Wikipedia contributors show confirmation bias by preferentially editing articles consistent with their own views¶

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · review r2 · q2
Currency · newest study 2018 · checked against its sources 2026-10-20 (automated, 1 of 1 entry) · not reviewed by a person · overdue for a recheck since 2023: baselines and conditions change

Subclaims¶

q2 i? In the study the review reports, Wikipedia contributors primarily edited those articles that were consistent with their own view on alternative versus conventional medicine, mirroring lab findings on confirmation bias. → Peter Holtz & Joachim Kimmerle & Ulrike Cress 2018

Evidence¶

Peter Holtz & Joachim Kimmerle & Ulrike Cress 2018¶

Peter Holtz & Joachim Kimmerle & Ulrike Cress. (2018). Using big data techniques for measuring productive friction in mass collaboration online environments. Intern. J. Comput.-Support. Collab. Learn. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11412-018-9285-y

q2 · i? · review · r2

The review reports a large-scale observational log analysis in which Jirschitzka et al. sampled more than 70,000 edits from 398 German Wikipedia articles on alternative medicine and nutrition and trained a supervised classifier to label edits as pro alternative, pro conventional, or neutral. The reported pattern is a "typical confirmation bias" in editing choices. No effect size is printed.

"The studies showed a typical confirmation bias (Jonas et al. 2001): Wikipedia contributors primarily edited those articles that were consistent with their own view on the topic (see Fig. 1)."

Discussion¶

Related Claims¶

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