"The Struggle of Wikipedia's Notability and the Need for Highlighting Services"

"The Struggle of Wikipedia's Notability and the Need for Highlighting Services"

Wikipedia, the largest online encyclopedia, has been grappling with the issue of notability when it comes to creators. As a contributor to Wikipedia, I have firsthand experience with the controversial nature of this issue. The concept of notability is subjective, and determining the border of a "reliable" secondary source can be challenging. Additionally, the credibility of publications often varies depending on the country.

Out of the 1.7 million biographies on Wikipedia, only 20% feature women. This lack of representation raises questions about how notability is defined. Wikipedia attempts to address this by setting detailed guidelines for satisfying notability. According to these guidelines, the more reputable secondary media coverage a biographical subject has, the more likely their biography will be approved. However, this approach raises concerns. For instance, if the third-most followed creator on a platform with around 700 million global users is not considered notable enough for Wikipedia, then who is?

The issue of notability becomes even more complex when we consider the sources of information. Mainstream publications like The Wall Street Journal rarely cover what goes on in Twitch and creator circles. As a result, the publications that report on noteworthy achievements by creators are often not considered reputable enough by Wikipedia. This discrepancy highlights the importance of secondary sources in determining notability on the platform. According to Wikipedia, a creator's achievement would only count if it is reported to a publication like The New York Times.

However, content creators have the ability to establish their own notability through their work. They grow their audience and impact through their content, to the point that 92% of consumers trust an influencer's product recommendation more than a celebrity endorsement. This raises the question of how creators fit into the future of our documentation and history. Currently, Wikipedia's system of information sharing is gatekept by a small group of editors, with 90% of the top editors being male. This lack of diversity and representation within the editing community can have a significant impact on the content that gets approved and the overall credibility of the platform.

As one Wikipedia editor, Natureium, pointed out in 2019, "I guess that's the problem with Wikipedia. We cover what reliable sources cover." This statement highlights the interconnectedness between Wikipedia and the media. Wikipedia influences the media just as much as the media influences Wikipedia. As the Creator Revolution continues to surge forward, the struggle to define a creator's notability, especially on a large, free source of knowledge like Wikipedia, will only continue to grow.

In addition to the challenges faced by Wikipedia in determining notability, there is also a need for better tools to highlight and save information. Over the years, various services have emerged to address this need. Users want a way to highlight text, regardless of its location, and have it saved in an organized manner, preferably with a link back to the original source. Unfortunately, most of these services quickly disappear, and they are often limited by the operating systems on which they run.

The ideal experience would allow users to highlight text anywhere on their phone, tablet, or computer and have those highlights saved permanently. This could be achieved by invoking a "highlight" option, which would save the highlighted text in a designated location, such as a "Highlights" app or the Notes app. The saved highlights should be easily accessible and organized in reverse chronological order, with the option to further categorize them if desired.

Having such highlighting services would greatly enhance the ability to gather and revisit important information. It would also facilitate the process of creating citations and references for platforms like Wikipedia. By seamlessly saving and linking back to the original sources, these services could improve the overall credibility and reliability of information sharing.

In conclusion, the struggle with notability on Wikipedia and the need for effective highlighting services are interconnected issues that impact the future of knowledge sharing and documentation. To address these challenges, here are three actionable pieces of advice:

1. Improve the criteria for notability on Wikipedia: The guidelines for determining notability should be more inclusive, considering the impact and influence of creators in today's digital landscape. This would ensure a more diverse representation of content on the platform.

2. Foster diversity in Wikipedia's editing community: Encouraging a more diverse group of editors, both in terms of gender and background, would help mitigate bias and ensure a more balanced representation of content.

3. Develop robust highlighting services: Developers should focus on creating reliable and user-friendly tools that allow users to highlight and save information from various sources, with the ability to link back to the original content. Such services would greatly enhance the research and documentation processes.

By addressing these issues and implementing these recommendations, we can strive towards a more inclusive and reliable knowledge-sharing ecosystem that embraces the contributions of creators while ensuring the integrity of information.