Wikipedia Gap Finder: filling in the language holes

The Gap Finder, currently in beta mode, is an article recommendation system that aims to encourage more translations within Wikipedia.

Due to the unbalanced percentage of languages on the Wikipedia database, the company's research department has launched an initiative to encourage more of the volunteer editors to translate articles. In order to do this, they have built the Gap Finder -- currently in beta mode -- which locates articles lacking translations, prioritizes them, and then uses an algorithm to locate and contact the ideal volunteer for the task.

Leila Zia and Dario Taraborelli from the Wikimedia Foundation explain that the tool "identifies trending articles in a given source language and missing in a target language. It also allows you to search for recommendations based on the specific topics you are interested in."

There is as yet no date for when the Gap Finder might go online.