Navigating change: an exploration of socio-epistemic process of extending Wikidata ontology with new properties
| Date | 13 May 2024 |
| Pages | 1291-1312 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/JD-01-2024-0008 |
| Published date | 13 May 2024 |
| Subject Matter | Library & information science,Records management & preservation,Document management,Classification & cataloguing,Information behaviour & retrieval,Collection building & management,Scholarly communications/publishing,Information & knowledge management,Information management & governance,Information management,Information & communications technology,Internet |
| Author | Marcin Roszkowski |
Navigating change: an exploration
of socio-epistemic process of
extending Wikidata ontology with
new properties
Marcin Roszkowski
Faculty of Journalism, Information and Book Studies, University of Warsaw,
Warsaw, Poland
Abstract
Purpose –The paper addresses the issue of change in Wikidata ontology by exposing the role of the socio-
epistemic processes that take place inside the infrastructure. The subject of the study was the process of
extending the Wikidata ontology with a new property as an example of the interplay between the social and
technical components of the Wikidata infrastructure.
Design/methodology/approach –In this study, an interpretative approach to the evolution of the Wikidata
ontology was used. The interpretation framework was a process-centric approach to changes in the Wikidata
ontology. The extension of the Wikidata ontology with a new property was considered a socio-epistemic
process where multiple agents interact for epistemic purposes. The decomposition of this process into three
stages (initiation, knowledge work and closure) allowed us to reveal the role of the institutional structure of
Wikidata in the evolution of its ontology.
Findings –This study has shown that the modification of the Wikidata ontology is an institutionalized
process where community-accepted regulations and practices must be applied. These regulations come from
the institutional structure of the Wikidata community, which sets the normative patternsfor both the process
and social roles and responsibilities of the involved agents.
Originality/value –The results of this study enhance our understanding of the evolution of the
collaboratively developed Wikidata ontology by exposing the role of socio-epistemic processes, division of
labor and normative patterns.
Keywords Wikidata, Ontology evolution, Socio-epistemic processes, Epistemic practices
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
Wikidata is a socio-technica l information infrastructur e aimed at constructing and
maintaining a collaboratively curated knowledge graph. It has been developed since 2012
with the help of volunteers who constitute the Wikidata community. The main goal of
Wikidata is to provide factual information in a structured format about subjects covered in
Wikimedia sister projects (e.g. Wikipedia and Wikisource) and in external sources. Wikidata
contains information about over 107 million items (Wikidata:Statistics, 2023), making it the
largest open-source knowledge graph not only in terms of the size of the collection, but also
the number of participating users (Koutsiana et al., 2023a). As at the end of November 2023,
the Wikidata community consisted of over 24 thousand registered and active users, who
made over 178 million edits in 2023 alone (Wikidata:Statistics, 2023). However, this work has
also been done by unregistered Wikidata editors.
The socio-technical nature of the Wikidatainfrastructure means that the information work
performedby its members is the result of social practicesboth afforded and constrainedby the
technologicalcomponents of the infrastructure (see Huvila, 2009). Ford and Iliadis (2023,p.4)
emphasize the nature of the work that takes place in Wikidata by framing it as a semantic
infrastructure as it “produces facts using an ontological classification system for structured
data”.Therefore, Wikidata editorsperform epistemic practicesas they are engaged in a process
Extending
Wikidata
ontology
1291
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
https://www.emerald.com/insight/0022-0418.htm
Received 10 January 2024
Revised 26 March 2024
Accepted 5 April 2024
Journal of Documentation
Vol. 80 No. 6, 2024
pp. 1291-1312
© Emerald Publishing Limited
0022-0418
DOI 10.1108/JD-01-2024-0008
of knowledge representation by capturing informationabout Wikidata entities. Theepistemic
natureof these practices means that Wikidataeditors acquire knowledgeabout Wikidata items
and form statements about them in a way that is imposed by the Wikidata ontology. These
require de processes that are based on the acquisition, interpretation and sharing of
information.Wikidata editors add newitems to the Wikidata knowledge graph,construct their
descriptionsand justify them by adding referencesto external sources.However, they also add
and remove statements about existing items and even delete Wikidata items. Therefore, the
Wikidata knowledge graph evolves as editors perform different types of epistemic practices
affordedby the infrastructure. Thisalso includes changes in theWikidata ontology, whichis a
community-developed schema for knowledge organization and representation. In classical
ontology engineering, these knowledge organization systems are considered as dynamic
entitiesthat evolve over time (Stojanovic,2004;Noy et al.,2006;Palma et al., 2012).Therefore, it
is not surprising that thisalso applies to project as large as the Wikidata ontology. However,
classicalontologies, although often developed in a group, arebuilt by agents who are required
to have knowledge and expertise in a particular domain and in ontology engineering. Their
work is guided by particular methodology for ontology construction and ensures that the
ontology is a proper representation of the domain, both on a conceptual and formal level.
Wikidatafalls within thecategory of collaborativeontology engineering.In this framework,it is
assumed that “process, methods and tools are explicitly designed to support a decentralized
group of stakeholders or community of interest –in the sense of geographical dispersion,
varyinglevels of skills, experienceand responsibilities,as well aspotentially divergentagendas
–to reach a consensus in an incremental and asynchronous fashion”(Simperl and Luczak-
R€
osch, 2014, p. 102). However, in Wikidata we are not only dealing with a large and diverse
community and a broad scope of the ontology but also with bottom-up initiatives related to
modificationof the ontology(Piscopo, 2019;Piscopoand Simperl, 2019;Haller et al.,2022),which
are not guided by any explicit methodology or typical division of labor (domain expert –
knowledge engineer –ontology engineer). The consequence of the openness of Wikidata
infrastructure is that anyone can contribute both to the Wikidata knowledge base and the
Wikidata ontology. If there is no juryof experts that proposes changes in theontology, and if
there is no suchjury that makes the decisions aboutthe changes, it is important to understand
how this collaboratively developed ontologyevolves.
Recent studies on Wikidata and its ontology (Piscopo et al., 2017;Piscopo and Simperl,
2018;Kanke, 2021b;Koutsiana et al., 2023a,b) have revealed the complex nature of
collaboration and focused on the interaction between community members and their
interdependencies. Relatively little attention was paid to the evolution of the Wikidata
ontology from the socio-epistemic perspective. This paper addresses the issue of change in
the Wikidata ontology by exposing the role of the socio-epistemic processes that take place
inside the infrastructure. The subject of our research was the process of extending the
Wikidata ontology with a new property as an example of the interplay between the social and
technical components of the Wikidata infrastructure. In this scenario, any Wikidata editor
can propose a change in the ontology. However, this process is guided by relevant policies
and guidelines, which allow the group to make a decision. These regulations constitute the
institutional structure of the Wikidata community. The point of departure of this study was
List’s (2011, p. 223) argument that “a necessary condition for epistemic agency in a group is an
institutional structure (formal or informal) that allows the group to endorse certain beliefs or
judgments as collective ones; and the group’s performance as an epistemic agent depends on
the details of that institutional structure”. Examples of such institutional structures are
constitutions, electoral systems and legislative and judicial procedures. Therefore, we build
our understanding of the evolution of the Wikidata ontology on normative patterns that
emerge from the institutional structure of Wikidata and regulate the epistemic practices
performed by its members.
JD
80,6
1292
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