Best of 2010

By ivyrobertsis, January 1, 2011

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. -George Santayana Often mistakenly attributed to Plato, this phrase is one of my favorites as it reminds us to take responsibility for our actions and never forget the mistakes we’ve made, for better or for worse. As the new year has come, everyone is [...]

Read me first: “Wikipedia Experts Call for No Donations to...

“Wikipedia Experts Call for No Donations”?

By ivyrobertsis, December 17, 2010

Read me first: “Wikipedia Experts Call for No Donations to Wikipedia”. For one thing, the title of the aforementioned article should be singular as in “expert.” Secondly, this expert has an agenda. Don’t get me wrong. I’m as annoyed by Wikipedia’s annual fundraiser as anybody. I’d much rather deal with advertisements on Wikipedia than having [...]

In his foreword to Andrew Lih’s The Wikipedia Revolution, Jimmy...

The News, Distraction, and Information Overload

By ivyrobertsis, December 8, 2010

In his foreword to Andrew Lih’s The Wikipedia Revolution, Jimmy Wales compares Wikipedia to the New York Times, the LA Times, and other traditional print news sources (in terms of reach and readership). Wikipedia is not a news source but a knowledge repository. However, it has been known to function as a source of up [...]

The Many Faces of Jimmy Wales

By ivyrobertsis, November 29, 2010

Everybody’s talking about the Wikipedia Fundraiser. And why shouldn’t they? Wales, the founder (actually co-founder, but he has tried to edit that fact), has slapped his face not only on every Wikipedia entry, but now with a new Google Chrome plug in, on every page you might visit. Browsing through the comments to the extension, [...]

The Future of the Hindi Wikipedia

By ivyrobertsis, November 10, 2010

Oh, how numbers can be misleading: Jimmy Wales is quoted as saying, ““Right now, the English Wikipedia is less than 20% of the total content. I expect that to fall to 10% in less than two years.” It’s a funny way of saying that his eyes are now set in what he calls the “Global South.” Wales called India “low hanging fruit, a place where intervention can really make a big difference.” Wikimedia is now on a development effort to stir up a broad community base in its disclosure to open an office in a major Indian city. Well, I’m just wondering what this means for Wikipedia, and for India.

If you weren’t able to attend Conference 3, you can...

CPOV#3 Conference Videos

By ivyrobertsis, November 4, 2010

If you weren’t able to attend Conference 3, you can now view all of the presentations right here on the CPOV website. CPOV#3 Leipzig, which was held in September in Leipzig, focused on critical debate over the German-language Wikipedia, and all presentations were given in German. Topics ranging from the history, governance and politics of [...]

Have you seen that episode of 30 Rock where Jenna...

All Roads Lead to Wikipedia

By ivyrobertsis, September 20, 2010

Have you seen that episode of 30 Rock where Jenna bases her big screen portrayal of Janis Joplin on what she reads on Wikipedia? She’s power walking around the office, intent to lunch on felines, when Frank confesses. He edited the Joplin page as a prank. Is it funny because Jenna is so gullible? Or [...]