this sort of approach, like 41-year-old Achim Raschka, who claims he spends a whole days writing a single in-depth article about a plant.

“I am against production of bot-generated stubs in general,” he said. He is particularly irked by Mr. Johansson’s Lsjbot, which prizes quantity over quality and is “not helping the readers and users of Wikipedia.”

Johansson himself admits the entries are … bland at best, but even so, this doesn’t mean they don’t provide value which is where he draws the line. For instance, Basey, a city of about 44,000 in the Philippines, was devastated by Typhoon Yolanda. The Swedish Wikipedia entry for Basey was edited by Lsjbot, and contained information like coordinates, population, and other details. Many people accessed the page to learn more. Moreover, Johansson stresses that his bot only writes stubs – as such they provide a basic starting ground for other contributors to come in and fill the gaps.

Criticism

The Lsjbot also provide a way for Johansson to combat the lack of obscure references and articles, at least on the Swedish Wikipedia, he says. For instance, 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?”

“It saddens me that some don’t 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.”

via WSJ

Was this helpful?


Thanks for your feedback!

Related posts:
  1. Is Wikipedia accurate? Study shows Wikipedia’s Accuracy is 99.5%
  2. Italian Wikipedia blanked out temporarily in protest of SOPA, whole Wikipedia considers the same thing
  3. Sugar just got a bit CRISPR: precise gene edits can improve sugarcane resilience, reduce its environmental impact
  4. There are over 20,000,000,000,000,000 ants – and they weigh more than wild birds and mammals combined
  5. Better than Photoshop: AI synthesizes and edits complex images from a text description — and they’re mind-bogglingly good
Tags: algorithmbotrobotswikipedia

ADVERTISEMENT
  • News
  • Environment
  • Health
  • Future
  • Space
  • Features
  • Reviews
  • More
  • About Us

© 2007-2021 ZME Science - Not exactly rocket science. All Rights Reserved.

No Result
View All Result
  • News
  • Environment
  • Health
  • Future
  • Space
  • Features
    • Natural Sciences
    • Health
    • History and Humanities
    • Space & Astronomy
    • Culture
    • Technology
    • Resources
  • Reviews
  • More
    • Agriculture
    • Anthropology
    • Biology
    • Chemistry
    • Electronics
    • Geology
    • History
    • Mathematics
    • Nanotechnology
    • Economics
    • Paleontology
    • Physics
    • Psychology
    • Robotics
  • About Us
    • About
    • The Team
    • Advertise
    • Contribute
    • Privacy Policy
    • Contact

© 2007-2021 ZME Science - Not exactly rocket science. All Rights Reserved.

Don’t you want to get smarter every day?

YES, sign me up!

Over 35,000 subscribers can’t be wrong. Don’t worry, we never spam. By signing up you agree to our privacy policy.

✕
ZME Science News

FREE
VIEW