Dynamics of Conflicts in Wikipedia

In this work we study the dynamical features of editorial wars in Wikipedia (WP). Based on our previously established algorithm, we build up samples of controversial and peaceful articles and analyze the temporal characteristics of the activity in these samples. On short time scales, we show that there is a clear correspondence between conflict and burstiness of activity patterns, and that memory effects play an important role in controversies. On long time scales, we identify three distinct developmental patterns for the overall behavior of the articles. We are able to distinguish cases eventually leading to consensus from those cases where a compromise is far from achievable. Finally, we analyze discussion networks and conclude that edit wars are mainly fought by few editors only.

在本项研究中，我们探讨了维基百科（WP）编辑战争中的动态特征。基于我们先前建立的算法，我们构建了争议性文章和和平文章的样本，并分析了这些样本中的活动时间特性。在短期时间尺度上，我们发现冲突与活动模式突发性之间存在明显的对应关系，且记忆效应在争议中发挥着重要作用。在长期时间尺度上，我们识别出三种不同的文章整体行为发展模式。我们能够区分最终导致共识的案件与那些妥协难以实现的情况。最后，我们分析了讨论网络，并得出结论：编辑战争主要由少数编辑进行。