Low-resourced Languages and Online Knowledge Repositories: A Need-Finding Study

TL;DR

This study investigates the challenges faced by low-resourced language communities in contributing to Wikipedia, highlighting issues like resource scarcity and technology support, to inform better design of inclusive online knowledge platforms.

Contribution

It provides a detailed analysis of low-resourced language contributors' challenges on Wikipedia through thematic and contextual studies, focusing on Ethiopian languages.

Findings

Contributors struggle to find corroborating resources.

Language technology support contains errors that hinder contributions.

Low-resourced communities face unique barriers in content creation.

Abstract

Online Knowledge Repositories (OKRs) like Wikipedia offer communities a way to share and preserve information about themselves and their ways of living. However, for communities with low-resourced languages -- including most African communities -- the quality and volume of content available are often inadequate. One reason for this lack of adequate content could be that many OKRs embody Western ways of knowledge preservation and sharing, requiring many low-resourced language communities to adapt to new interactions. To understand the challenges faced by low-resourced language contributors on the popular OKR Wikipedia, we conducted (1) a thematic analysis of Wikipedia forum discussions and (2) a contextual inquiry study with 14 novice contributors. We focused on three Ethiopian languages: Afan Oromo, Amharic, and Tigrinya. Our analysis revealed several recurring themes; for example, contributors struggle to find resources to corroborate their articles in low-resourced languages, and language technology support, like translation systems and spellcheck, result in several errors that waste contributors' time. We hope our study will support designers in making online knowledge repositories accessible to low-resourced language speakers.