We argue that disambiguation is key to many problems in information access. The effectiveness of different disambiguation techniques in Wikipedia varies; for example, disambiguation of historical rulers is rather effective (George I of Great Britain), while disambiguation of other persons is problematic (John Taylor). We survey the disambiguation techniques used in different scientific and scholarly domains and in different types of reference works, and classify disambiguation techniques for use in Web-based applications such as wikis. Implications for Semantic Wiki projects are discussed. Genealogy wikis are presented as a case study; these are wikis with a potentially very large size and high needs for disambiguation due to the large numbers of people sharing similar names. We conclude that proper disambiguation is essential for the success of a large wiki, but is hard to realize without intelligent tool support.
.gif)
GNU Free Documentation License (details)
