Quantitative Analysis of Zambian Wikipedia Contributions: Assessing Awareness, Willingness, Motivation, and the Impact of Gamified Leaderboards and Badges

Wikipedia is a widely recognized and valuable source of information, However, it encounters persistent challenges in attracting and retaining active contributors. It is recorded that only 10 people from Zambia contribute and create content on wikipedia in the month of may 2023. While a large number consumes Wikipedia content, there is a noticeably low number of Wikipedians that contribute content on and about Zambia. This paper presents a Facebook plugin, WikiMotivate, aimed at motivating Zambian Wikipedians to update pre-existing content, add new entries, and share their natural expertise. WikiMotivate was implemented as a Facebook plugin that utilizes leaderboard and badge gamification features to encourage and incentivize active Wikipedia content contribution. Using a mixed-methods approach, historical Wikipedia edit histories were used to quantify content contributed by Zambian Wikipedians. In addition, user surveys were conducted to determine relative levels of awareness about Wikipedia, willigness to contribute to contribute content on Wikipedia and perceived motivating factors that affect content contribution on Wikipedia. Furthermore, a Facebook plugin, WikiMotivate, was implemented in order to be used an a service for motivating potential Zambian Wikipedians. Finally, in order to determine the most effective approach, a comparative analysis of leader-boards and badges was conducted with nine (9) expert evaluaters. The results clearly indicate that a significant proportion of Wikipedia content on and about Zambia is authored by Wikipedians from outside Zambia, with only 11% of the contributors, out of the 224, originating from Zambia. In addition, study participants were largely unaware of the various editing practices on Wikipedia; interestingly enough, most participants expressed their willingness to contribute content if trained. In terms of motivating factors, “Information Seeking and Educational Fullfilment” was as the key motivating factor. The Facebook plugin implemented suggests that incorporating leaderboards and badges is a more effective approach to motivating contributions to Wikipedia. This study provides useful insight into the landscape of Wikipedia content contribution in the Global South.