Abstract

In this work we study how people navigate the information network of Wikipedia and investigate (i) free-form navigation by studying all clicks within the English Wikipedia over an entire month and (ii) goal-directed Wikipedia navigation by analyzing wikigames, where users are challenged to retrieve articles by following links. To study how the organization of Wikipedia articles in terms of layout and links affects navigation behavior, we first investigate the characteristics of the structural organization and of hyperlinks in Wikipedia and then evaluate link selection models based on article structure and other potential influences in navigation, such as the generality of an article's topic. In free-form Wikipedia navigation, covering all Wikipedia usage scenarios, we find that click choices can be best modeled by a bias towards article structure, such as a tendency to click links located in the lead section. For the goal-directed …

Date

January 2, 2017

Authors

Daniel Lamprecht, Kristina Lerman, Denis Helic, Markus Strohmaier

Journal

New Review of Hypermedia and Multimedia

Volume

23

Issue

1

Pages

29-50

Publisher

Taylor & Francis