Re: [Wikimediauk-l] "Wikipedia, Critical Point of View" conference in Amsterdam
On 13 March 2010 23:31, Michael Peel wrote: > ... is apparently happening later this month, with participation from > a number of people from the UK: > http://networkcultures.org/wpmu/cpov/program/amsterdam-program/ > > Does anyone know anything about this? > Yes, it's a continuation of another conference - 'Wikiwars' or 'CPOV' - which took place in Bangalore in January this year: < http://www.cis-india.org/research/conferences/conference-blogs/Wikiwars>. I think, if I were to summarise them, I'd say both conferences are about the societal implications of Wikipedia, what it means to participate in Wikipedia, and the limitations of the Wikipedia model in documenting 'the sum of human knowledge'. Yes, it's geared towards academics - hence the language! - so, in this sense, I wouldn't take "being critical" to equate with "being negative". If there's specific jargon that you think I can help with, please shoot. There are a lot of good contributors, some of whom are members of the Wikimedia community, e.g. Joseph Reagle and Stuart Geiger, both of whom have presented at past Wikimanias. Also, Mathieu O'Neil has written a very interesting book about online communities, including a case study of Wikipedia. Personally, I'd love to be going, though I have no money, and even less time. If anyone's interested in going, and WMUK have funds... do it! Cheers, Cormac ___ Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediau...@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org
Re: [Wikimediauk-l] "Wikipedia, Critical Point of View" conference in Amsterdam
On 14 March 2010 15:12, geni wrote: > The rest is low grade CV padding. Yuh. So, agreed then: we burn down any university hosting such academics and hand post-modernism back to the British pop music industry, who at least have turned it to viable business use from time to time. (Then we burn them down too.) - d. ___ Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediau...@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org
Re: [Wikimediauk-l] "Wikipedia, Critical Point of View" conference in Amsterdam
On 14 March 2010 13:48, David Gerard wrote: > On 13 March 2010 23:31, Michael Peel wrote: > >> ... is apparently happening later this month, with participation from >> a number of people from the UK: >> http://networkcultures.org/wpmu/cpov/program/amsterdam-program/ >> Does anyone know anything about this? > > > I read the first description and my brain went "Danger! Danger! Pomo > bollocks publication-credit-generator critical mass!" The others > weren't any better. If actual Wikipedians weren't involved I'd think > considerably less of it ... Can anyone translate the jargon-riddled > descriptions into something that wouldn't make any sane human want to > cut off all academic funding forever? > > > - d. > Rough translation? First read: http://www.info.ucl.ac.be/~pvr/decon.html It doesn't directly cover the topic in question but will give you some idea as the game being played. Still onto the actual articles "Rethinking Wikipedia: Power, Knowledge and the Technologies of the Self" Broadly speaking this one appears to translate as looking at Wikipedia as interactions between wikipedians rather than as an encyclopedia. Note the mention of Michel Foucault for bonus points. Wikipedia between Emancipation and Self-Regulation I don't know what the "recent controversy among German Wikipedians" but it appears that the author has picked up on the fact that how wikipedia's decision making processes nominally work doesn't match how they actually work and feels the need to witter on about this. You will note that the author is taking a somewhat risqué approach of citing the Brazilian Boaventura de Sousa Santos rather than someone french. Perhaps Portuguese has been gaining in status of late. The Critique of Law in Free Online Projects Picked up that Wikipedians do have some biases and has tried to fit it into the same framework that has been used by certain section of the left on everything since about 1900. While the author has failed to cite anyone they make up for that by getting their Phd from a french university. The Knowledge Bar I think what is going on here is that the author is working from the position that what people know shapes what opinions they can have have. Think Orwell's new speak. The author probably loses points for not only citing Germans but one of which you've probably heard of (Immanuel Kant). They make up for this by actually being french. Wikipedia and Encyclopedic Anxiety The author tries to argue that people's worries about Wikipedia are related to their concerns about how the world is changing. Fairly straightforward and the author cites no one french but then they are American so what do you expect. nil points Authoritative Annotations, Encyclopedia Universalis Mundaneum, Wikipedia and the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Basically the author wants to talk about a project of Paul Otlet's and may mention wikipedia in passing. An Encyclopedia for the Times: Thoughts on Wikipedia from a Historical Perspective What can Wikipedians learn from the past. The author has made the fatal mistake of writing what they are going to talk about in clear language. They are also british so it's not like they had much of a chance to begin with though. Gustave Flaubert Laughs at Wikipedia A mix of criticism from a dead Frenchman (throws in the question of how aware we are of it) and some stuff about the future of databases. On the basis that he doesn't appear to have any qualifications in computer science I doubt there will be much of interest. Wikipedia Art: Citation as Performative Act We know these guys. They still have nothing of interest. Social Media, Cultural Scaffolds, and Molecular Hegemonies. Musings on Anarchic Media, WIKIs, and De-territorialized Art "Musings" says it all. The author appears to want to talk about how different wikis have different communities and how the commuities build power structures. Then they throw in 4chan in case Encyclopedia dramtica didn't make them appear edgy enough. Apparently the author thinks it is 2008 or something. Wiki Loves Art The description appears to be straightforward. What Wikipedia loves art is/was and what some of the tensions are. New Trends in the Evolution of Wikipedia Basicaly an attempt to review where the available research says Wikipedia is now. Bot Politics: The Domination, Subversion, and Negotiation of Code in Wikipedia Basically arguing that how bots are written is driven by what the community will put up with as much as it is driven by what is possible. Famous Forkings and Other Objects of Wikipedia Analysis. I have no idea what this is about. Clustering the Contributors to a Wikipedia Page Errr ot entirely sure what this is about. It appears that the author is saying that due to the size of wikipedia it's hard to study and the ways of getting around this problem introduce bias in the kind of results received. The author appears to have realised that they have failed to cite anyone french and has deci
Re: [Wikimediauk-l] "Wikipedia, Critical Point of View" conference in Amsterdam
On 14 March 2010 13:48, David Gerard wrote: > I read the first description and my brain went "Danger! Danger! Pomo > bollocks publication-credit-generator critical mass!" The others > weren't any better. If actual Wikipedians weren't involved I'd think > considerably less of it ... Can anyone translate the jargon-riddled > descriptions into something that wouldn't make any sane human want to > cut off all academic funding forever? Most Wikipedia-related research we've seen so far is pretty down-and-dirty stuff; studies of accuracy and revert patterns and growth rates and contributor dynamics and so on. As time goes on (and we become more ubiquitous) we find we get studied as a concept - another level or two of academic abstraction above this. It's not a bad thing, by any means, but it does mean that it's relatively vague by the standards we're used to, and it's much less - well, less practically useful to us rather than to people who study the abstracted stuff. (If you think of these people as historians rather than scientific analysts, it might be clearer - they're more detatched, from our perspective) This, for example, talks about Wikipedia, but at a level we don't need to worry about on a day-to-day basis: "Joseph Reagle makes a broader argument that reference works can serve as a flashpoint for larger social anxieties about technological and social change. With this understanding in hand, he tries to make sense of the social unease embodied in and prompted by Wikipedia..." This may tell us something interesting about how we practically implement NPOV: "... the interpretations of the Neutral Point of View policy that accompanied the production of the politically contentious Wikipedia article documenting Israel's invasion of the Gaza strip in the winter of 2008/2009. He will show how these negotiations reveal ... Wikipedia editors are guided by a moral sense of what is and is not a legitimate intervention in their productive process." (The later papers generally seem a bit more interesting and less... abtruse) -- - Andrew Gray andrew.g...@dunelm.org.uk ___ Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediau...@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org
Re: [Wikimediauk-l] "Wikipedia, Critical Point of View" conference in Amsterdam
On 13 March 2010 23:31, Michael Peel wrote: > ... is apparently happening later this month, with participation from > a number of people from the UK: > http://networkcultures.org/wpmu/cpov/program/amsterdam-program/ > Does anyone know anything about this? I read the first description and my brain went "Danger! Danger! Pomo bollocks publication-credit-generator critical mass!" The others weren't any better. If actual Wikipedians weren't involved I'd think considerably less of it ... Can anyone translate the jargon-riddled descriptions into something that wouldn't make any sane human want to cut off all academic funding forever? - d. ___ Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediau...@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org
