Knowledge dissemination from and knowledge production of a public review digital information source : A snapshot of visitors and active users’ activity in two language versions of Wikipedia

Abstract: During the last two decades, Wikipedia’s multiple language versions managed to become editable forms of knowledge source, publicly available, which deal both, with non-typical knowledge dissemination and knowledge production, thanks to visitors’ viewership and active users/Wikipedians visitation/viewership and voluntary contribution, respectively. This dissertation investigates the function of recent viewership and editing in Wikipedia in Greek (WiG) and Bulgarian Language (WiB), by visitors and active users/Wikipedians (G-Wiks and B-Wiks), respectively, with respect to the issue of knowledge production (including reproduction) in the broader spectrum of Epistemology. Data and metadata analyzed in the dissertation were released/available as digital footprints from Wikimedia’s Common area and a third-party source (WikiShark). A recent snapshot of each of the above language versions of Wikipedia’s (WiG and WiB) activity, both individually and comparatively, proved that visitors have a specific pattern in both language versions in timeline, are relatively many compared to the number of their own language active users/Wikipedians (G-Wiks and B-Wiks). G-Wiks and B-Wiks, functioning as digitally enabled social networks (DESN), seem to deal more with editing, instead of content creation. From further content analysis of G-Wiks comments in discussion, it seems that editing process is not without tension or toxification; in their attempt to result after discussion in a meaningful Neutral Point of Views (NPOV) content of WiG. Moreover, thanks to many contemporary activities, G-Wiks DESN seems to open floor and facilitate/educate youth to become new members of WiG, through webinars, Editathons, and contests, aiming to result in further intentional, purposeful, and useful, collaborative knowledge production in the digital information pace, during this so-called Information Era.