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

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

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.

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

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 Editors1
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.