Filling in the Blanks? A Systematic Review and Theoretical Conceptualisation for Measuring WikiData Content Gaps

TL;DR

This paper systematically reviews Wikidata's content gaps, proposing a typology and theoretical framework to measure and understand these gaps, with implications for improving data quality and editor engagement.

Contribution

It introduces a novel typology and theoretical framework for conceptualising and measuring Wikidata content gaps, filling a gap in existing research.

Findings

Identified systematic content gaps and biases in Wikidata

Classified existing metrics and methods for gap measurement

Highlighted overlooked gaps and future research directions

Abstract

Wikidata is a collaborative knowledge graph which provides machine-readable structured data for Wikimedia projects including Wikipedia. Managed by a community of volunteers, it has grown to become the most edited Wikimedia project. However, it features a long-tail of items with limited data and a number of systematic gaps within the available content. In this paper, we present the results of a systematic literature review aimed to understand the state of these content gaps within Wikidata. We propose a typology of gaps based on prior research and contribute a theoretical framework intended to conceptualise gaps and support their measurement. We also describe the methods and metrics present used within the literature and classify them according to our framework to identify overlooked gaps that might occur in Wikidata. We then discuss the implications for collaboration and editor activity within Wikidata as well as future research directions. Our results contribute to the understanding of quality, completeness and the impact of systematic biases within Wikidata and knowledge gaps more generally.