Why the World Reads Wikipedia: Beyond English Speakers

TL;DR

This study explores why people worldwide read Wikipedia in different languages by combining surveys and log analysis, revealing usage patterns, motivations, and socio-economic influences on reading behaviors.

Contribution

It provides a comparative analysis of Wikipedia readership across 14 languages, linking user motivations with behavioral patterns and socio-economic factors.

Findings

Distinct usage patterns for different languages

In-depth reading correlates with lower Human Development Index

Survey and log data reveal commonalities and differences in reader behavior

Abstract

As one of the Web's primary multilingual knowledge sources, Wikipedia is read by millions of people across the globe every day. Despite this global readership, little is known about why users read Wikipedia's various language editions. To bridge this gap, we conduct a comparative study by combining a large-scale survey of Wikipedia readers across 14 language editions with a log-based analysis of user activity. We proceed in three steps. First, we analyze the survey results to compare the prevalence of Wikipedia use cases across languages, discovering commonalities, but also substantial differences, among Wikipedia languages with respect to their usage. Second, we match survey responses to the respondents' traces in Wikipedia's server logs to characterize behavioral patterns associated with specific use cases, finding that distinctive patterns consistently mark certain use cases across language editions. Third, we show that certain Wikipedia use cases are more common in countries with certain socio-economic characteristics; e.g., in-depth reading of Wikipedia articles is substantially more common in countries with a low Human Development Index. These findings advance our understanding of reader motivations and behaviors across Wikipedia languages and have implications for Wikipedia editors and developers of Wikipedia and other Web technologies.