Assessing knowledge organization systems from a gender perspective: Wikipedia taxonomy and Wikidata ontologies

What is it about?

This paper presents a framework for evaluating knowledge organization systems (KOS) with a focus on non-binary gender perspectives, specifically examining Wikipedia's taxonomy and Wikidata's ontologies. Employing heuristic and inspection methods, the study assesses Wikipedia's taxonomy for compliance with international standards and evaluates its effectiveness in retrieving articles related to women and non-masculine genders, identifying limitations. Furthermore, it conducts a novel evaluation of Wikidata's ontologies, comparing them with Wikipedia's taxonomy to discern advantages. Findings suggest that while there is room for improvement in Wikipedia's taxonomy regarding gender categorization, Wikidata's ontologies show promise in addressing these challenges. The study underscores the importance of enhancing KOS to support inclusive information retrieval on knowledge-rich platforms, with implications for tool design to aid users in exploring diverse topics and concepts.

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