In his essay 'Digital Maoism' Jaron Lanier makes an open criticism on Wikipedia and its 'hive mind' style. He criticizes the idea of the collective as being 'all-wise' and points out how this idea can be dangerous, if one looks up the examples when the extreme Right or extreme Left were in power in history. Wikipedia, according to him, reestablishes the idea of the collective being 'all-wise'. The central problem that he sees in Wikipedia is not the experiment itself, but its rapid growth in size and importance. He believes it makes Wikipedia a source of social danger, increasing collectivists' thoughts, mob-like acting and turning otherwise creative individuals into idiots. However, can we compare an organization such as Wikipedia to political extremism?

Read more here.

List of links to articles, webpages, blogs, etc. concerning Wikipedia directly or indirectly

#3

Who Does What on Wikipedia?
About a research carried out by Sudha Ram and Jun Liu (University of Arizona).

Determinants of Wikipedia Quality: the Roles of Global and Local Contribution Inequality
New book

Wiki-style theme for WordPress
Downloadable

Nonfiction: "You are Not a Gadget: A Manifesto," by Jaron Lanier.
Review from his book

Interview: Encyclopedia Dramatica moderator
A contrast to Wikipedia

Wikipedia's Decline and the 7 Types of Human Motivation

Knol: The State of Play

Dear CPoV interested,
don't forget to check our new resources in English

• Experiences with Wikipedia
• Wikipedia and the Politics of Open Knowledge
• Wikimedia evolution in terms of governance and the creation of a Foundation

and in Portuguese

• Wikipédia e Políticas de Conhecimento Livre
• Ciência na Wikipédia e outros projetos da Wikimedia

More coming soon!

List of links to articles, webpages, blogs, etc. concerning Wikipedia directly or indirectly

#2

Wikipedia Saves Public Art (WSPA): New Project to Document Public Art on a Global Scale

BBC Arabic embraces wiki-TV

How to fix Wikipedia

Pew Says the Internet Doesn't Dumb Us Down, But Are They Right?

Will Digital Publishing End the Author as We Know It?

Publishing: The Revolutionary Future

A Brief Word on "Monkey Business," Wikipedia and Otherwise

Readers Vote to Kill MySpace, Facebook, Twitter

Truth, Lies and Wikipedia

Google Gift Means More Servers for Wikipedia

Best of Wikipedia

List of links to articles, webpages, blogs, etc. concerning Wikipedia directly or indirectly

#1

Why Wikipedia beats Wikinews as a collaborative journalism project

WikiReader: Gadget to read Wikipedia articles offline

Mawire: An application that can store and read Wikipedia articles offline

The challenges of filming the Virtual Revolution (BBC)

Google Knol: Tool for writing articles in open, moderated or closed collaboration (not as new, but still interesting)

WikiXRay: Software for quantitative analysis in Wikipedia

More Video Coming Wikipedia's Way

How Open Source Development is Funded

WikiPock : Shrinks Wikipedia Online Database in 4GB

Wikipedia to be converted to a book in Germany

Dear CPOV participant,

The Digital Methods Initiative will host an informal wiki analytics workshop at the University of Amsterdam on Thursday, March 25. Participants of the CPOV Amsterdam conference are invited to present and discuss methods, tools and data among fellow Wikipedia researchers.

The workshop is in anticipation of the CPOV Amsterdam conference, in particular the session Wiki Analytics on Saturday March 27.

If you would like to attend, please indicate this by sending a brief description of your contribution to info@digitalmethods.net. Seats are limited so please register by Monday 15 March.

Date and time: Thursday March 25, 10:00-17:00
Location: UvA Turfdraagsterpad 9 in Amsterdam, room 0.13

The Digital Methods Initiative (DMI) is a collaboration of the New Media TEMLab at the University of Amsterdam and the Govcom.org Foundation, Amsterdam, developing methods and tools for Web research. The Digital Methods Initiative is directed by Prof. Dr. Richard Rogers. The project coordinators are Esther Weltevrede and Anne Helmond. Current affiliates include Anat Ben-David, Erik Borra, Marieke van Dijk, Andrea Fiore, Noortje Marres, Koen Martens, Sabine Niederer, Michael Stevenson and Marijn de Vries Hoogerwerff.

Best regards

Wikipedia: Collaborative Culture and the Fulfillment of a Vision

Short summary and review of Joseph Reagle's dissertation "In Good Faith: Wikipedia Collaboration and the Pursuit of the Universal Encyclopedia". (http://reagle.org/joseph/2008/03/dsrtn-in-good-faith. New York (NY), 2008).

By Juliana Brunello

Reagle's introduction is somewhat unclear about the central quest of his dissertation. After reading his essay and re-reading the introduction and conclusion, I believe that the central thesis of his dissertation is that Wikipedia is the fulfillment of a "long held aspiration for a universal encyclopedia…" (Reagle 2008: 3) He believes that this was possible due to the collaborative "good faith" practice, encyclopedic impulse, the vision of a universal encyclopedia itself and technological aspiration. In order to present his ideas, Reagle chose a historical and ethnographical approach. Throughout his work, he points out the differences and similarities between the past trials and the present Wikipedia, showing what makes it different and why it has (relatively) succeeded.

Read the complete version here

Interview with Erinc Salor, 20.01.2010

By Juliana Brunello

Erinc Salor and Joseph Reagle have something in common: One is writing and the other has already written a PhD thesis using a historical perspective to explain Wikipedia. Their backgrounds are completely different though. Reagle has studied Computer Science, Technology and Policy. He also gathered much experience with the new media actively. He used this knowledge to write his PhD, which he concluded with a dissertation on the history and collaborative culture of Wikipedia. Salor, on the other hand, studied Economics, European Studies and Cultural Analysis.

I have met Erinc Salor at de Balie in Amsterdam for a coffee and to talk about his PhD project. I wanted to know more about it and ask him about Joseph Reagle's dissertation. As he explained to me, I noticed that there is a change in focus, making both works different, though related in some points.

Erinc explained to me, that his work is about contextualizing Wikipedia in the encyclopedic heritage, what Reagle also does. He explains however, that while Reagle is more interested in how the community works, he is more interested in how it fits in the whole tradition. Reagle focuses more on how the encyclopedia is defined and re-defined, while he is more interested in where it is coming from "in a broader sense" from periods prior to the printing era to at present focusing on how knowledge was collected.

An important question to be answered is consequently how Wikipedia defines knowledge and authority, a point also discussed in Reagle's dissertation. Salor indicates he will deal with both themes in a more profound way. He gave me a clue to what he means by that. According to him, after Wikipedia started, the understanding and concepts of knowledge and authority became quite different in comparison to the "old model". There used to be just a set of books that set the standards for what is worth knowing in order to be "good educated". Now, with the advancement of Wikipedia, some will position themselves saying it is not good, others will say one should use it, but be cautious and check the source of the information. He points out, additionally, that in Wikipedia something becomes true if it can be verified. In Britannica something becomes true, because Britannica "tells it is true". His conclusion is that there is a shift in authority. This leads to further questioning: What does that imply, concerning society's approach to encyclopedias? What should one expect from it? What does that imply to our approach to knowledge? What does that imply to our society? These are the central questions that Salor will approach in his PhD.

Salor also tells me that Reagle's dissertation has helped him in many ways. He thinks that Reagle could have gone deeper with his insights though. What theses insights are, he did not tell me. It will be part of his work to continue and to deepen these "insights" in his research. Furthermore, we both agreed that it was very much informal for a PhD thesis. His structure and language are not a "scientific" one, but one similar to books. Reagle makes personal remarks on topics and uses the first person throughout his work. Salor emphasizes it is not a critic, but a remark, as he does not know the requirements and practices of Reagle's University.

Salor's PhD dissertation is foreseen to be available by the end of next year. For more information you can visit his website at UvA.

By Stuart Geiger

This year, the International Symposium on Wikis and Open Collaboration (aka WikiSym) will be in Gdansk, Poland on July 7-9th. The conference is less critical than CPOV, but research is welcome on all topics related to wikis, no matter what the theoretical, methodological, or axiological orientation. WikiSym also has a much broader scope than CPOV, extending to not only all wikis, but other sites of open collaboration as well.

The conference will take place just a few days before Wikimania, the annual conference for Wikimedia Foundation projects, which will also be in Gdansk. However, know that WikiSym has and will remain an independent academic conference with its own formal peer-review procedure. For more on the relationship between the two conferences, see WikiSym and Wikimania.

For the Website click here. For the call for papers click here.

The Institute of Network Cultures created a mailing list on which you can subscribe by clicking on the following link.

This is a discussion list on critical Wikipedia research, related to the Critical Point of View (CPOV) research initiative.