Wikipedia and many User-Generated Content (UGC) communities are known for producing reliable, quality content, but also for being vulnerable to false or misleading information. Previous work has shown that many hoaxes on Wikipedia go undetected for extended periods of time. But little is known about the creation of intentionally false or misleading information online. Does collective attention toward a topic increase the likelihood it will spawn disinformation? Here, we measure the relationship between allocation of attention and the production of hoax articles on the English Wikipedia. Analysis of traffic logs reveals that, compared to legitimate articles created on the same day, hoaxes tend to be more associated with traffic spikes preceding their creation. This is consistent with the idea that the supply of false or misleading information on a topic is driven by the attention it receives. These findings improve our comprehension of the determinants of disinformation in UGC communities and could help promote the integrity of knowledge on Wikipedia.

翻译：维基百科及许多用户生成内容（UGC）社区以提供可靠、高质量内容而闻名，同时也易受虚假或误导性信息的影响。已有研究表明，维基百科上的许多恶作剧长期未被发现。然而，关于故意制造虚假或误导性信息的行为仍鲜为人知。群体对某一话题的关注是否会增加其滋生虚假信息的可能性？本文通过分析英语维基百科中注意力分配与恶作剧文章生成之间的关系发现：与同日创建的合法文章相比，恶作剧文章往往在其创建前更频繁地伴随流量峰值。这一现象与“话题受到的关注驱动了其虚假或误导性信息供给”的观点相吻合。这些发现加深了我们对UGC社区中虚假信息决定因素的理解，并有助于维护维基百科的知识完整性。