A review on Felipe Ortega's PhD thesis 'Wikipedia: a quantitative analysis'. Felipe Ortega's research - Wikipedia: A quantitative analysis - is a well organized, plain structured piece of formal scientific work. It was with this thesis that he earned in 2009 a PhD degree in Computer Sciences, issued by the Universidad Rey Juan Carlos (Spain). He has been a Researcher and Project Manager at Libresoft at the same university since 2007. Ortega presents two clear objectives: First, he wants to analyze comparatively the top ten versions of Wikipedia, based on the official number of articles in each one. He will then try to identify some characteristic patterns which should make it possible to understand the ways Wikipedia and its community functions. Second, he wants to contribute with a new software capable of such an analysis, that could also be used by other researchers in the field...
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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