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Governing the Commons: Wikipedia

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Presentation on theme: "Governing the Commons: Wikipedia"— Presentation transcript:

1 Governing the Commons: Wikipedia
History of Information 10 April 2014 R. Stuart Geiger

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3 Overview Wikipedia as anarchy? The history of Wikipedia
Wikipedia as a community Who are Wikipedians? Encyclopedic memories and ideals Wikipedia as an (information) technology

4 “The Internet is the first thing that humanity has built that humanity doesn’t understand, the largest experiment in anarchy that we have ever had.” - Eric Schmidt, Google

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6 Before Wikipedia

7 Before Wikipedia Jimmy Wales founded bomis.com in the late 1990s, a search engine and web directory that featured the “Bomis Babes”

8 Before Wikipedia Nupedia was an attempt by Wales and Sanger to create an encyclopedia that was free to the public to access – written and curated by experts. It failed.

9 The question of what would happen to the failed Nupedia ended up being asked in this question from Wales to Ward Cunningham, inventor of the wiki. This tension between Wikipedia as an encyclopedia and Wikipedia as a wiki still exists to this day.

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11 Growth of Wikipedia

12 Growth of Wikipedia 2005: Siegenthaler controversy
Nature study on the accuracy of Wikipedia Coverage in the New York Times Satirized by Steven Colbert First global Wikimania Meetup Jimmy Wales urges quality over quantity Stuart starts writing his undergrad thesis

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15 The fear:

16 The actuality:

17 The actuality:

18 Barnstars are symbols of recognition that Wikipedians give each other.

19 Barnstars and Barnraising
The barnstar is a token of community norms and support that goes back to Amish barnraising practices. Wikipedians see their project as a similar kind of community effort.

20 Encyclopedic Memories
Wikipedians see their project as being a continuation of the same kind of social institution as Diderot, D’Alembert, and many other encyclopedists.

21 Encyclopedic Memories

22 Encyclopedic ideals

23 Encyclopedic Ideals

24 Encyclopedic ideals

25 When was Jimmy Wales born?
Encyclopedic Ideals When was Jimmy Wales born?

26 Who are Wikipedians?

27 Who are Wikipedians?

28 Who are Wikipedians?

29 Who are Wikipedians?

30 Wiki as a technology?

31 Wiki as a technology?

32 Bots “Bots are automated or semi-automated tools that carry out repetitive and mundane tasks in order to maintain the 3,233,114 articles of the English Wikipedia.” enwp.org/Wikipedia:Bots

33 Wikipedia.en’s Top Editors
1 SmackBot 1,818,531 11 Alaibot 434,501 21 Mathbot 297,089 2 Cydebot 1,560,123 12 Rjwilmsi 402,603 22 J.delanoy 296,469 3 WP 1.0 bot 1,450,131 13 Thijs!bot 401,013 23 Waacstats 288,220 4 ClueBot 905,090 14 Bearcat 362,213 24 Alansohn 286,169 5 [Placeholder] 646,882 15 AlexNewArtBot 351,476 25 Dr. Blofeld 280,132 6 Lightbot 643,572 16 The Anomebot2 349,980 26 YurikBot 278,165 7 OrphanBot 636,070 17 COIBot 346,849 27 Woohookitty 274,698 8 RussBot 624,564 18 BOTijo 317,893 28 CmdrObot 262,483 9 SineBot 583,478 19 D6 302,434 29 Eubot 259,670 10 Kingbotk 447,274 20 SieBot 298,367 30 BJBot 237,173 Data aggregated from: enwp.org/WP:BBE and enwp.org/WP:NOE

34 The Legacy of Bots

35 Humans in Administrative Spaces

36 Humans in Newcomer Socialization

37 Governing with technology

38 “The Internet is the first thing that humanity has built that humanity doesn’t understand, the largest experiment in anarchy that we have ever had.” - Eric Schmidt, Google

39 Next Week Viktor Mayer-Schönberger, “Useful Void: The Art of Forgetting in the Age of Ubiquitous Computing,” KSG Faculty Research Working Paper Series RWP Read: Entire article--not just the abstract.  (This will require you to click on the "pdf" link.) Source: harvard.edu [hyperlink] Bush, Vannevar As We May Think, The Atlantic Monthly. 176 (1): Read: Entire article Source: The Atlantic [hyperlink]                                              

40 Assignment for April 13th
The commercial internet has to a significant degree been built on storage and search. So has the NSA.  Using Bush and Mayer-Schönberger (and perhaps Morse and Babbage), argue whether it is or isn't possible to break the link between storage and search, on the one hand, and surveillance, on the other.


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