An update: Steven Walling will be with me on NPR's Talk of the Nation, today at 3pm US Eastern time talking about this issue.
In preparation for the show, I looked up Messer-Kruse's book on Amazon, and I am pasting in the first two sentences of the blurb (bold emphasis mine). In this *controversial* and *groundbreaking* new history, Timothy Messer-Kruse *rewrites* the standard narrative of the most iconic event in American labor history: the Haymarket Bombing and Trial of 1886. Using thousands of pages of previously unexamined materials, Messer-Kruse demonstrates that, *contrary* to longstanding historical opinion, the trial was not the “travesty of justice” it has *commonly* been *depicted* as. I am sympathetic to Messer-Kruse's plight, but these key words highlight perhaps why this case is the perfect storm of conditions (ie. Achilles Heel) for a clash in editing. The ability of Wikipedia to absorb leading edge, "groundbreaking new history" research is limited, given the emergent norms and accrual of policy that has primarily served to make sure things are verified as a majority view before it makes it into Wikipedia. There are good reasons for this, since every hour of every day Wikipedia is bombarded by vandalism and crackpot contributions. But I do share Mike Godwin's concerns on what this means for attracting editors and for Wikipedia's public image. More and more, I'm convinced Wikipedia must focus on embracing a new complementary culture -- an "invitation culture" that Sarah Stierch (of GLAMwiki fame) really brought to my attention at Wikimania Haifa. We have to recognize Wikipedia has a huge monoculture problem when the editor survey says 91% of active editors are male. Sarah told me as a female, she would never have participated in Wikipedia without someone else inviting her first. And that there were many great folks out there that felt the same thing because on the face of it, Wikipedia is not putting in neon lights that it's soliciting participation and there are many reasons to describe newbie experiences as "jarring" or even "unwelcoming." That's basically what GLAM can address and I think it is crucial to Wikipedia's future. It reaches out directly to people who share Wikipedia's mission about education and quality by approaching them as valued members of a knowledge creation community to make Wikipedia participation accessible. Wikipedians in Residence have served as the liaisons to make that introductory experience smooth and empowering. Another area ripe for collaboration is journalism, by finding a way to engage journalists in creating content such as for the Oral Citations project. And, coincidentally, both of these fields have a high percentage of females. We cannot bank Wikipedia's future solely on the prospective lone contributor toughing it out against the obstacles of complex wikimarkup, a cumbersome talk page/discussion system, demoralizing edit reverts, policy pages gone wild, and if he or she gets that far, a frightening administrator hazing ritual. For more on the GLAM, see the two page summary produced at GLAMcampDC last week: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:GLAM_One-Pager.pdf -Andrew _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
