The Centre for Internet and Society
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WikiWars - A report
https://cis-india.org/research/conferences/conference-blogs/wwrep
<b>The Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore and the Institute of Network Cultures, Amsterdam, hosted WikiWars – an international event that brought together scholars, researchers, academics, artists and practitioners from various disciplines, to discuss the emergence and growth of Wikipedia and what it means for the information societies we inhabit. With participants from 15 countries making presentations about Wikipedia and the knowledge ecology within which it exists, the event saw a vigorous set of debates and discussions as questions about education, pedagogy, language, access, geography, resistance, art and subversion were raised by the presenters. The 2 day event marked the beginning of the process that hopes to produce the first critical reader – Critical Point of View (CPOV) - that collects key resources for research and inquiry around Wikipedia.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify;">The
debates around Wikipedia, the de facto dynamic knowledge production system
online, are very fairly divided into two competing camps. There is a group of
people who swear by Wikipedia – celebrating its democratic processes of
knowledge production, ease of access, and the de-canonisation of knowledge to
produce the ‘WikiWay’; And then there is a group of people who swear at
Wikipedia – raising concerns over authenticity, reliability, vulgarisation of
knowledge and the de-hierarchisation of knowledge systems that Wikipedia seems
to embody. The debates between the two groups are often passionate and situated
in wildly speculative and often personal interests and investments in Wikipedia
and the Web 2.0 Information Revolution that it seems to be a symptom of. The
debates also play out in various international locations, most of them relying
on personal anecdotes, experiences and half hearted data that does not stand
the tests of rigour.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">WikiWars,
then, concentrated on things which are about Wikipedia but also not about Wikipedia.
In many ways, as Geert Lovink, the Director of INC suggested, WikiWars was a
recognition of the fact that Wikipedia has come of age and can now be
systematically and philosophically examined as a work in progress that has
long-term implications about our future. It was the ambition of the Editorial
team (consisting of Geert Lovink, Sabine Nerdeer, Nathaniel Tkacz, Johanna
Niyesito, Sunil Abraham and Nishant Shah) to veer away from the recognised
battle-lines drawn in, around and about Wikipedia, and instead examine the
fault-lines that run under many of our assumptions, prejudices and imaginations
of Wikipedia. And Wikiwars, through careful screening and invested interests,
became one of the first platforms in the world to initiate a critical discourse
on Wikipedia, seeking to engage with its histories, it contemporary
manifestations and practices, and the futures that it seeks to inhabit.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">The
different presentations brought in located debates, theoretical and
philosophical concepts and personal experiences to build frameworks that
explain and contextualise Wikipedia as one of the most contested spaces online.
The eight panels across two days dealt with four major thematic areas which
need to be summarised in brief:</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst">1. <strong><u>Education, Pedagogy and
Knowledge:</u></strong> At the very basis of Wikipedia (and
other structures like it) is the question of knowledge production, the
possibility of using it as an educational tool and the potentials it has for
introducing new pedagogies and learning practices in and outside of institutionalised
education. Presenters from various disciplines engaged with these questions in
interesting ways.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst"> </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle">Usha
Raman from Teacher Plus in Hyderabad, brought in the question of primary
education, the need for teacher training programmes and the ways by which
infrastructure development needs to be thought through when talking of
Wikipedia and education in the Indian context. The
necessity of locating Wikipedia in a much larger debates on learning were also
echoed by Noopur Rawal and Srikeit Tadepalli, students from Christ University
who brought their experience of Wikipedia and the expectations from classroom
education and learning in their presentation. </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle"> </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle">In
the same field, but from a different approach, a panel examined Wikipedia as a site to critique
Western Knowledge production systems. Stian Haklev and Johanna Niyesito
concentrated on the questions of language and knowledge production. Haklev made
an impassioned argument deconstructing the utopian idea of Wikipedia’s
multilingual dreams and instead made a call for recognising the black-holes
when it comes to non-English production and consumption of knowledge on
Wikipedia. He further explored the implications that linguistic imbalance has
on the very governance structure of Wikipedia and its communities. Niyesito
challenged the ‘global’ and ‘cosmopolitan’ image that Wikipedia has built for
itself and posited the idea of Wikipedia as a translingual space where
different languages and cultures negotiate common understandings and processes
of producing knowledge. HanTeng
Liao explored knowledge production through the market economy of key-words to
see how the linguistic biases of search engines that harvest these keywords,
determines the access and visibility of different Wikipedia pages.</p>
<strong><u>Resistance, Diversity
and Representation:</u></strong> While these questions were present as
undercurrents to most of the presentations at WikWars, they were perhaps most
fiercely present in the debates that followed the presentations by Eric Ilya
Lee (Academia Sinica, Taiwan), YiPing Tsou (National Central University,
Taiwan), William Beutler and Eric Zimmerman (IDC, Israel).
<p> </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle">For
Lee and Tsou, the responses to the Chinese language Wikipedia from popular
media and personal experiences, were demonstrative of the fact that the lack of
diverse means of representation and participation lead to a strong resistance
of Wikipedia in Taiwan. Beutler
looked at the heavily contested editorial space and policies of Wikipedia to
make a point about how lack of effective governance systems based on
mutual tolerance and diversity lead to
stressful and often traumatic experiences for users who might not be
represented through the mainstream ideas and
ideologies of an English speaking populace.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle">Zimmerman
took a startling position, calling for a regime of attribution and dissolving
the pseudonymous structures of knowledge production in Wikipedia in order to
build designs of trust and verification into the system, thus leading to better
and more credible research tools and representations.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle">The
tone of debates was altered with presentations by Mark Graham (Oxford Research
Institute) and the team of artists Nathaniel Stern and Scott Kildal, the team
responsible for the Wikipedia Art Project. Graham
showed the complexity of visualising space and how the production of space (or
physical geography) on Wikipedia often reflects the virtual density of access
and presence online. Showing a nuanced set of images that help mapping these
new geographies for a richer diversity and representation, Graham showed how
systems like Wikipedia ‘cannot know what they cannot know’ despite the reliance
on the wisdom of crowds.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle">Stern
and Kildall, in giving an account of their project which used Wikipedia’s
policies to undermine and challenge it, show how the institutionalisation of a
space and its ‘canonisation’ can quickly lead to a new set of problems where
the space becomes the very thing it had set itself against.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle"> </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle">3. <strong><u>Politics of Free, Open
and Exclusion:</u></strong> The rhetoric of free and open have been
built into all popular discourses around Wikipedia. However, the presentations
at WikiWars showed that these need to be taken with at least a pinch of salt
and further examined for what they signify. Alok
Nandi of Architempo made a dramatic and creative revisit of these guiding
principles of Wikipedia. He showed how an inquiry into rituals of
participation, distortion and access on Wikipedia can promote, not merely
looking at the politics of exclusion but also at the politics of inclusion and
the problems therein.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle"> </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle">Dror
Kamir’s evocative narrative of ‘Your side, my side and Wikipedia’ illustrated
how the question of boundaries, of knowledges, of facts and truths get
distorted as language, community, nationality, etc. come into play in recording
and documenting knowledge on Wikipedia. Concentrating on conflict zones in the
Middle East, he talked about the lack and perhaps the impossibility of
producing neutrality the way in which Wikipedia demands of its users. These
ideas resonated with the propositions that ShunLing Chen from Harvard had
floated in the opening panel to explore the ‘boundary work’ of Wikipedia and
how it defines and produces itself in relation to external forces and
controversies. These
discussions on the politics of presence, absence, inclusion and exclusion were
further layered by presentations by Linda Gross, Elad Weider, Heather Ford and
Nathaniel Tkacz who produced a critique of the Free and Open, taking a
cautionary step away from accepting these as inherently good.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle"> </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle">While
Gross explored the structure of egalitarianism that Wikipedia builds for
itself, Ford presented an analysis of the licensing regimes of the knowledge
produced within Wikipedia and the problems they pose to traditional knowledges
and non-mainstream information. Weider,
trained as a lawyer, critiqued the neo-liberal discourse around Wikipedia and
tried to correlate the communities with markets. Tkacz’s historical overview of
Free and Open, resulted in a compelling inquiry into the very structures that
inform the shape and functioning of objects like Wikipedia.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Twitter:
#WikiWars <a href="http://twitter.com/wikiwars">http://twitter.com/wikiwars</a>
and <a href="http://www.twitter.com/jackerhack/wikiwars">www.<strong>twitter</strong>.com/jackerhack/<strong>wikiwars</strong></a><cite></cite></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Flickr:
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/30479432@N03/sets/72157623193288710/">http://www.flickr.com/photos/30479432@N03/sets/72157623193288710/</a></p>
<p>
CPOV blog : <a href="http://networkcultures.org/wpmu/cpov/">http://networkcultures.org/wpmu/cpov/</a></p>
<p> </p>
<p>The videos fom the Wikiwars event are embedded below:</p>
<embed height="250" width="250" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://blip.tv/play/AYHM_HIA"></embed>
<embed height="250" width="250" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://blip.tv/play/AYHM_QoA"></embed>
<embed height="250" width="250" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://blip.tv/play/AYHM_RgA"></embed>
<embed height="250" width="250" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://blip.tv/play/AYHM_z4A"></embed>
<embed height="250" width="250" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://blip.tv/play/AYHN2T4A"></embed>
<embed height="250" width="250" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://blip.tv/play/AYHN2gMA"></embed>
<embed height="250" width="250" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://blip.tv/play/AYHN2iUA"></embed>
<embed height="250" width="250" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://blip.tv/play/AYHN2z0A"></embed>
<embed height="250" width="250" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://blip.tv/play/AYHN3C4A"></embed>
<embed height="250" width="250" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://blip.tv/play/AYHN3QYA"></embed>
<embed height="250" width="250" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://blip.tv/play/AYHN3QYA"></embed>
<embed height="250" width="250" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://blip.tv/play/AYHOgCwA"></embed>
<embed height="250" width="250" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://blip.tv/play/AYHOgGgA"></embed>
<embed height="250" width="250" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://blip.tv/play/AYHOgiUA"></embed>
<embed height="250" width="250" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://blip.tv/play/AYHOqA4A"></embed>
<embed height="250" width="250" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://blip.tv/play/AYHOqxYA"></embed>
<embed height="250" width="250" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://blip.tv/play/AYHOrhIA"></embed>
<embed height="250" width="250" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://blip.tv/play/AYHOrm4A"></embed>
<embed height="250" width="250" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://blip.tv/play/AYHOrycA"></embed>
<embed height="250" width="250" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://blip.tv/play/AYHOzEoA"></embed>
<embed height="250" width="250" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://blip.tv/play/AYHQoxAA"></embed>
<embed height="250" width="250" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://blip.tv/play/AYHQo3MA"></embed>
<embed height="250" width="250" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://blip.tv/play/AYHSrGAA"></embed>
<embed height="250" width="250" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://blip.tv/play/AYHSsTcA"></embed>
<embed height="250" width="250" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://blip.tv/play/AYHToz8A"></embed>
<embed height="250" width="250" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://blip.tv/play/AYHUuGIA"></embed>
<embed height="250" width="250" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://blip.tv/play/AYHUuTIA"></embed>
<embed height="250" width="250" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://blip.tv/play/AYHUugsA"></embed>
<embed height="250" width="250" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://blip.tv/play/AYHUvW8A"></embed>
<embed height="250" width="250" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://blip.tv/play/AYHUvk8A"></embed>
<embed height="250" width="250" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://blip.tv/play/AYHVuwwA"></embed>
<embed height="250" width="250" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://blip.tv/play/AYHdpxMA"></embed>
<embed height="250" width="250" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://blip.tv/play/AYHdz3IA"></embed>
<embed height="250" width="250" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://blip.tv/play/AYHd0DMA"></embed>
<embed height="250" width="250" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://blip.tv/play/AYHd0iYA"></embed>
<embed height="250" width="250" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://blip.tv/play/AYHf4nkA"></embed>
<embed height="250" width="250" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://blip.tv/play/AYHf404A"></embed>
<embed height="250" width="250" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://blip.tv/play/AYHf43AA"></embed>
<embed height="250" width="250" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://blip.tv/play/AYHf5EIA"></embed>
<embed height="250" width="250" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://blip.tv/play/AYHf5zYA"></embed>
<embed height="250" width="250" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://blip.tv/play/AYHghjkA"></embed>
<embed height="250" width="250" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://blip.tv/play/AYHgh0EA"></embed>
<embed height="250" width="250" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://blip.tv/play/AYHgiAIA"></embed>
<embed height="250" width="250" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://blip.tv/play/AYHgiFcA"></embed>
<embed height="250" width="250" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://blip.tv/play/AYHgiUMA"></embed>
<embed height="250" width="250" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://blip.tv/play/AYHgijUA"></embed>
<embed height="250" width="250" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://blip.tv/play/AYHgjjIA"></embed>
<embed height="250" width="250" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://blip.tv/play/AYHgjyAA"></embed>
<embed height="250" width="250" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://blip.tv/play/AYHgjzwA"></embed>
<embed height="250" width="250" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://blip.tv/play/AYHgj1QA"></embed>
<embed height="250" width="250" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://blip.tv/play/AYHgkCQA"></embed>
<embed height="250" width="250" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://blip.tv/play/AYHgkE8A"></embed>
<embed height="250" width="250" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://blip.tv/play/AYHgkHEA"></embed>
<embed height="250" width="250" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://blip.tv/play/AYHgkTcA"></embed>
<embed height="250" width="250" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://blip.tv/play/AYHg3n8A"></embed>
<embed height="250" width="250" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://blip.tv/play/AYHg3zgA"></embed>
<embed height="250" width="250" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://blip.tv/play/AYHg4GIA"></embed>
<embed height="250" width="250" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://blip.tv/play/AYHg5ykA"></embed>
<embed height="250" width="250" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://blip.tv/play/AYHg52gA"></embed>
<embed height="250" width="250" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://blip.tv/play/AYHhjUEA"></embed>
<embed height="250" width="250" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://blip.tv/play/AYHhr04A"></embed>
<embed height="250" width="250" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://blip.tv/play/AYHhsAcA"></embed>
<embed height="250" width="250" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://blip.tv/play/AYHh10oA"></embed>
<embed height="250" width="250" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://blip.tv/play/AYHh114A"></embed>
<embed height="250" width="250" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://blip.tv/play/AYHh%2B0AA"></embed>
<embed height="250" width="250" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://blip.tv/play/AYHh%2B2EA"></embed>
<embed height="250" width="250" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://blip.tv/play/AYHh_AcA"></embed>
<embed height="250" width="250" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://blip.tv/play/AYHh_A8A"></embed>
<embed height="250" width="250" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://blip.tv/play/AYHh_lQA"></embed>
<embed height="250" width="250" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://blip.tv/play/AYHh_w4A"></embed>
<embed height="250" width="250" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://blip.tv/play/AYHjmiIA"></embed>
<embed height="250" width="250" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://blip.tv/play/AYHjnHEA"></embed>
<embed height="250" width="250" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://blip.tv/play/AYHjuxkA"></embed>
<embed height="250" width="250" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://blip.tv/play/AYHjuzwA"></embed>
<embed height="250" width="250" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://blip.tv/play/AYHjvRUA"></embed>
<embed height="270" width="320" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://blip.tv/play/AYHj4kEA"></embed>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/research/conferences/conference-blogs/wwrep'>https://cis-india.org/research/conferences/conference-blogs/wwrep</a>
</p>
No publishernishantDigital GovernanceWikipediaFeaturedCyberculturesWorkshopCPOV2010-10-06T11:21:56ZBlog EntryWikiwars: 12th, 13th January, Bangalore
https://cis-india.org/research/conferences/conference-blogs/wikwarsreg
<b>The Centre for Internet and Society and the Institute of Network Cultures brought together a critical range of scholars, academicians, practitioners, artists and researchers to inquire into the new conditions which emerge with the rise of Wikipedia. The first of two events, WikiWars was the beginning of a knowledge network that shall contribute to a reader titled Critical Point of View, becoming the first resource tool to engage creatively and fruitfully with the diverse range of questions that surround Wikipedia. </b>
<p>The Wikipedia has emerged as the de facto global reference of dynamic knowledge. Different stakeholders – Wikipedians, users, academics, researchers, gurus of Web 2.0, publishing houses and governments have entered into fierce debates and discussions about what the rise of Wikipedia and Wiki cultures means and how they influence the information societies we live in. The Wikipedia itself has been at the centre of much controversy, pivoted around questions of accuracy, anonymity, vandalism, expertise and authority.</p>
<p> The first event, titled WikiWars is scheduled on the 12th and 13th of January 2010. This is the registration page for interested participants who want to join us in the discussions at the WikiWars.</p>
<p>For Event Details look <a href="https://cis-india.org/events/wikiwars" class="external-link"> here</a></p>
<p>For information on Programme, Panels, participants and presentation titles, look <a href="https://cis-india.org/research/conferences/wikiwars" class="internal-link" title="Wikiwars.xls">here</a> (MS Office) or <a href="https://cis-india.org/research/conferences/conference-blogs/uploads/wikiwarsprog1/view" class="external-link">here</a> (PDF document)</p>
<p>For more details on WikiWars and CPOV, look <a href="https://cis-india.org/publications/workshops/conference-blogs/Wikiwars" class="external-link">here</a></p>
<p>We have, apart from the 40 presenters, 45 seats available for interested participants to join the discussions.</p>
<strong>There are no fees for registration, but the seats are limited, available only on first come first serve basis and not expandable.<br /></strong>
<p> </p>
To register, email us on : nishant@cis-india.org
<p>Registrations closes: 10th January, 12:00 midnight, Indian Time.</p>
<p>Make sure you give us the following information in your registration request: <strong>Name, Email address, Cell phone/contact number, Institutional affiliation, Position/Designation, Areas of interest.</strong></p>
<p>We will publish the final list of registered participants on the 11th of January 2010. Registered participants will be provided with a Registration kit and lunch & refreshments during the event.</p>
<p>Please Note: We might not be able to accommodate participants who turn up at the venue without prior registration due to logistical constraints.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/research/conferences/conference-blogs/wikwarsreg'>https://cis-india.org/research/conferences/conference-blogs/wikwarsreg</a>
</p>
No publishernishantFeaturedWikipedia2012-03-13T10:43:09ZBlog EntryWiki Academy
https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/wiki-academy
<b>An article by Hari Prasad Nadig on Wiki Academy, a workshop based on usage of Indian languages, editing and its applications in academics of Wikipedia - the free online encyclopedia, was held at Eric Mathias hall in St Aloysius College in Mangalore on Saturday, August 22. </b>
<p> <em>Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high; </em></p>
<p><em>Where knowledge is free; </em><strong>- Rabindranath Tagore </strong></p>
<p> <em>ಜ್ಞಾನವೆಂಬುದು</em><em> </em><em>ಯಾರೊಬ್ಬರ</em><em> </em><em>ಸೊತ್ತಲ್ಲ</em><em>. </em><em>ಅದು</em><em> </em><em>ಎಲ್ಲರದೂ</em><em> </em><em>ಆಗಬೇಕು</em><em>. </em><em>ಮಾನವಕುಲದ</em><em> </em><em>ಒಟ್ಟು</em><em> </em><em>ಅರಿವು</em><em> </em><em>ಪ್ರತಿಯೊಬ್ಬರಿಗೂ</em><em> </em><em>ಸಿಗಬೇಕು</em><em>, </em><em>ಜ್ಞಾನವನ್ನು</em><em> </em><em>ಮುಚ್ಚಿಟ್ಟು</em><em> </em><em>ಅಥವ</em><em> </em><em>ಹಿಡಿದಿಟ್ಟು</em><em> </em><em>ಪ್ರಯೋಜನವಿಲ್ಲ</em><em>. </em><em>ಹಂಚಿಕೊಂಡ</em><em> </em><em>ಜ್ಞಾನ</em><em> </em><em>ಮತ್ತಷ್ಟು</em><em> </em><em>ಬೆಳೆಯುತ್ತದೆ</em> - ಇದು ಒಂದು ರೀತಿಯಲ್ಲಿ ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯ ಯೋಜನೆಯ ಹಿಂದಿರುವ ಸಿದ್ಧಾಂತ.</p>
<p>ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯ ಒಂದು ಮುಕ್ತ ವಿಶ್ವಕೋಶ. ಎಲ್ಲರೂ ತಮ್ಮ ಅರಿವು ಹಂಚಿಕೊಳ್ಳಬಹುದಾದ ವಿಶ್ವಕೋಶ. ಯಾರೊಬ್ಬರೂ ಎಡಿಟ್ ಮಾಡಬಹುದಾದ ಪುಟಗಳ ಗುಚ್ಛ. ಇದನ್ನು ನಡೆಸುವುದು ಜಗತ್ತಿನಾದ್ಯಂತ ತಮಗರಿವಿರುವ ವಿಷಯಗಳನ್ನು ಹಂಚಿಕೊಳ್ಳುತ್ತ ತಾವೂ ಹೊಸ ವಿಷಯಗಳನ್ನು ಅರಿತುಕೊಳ್ಳಲು ಉತ್ಸುಕರಾಗಿರುವ ಆಸಕ್ತರ ಸಮುದಾಯ. ಪ್ರಾರಂಭವಾದ ಕೆಲವೇ ವರ್ಷಗಳಲ್ಲಿ ಅಂತರ್ಜಾಲದ ಅತ್ಯಂತ ಪ್ರಮುಖ ವೆಬ್ಸೈಟುಗಳಲ್ಲಿ ಒಂದಾದ ಯೋಜನೆ ಇದು. ಅಂತರ್ಜಾಲದಲ್ಲಿ ಇಂದು ಅತ್ಯಂತ ಬಳಕೆಯಾಗುವ ಮೊದಲ ಐದು ವೆಬ್ಸೈಟುಗಳಲ್ಲಿ ಇದೂ ಒಂದು.</p>
<p>ನಾಲ್ಕಾರು ವರ್ಷಗಳೇ ಈ ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯದಲ್ಲಿ ಕಳೆದವರಿಗೆ ಎಲ್ಲರೊಡನೆ ಕುಳಿತು ಒಂದು ದಿನದಲ್ಲಿ ವಿಕಿ ಬಗ್ಗೆ ಹಂಚಿಕೊಳ್ಳುವುದು ಬಹುದೊಡ್ಡ ಸವಾಲು. ಏಕೆಂದರೆ, ವಿಕಿ(ಪೀಡಿಯ) ಬಗ್ಗೆ ಹಂಚಿಕೊಳ್ಳಲು ನಮಲ್ಲಿರುವ ವಿಷಯಗಳು ನೂರಾರು. ಮಂಗಳೂರಿನಲ್ಲಿ ರಾಜ್ಯಮಟ್ಟದ ಮೊಟ್ಟಮೊದಲ ವಿಕಿ ಅಕಾಡೆಮಿ ಆಯೋಜಿಸಿದಾಗ ನಮಗೆದುರಾದ ಸವಾಲು ಕೂಡ ಇದೇ. ಅಲ್ಲಿ ಅಂದು ನೆರೆದಿದ್ದ ಇನ್ನೂರಕ್ಕೂ ಹೆಚ್ಚು ಜನ ಆಸಕ್ತರ ಸಮೂಹ ನಮಗಿದ್ದ ಸವಾಲನ್ನು ಇಮ್ಮಡಿಗೊಳಿಸಿತ್ತು.</p>
<p>"ಮಂಗಳೂರು ಆಸ್ಟ್ರೇಲಿಯದಲ್ಲಿ ಕೂಡ ಇದೆ. ಅದರ ಬಗ್ಗೆ ಲೇಖನ ಉಂಟೋ?" ಎಂದು ಸಭಿಕರೊಬ್ಬರು ಪ್ರಶ್ನೆ ಮುಂದಿಟ್ಟಾಗ ಕಾರ್ಯಕ್ರಮ ನಡೆಸಿಕೊಟ್ಟ ನಮಗೂ ಕುತೂಹಲ. ಅಲ್ಲಿಯೇ ಆಂಗ್ಲ ವಿಕಿಯ 'ಮಂಗಳೂರು' ಪುಟ ತೆರೆದು ನೋಡಿದಾಗ ಆಸ್ಟ್ರೇಲಿಯದಲ್ಲಿರುವ 'ಮಂಗಳೂರು' ಎಂಬ ಊರಿನ ಬಗ್ಗೆಯೂ ಮಾಹಿತಿ ಓದಿ ಹೇಳುವಾಗ ಎಲ್ಲಿಲ್ಲದ ಖುಷಿ. ನಮ್ಮೆಲ್ಲರ ನಡುವೆ ಇರುವ ಮಾಹಿತಿಯ ತುಣುಕುಗಳು ಒಟ್ಟಾದಾಗ ಮಾತ್ರ ಹೀಗಾಗಲು ಸಾಧ್ಯ ಅಲ್ವ? ಇಲ್ಲದಿದ್ದರೆ ವಿಕ್ಟೋರಿಯ, ಆಸ್ಟ್ರೇಲಿಯದಲ್ಲಿರುವ ಮಂಗಳೂರಿಗೆ ಒಂದು ರೈಲ್ವೇ ಸ್ಟೇಶನ್ ಕೂಡ ಇದೆ, ಒಂದು ಏರ್ಪೋರ್ಟ್ ಕೂಡ ಇದೆ ಎಂಬುದಿರಲಿ, ಮತ್ತೊಂದು ಮಂಗಳೂರು ಪರದೇಶವೊಂದರಲ್ಲಿದೆ ಎಂಬುದೂ ತಿಳಿದುಬರದು.</p>
<p>ಇದೇ ರೀತಿಯ ಪ್ರಶ್ನೆಗಳು ಉತ್ಸಾಹದ ಕಾರ್ಯಕ್ರಮವನ್ನಾಗಿಸಿತು ಆ ದಿನ. ಮಂಗಳೂರಿನಲ್ಲಿ ನಡೆದ ವಿಕಿ ಅಕಾಡೆಮಿ ನಮ್ಮೆಲ್ಲರ ಮನಸ್ಸಿನಲ್ಲಿ ಅಚ್ಚುಳಿಯುವಷ್ಟು.</p>
<p>ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯ ಎಂದರೇನು, ಅದರ ಸಿದ್ಧಾಂತ ಏನು, ಅದರಲ್ಲಿ ಯಾರು ಭಾಗವಹಿಸಬಹುದು, ಹೇಗೆ ಭಾಗವಹಿಸಬಹುದು? ಭಾಗವಹಿಸಲು ಬೇಕಾದದ್ದು ಏನು? ಇದೇ ಮೊದಲಾದ ವಿಷಯಗಳೊಂದಿಗೆ ಕಾರ್ಯಕ್ರಮ ಪ್ರಾರಂಭಿಸಿದೆವು. ಸೇಂಟ್ ಅಲೋಶಿಯಸ್ ನಲ್ಲಿ ನೆರೆದಿದ್ದ ಆಸಕ್ತರು ನೆರೆದ ಸಂಖ್ಯೆಯಲ್ಲಿ ಒಡ್ಡಿದ ಸವಾಲು ನಮಗೆ ಅಷ್ಟೇ ಉತ್ಸಾಹ ಮೂಡಿಸಿದ್ದು ಹೌದು. ಬಿಳಿಗಿರಿರಂಗನ ಬೆಟ್ಟವನ್ನು ಕಾರ್ಯಕ್ಷೇತ್ರವಾಗಿ ಮಾಡಿಕೊಂಡಿರುವ ಡಾಕ್ಟರರಾದ ಪ್ರಶಾಂತ್ ಎನ್ ಎಸ್ ನನ್ನ ಜೊತೆ ಕಾರ್ಯಕ್ರಮ ನಡೆಸಿಕೊಟ್ಟವರು. ಇವರ ನಿತ್ಯದ ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯ ಎಡಿಟ್ಸ್ ನೋಡಿದರೆ ಅದಲ್ಲಿರುವ ಅವರಿಗಿರುವ ಆಸಕ್ತಿ ಬಗ್ಗೆ ತಿಳಿಸದೇ ಇರದು.</p>
<p><img src="https://cis-india.org/home-images/wiki-academy.png/image_preview" title="Wiki Academy " height="169" width="400" alt="Wiki Academy " class="image-inline" /> <img src="https://cis-india.org/home-images/IN22-MANGALORE-WIKIPE_1376f.jpg/image_preview" title="Wiki Academy in Mangalore" height="266" width="400" alt="Wiki Academy in Mangalore" class="image-inline" /></p>
<p>ಈ ಯೋಜನೆಯ ಜನಪ್ರಿಯತೆಗೆ ಕಾರಣವೇನು? ಇದು ಹೇಗೆ ಇಷ್ಟು ದೊಡ್ಡದಾಗಿ ಬೆಳದದ್ದು? ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯ ಎಂಬುದೊಂದು ಇಷ್ಟು ಅದ್ಭುತವಾದ ಯೋಜನೆಯಾದದ್ದು ಹೇಗೆ - ಮುಂತಾದ ವಿಷಯಗಳ ಬಗ್ಗೆ ನಾವು ಬೆಳಕು ಚೆಲ್ಲುವ ಪ್ರಯತ್ನ ಮಾಡಿದೆವು. ಸಹಯೋಗದಲ್ಲಿ (Collaboration) ಮಾಡಿದ ಕೆಲಸ ಹೇಗೆ ಜಗತ್ ಸ್ವರೂಪ ಪಡೆದು ಉತ್ತಮವಾಗುತ್ತ ಹೋಗುತ್ತದೆ ಹಾಗು ವಿಶ್ವ ಮಟ್ಟದಲ್ಲಿ ಇದು ಹೇಗೆ ಕಾಣುತ್ತದೆ ಎಂಬುದರ ಕುರಿತು ಮಾತಾನಾಡಲು ಪ್ರಯತ್ನಿಸಿದೆವು. ರಾಜ್ಯಮಟ್ಟದಲ್ಲಿ ಪ್ರಾರಂಭಿಸುವಾಗ ನಮ್ಮ ಭಾಷೆ ಕನ್ನಡದಲ್ಲಿ ನಾಲ್ಕು ವರ್ಷಗಳ ಹಿಂದೆಯೇ ಪ್ರಾರಂಭವಾಗಿರುವ ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯ ಆವೃತ್ತಿ ಮರೆಯಲಾಗದು, ಅದರ ಕುರಿತು ಕೂಡ ಚರ್ಚೆ ಮಾಡಿದೆವು. ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯ ಬಹುಭಾಷಾ ವಿಶ್ವಕೋಶ್ವವಾಗಿ ರೂಪುಗೊಳ್ಳುತ್ತಿರುವ ಕುರಿತು, ಅದರ ಪ್ರಾಮುಖ್ಯತೆ ಕುರಿತು ಕೂಡ ಮಾತನಾಡಿದೆವು.</p>
<p>ಮಧ್ಯಾಹ್ನ ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯ ಬಳಸುವುದು ಹೇಗೆ, ಈ ಯೋಜನೆಯಲ್ಲಿ ಪಾಲ್ಗೊಳ್ಳುವುದು ಹೇಗೆ ಎಂಬುದರ ಕುರಿತು ಕಾರ್ಯಾಗಾರವಿತ್ತು. ಕಾರ್ಯಕ್ರಮದಲ್ಲಿ ಪಾಲ್ಗೊಂಡವರು ಸ್ವತಃ ಮುಂದೆ ಬಂದು ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯದಲ್ಲಿ ತಾವೂ ಒಂದು ಅಕೌಂಟು ತೆರೆದು ಎಡಿಟ್ ಮಾಡುವಂತೆ ಮಾಡಿದೆವು. ಇದು ಸಭೆಯಲ್ಲಿ ನೆರೆದಿದ್ದ ಹಲವರಿಗೆ ಬಹಳ ಖುಷಿಕೊಟ್ಟ ವಿಷಯವೆಂದು ಈಗ ನಾನು ಹೇಳಬಲ್ಲೆ. ಏಕೆಂದರೆ ಯಾವುದೇ ಯೋಜನೆಯಾಗಲಿ, ತಂತ್ರಜ್ಞಾನವಾಗಲಿ - ಅದರ ಬಗ್ಗೆ ಕೇಳುವುದು ಸುಲಭ, ಆದರೆ ಬಳಸಿ ನೋಡುವಾಗ ಸಮಸ್ಯೆ ಎದುರಾದಾಗ ಕಷ್ಟ! ನೇರ ಕಾರ್ಯಕ್ರಮದಲ್ಲಿ ಪಾಲ್ಗೊಂಡವರನ್ನೇ ಭಾಗವಹಿಸಲು ಕೇಳುತ್ತ ಅವರ ಕೈಯಲ್ಲೇ ಅಕೌಂಟು ತೆರೆಯುವಂತೆ ಮಾಡುವುದು, ಪುಟವೊಂದನ್ನು ಎಡಿಟ್ ಮಾಡುವಂತೆ ಮಾಡುವುದು - ಸಭಿಕರಲ್ಲಿ ಪ್ರಶ್ನೆಗಳ ಸರಮಾಲೆಯನ್ನೇ ಹುಟ್ಟುಹಾಕಿತು! ನಮಗೂ ಅದೇ ಬೇಕಿದ್ದದ್ದು. ಎಲ್ಲರ ಪ್ರಶ್ನೆಗಳಿಗೆ ನಮಗೆ ತಿಳಿದ ಉತ್ತರ ನೀಡುತ್ತ ಅವರಿಗೆ ಎದುರಾದ ಸಮಸ್ಯೆಗಳನ್ನು ಪರಿಹರಿಸುವ ಪ್ರಯತ್ನ ಮಾಡಿದೆವು. ಒಟ್ಟಾರೆ, ನಮಗದು ಬಹಳ ಖುಷಿಕೊಟ್ಟ ಕಾರ್ಯಾಗಾರ!</p>
<p>ದಿನದ ಕಾರ್ಯಕ್ರಮ ಮುಗಿದ ಮೇಲೆ ವಿದ್ಯಾರ್ಥಿಗಳು, ಉಪನ್ಯಾಸಕರು, ಪತ್ರಕರ್ತರು - ಎಲ್ಲ ನಮ್ಮಲ್ಲಿ ಬಂದು ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯದೊಂದಿಗೆ ಅವರ ಅನುಭವ ಹಂಚಿಕೊಳ್ಳುತ್ತ ಕಳೆದ ಸಮಯವಂತೂ ಮರೆಯಲಾಗದ್ದು. ತಂತ್ರಜ್ಞರಾಗಿ ನಾವು ಕಾಣುವ ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯ ಎಲ್ಲರಿಗೂ ತನ್ನದೇ ಮುಖವನ್ನು ಕಾಣಿಸುತ್ತದೆಂಬ ಅರಿವು ಈ ಯೋಜನೆಯ ಸಮಗ್ರತೆಯ ಪರಿಚಯ ಹೆಚ್ಚಿಸಿತು. ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯ ನಮ್ಮೆಲ್ಲರಿಗೂ ಮತ್ತಷ್ಟು ಹತ್ತಿರವಾಯಿತು.</p>
<p>[ವಿಕಿ ಅಕಾಡೆಮಿಯನ್ನು ಸಾಧ್ಯವಾಗಿಸುತ್ತಿರುವ ಸೆಂಟರ್ ಫಾರ್ ಇಂಟರ್ನೆಟ್ ಎಂಡ್ ಸೊಸೈಟಿಯವರಿಗೆ ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯ ಸಮುದಾಯದ ಪರವಾಗಿ ಅಭಿನಂದನೆಗಳು. ಹೆಚ್ಚಿನದೇನೂ ಅಪೇಕ್ಷೆಯಿಲ್ಲದೆ ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯದ ಸ್ವಯಂಸೇವಕರಿಗೆ ಪ್ರೋತ್ಸಾಹ ನೀಡುತ್ತಿದ್ದಾರೆ. ವಿಕಿ ಬಗ್ಗೆ ಮಾಹಿತಿ ಹಂಚಿಕೊಳ್ಳುವ ನಮ್ಮೆಲ್ಲರ ಪ್ರಯತ್ನದಲ್ಲಿ ಇವರ ಪಾತ್ರ, ಕೊಡುಗೆ ಗಣನೀಯವಾದದ್ದು.</p>
<p>ಮಂಗಳೂರಿನ ಆವೃತ್ತಿಯನ್ನು ಆಯೋಜಿಸುವಲ್ಲಿ ಪ್ರಮುಖ ಪಾತ್ರವಹಿಸಿದ ಮಂಗಳೂರು ಆಕಾಶವಾಣಿಯ ಸಾತ್ವಿಕ್, ಸೇಂಟ್ ಅಲೋಶಿಯಸ್ ಕಾಲೇಜಿನ ಉತ್ಸುಕ ಉಪನ್ಯಾಸಕರೂ, ಸರಳ ಜೀವಿಯೂ ಆದ ರೆವರೆಂಡ್ ಫಾದರ್ ರಿಚರ್ಡ್ ರೆಗೋ ಇವರಿಬ್ಬರಿಗೂ ನಮ್ಮೆಲ್ಲರ ಪರವಾಗಿ ಹೃತ್ಪೂರ್ವಕ ಅಭಿನಂದನೆಗಳು.</p>
<p>ಇದೆಲ್ಲದರ ಜೊತೆಗೆ ವಿಕಿ ಅಕಾಡೆಮಿಯನ್ನು ಕುತೂಹಲದಿಂದ, ವಿಶ್ವಾಸದಿಂದ ನೋಡುತ್ತ ವಿಕಿ ಕುರಿತು ಮಾಹಿತಿ ಹಂಚಿಕೊಳ್ಳುವಲ್ಲಿ ತಮ್ಮದೂ ಒಂದು ಪಾತ್ರವಿದೆ ಎಂಬಂತೆ ನಡೆದ ಪತ್ರಕರ್ತ ಸ್ನೇಹಿತರಿಗೆ ನಾವೆಲ್ಲರೂ ಕೃತಜ್ಞರು. ಇವರಿಲ್ಲದೆ ನಾವು ಕೈಗೆತ್ತಿಕೊಂಡಿರುವ ಅರಿವು ಹಂಚಿಕೊಳ್ಳುವ ಅಭಿಯಾನ ಅಪೂರ್ಣ.</p>
<p><strong></strong></p>
<p><a href="https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/uploads/wiki-academy" class="internal-link" title="Wiki Academy">More information available here</a></p>
<p><a href="https://cis-india.org/openness/wa-aug-09-slides.pdf" class="internal-link" title="Wiki Academy">Seminar held at Managlore - slides available here</a></p>
<p> </p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/wiki-academy'>https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/wiki-academy</a>
</p>
No publisherradhaOpen ContentWikipedia2011-08-18T05:01:57ZBlog EntryCPOV: Critical Point of View
https://cis-india.org/research/conferences/conference-blogs/Wikiwars
<b>The Centre for Internet and Society (Bangalore, India) and the Institute of Network Cultures (Amsterdam, Netherlands) seek to bring together ideas, experiences and scholarship about Wikipedia in a reader that charts out detailed user stories as well as empirical and analytical work to produce.. The organisations will jointly host two separate conferences aimed at building a Wikipedia Knowledge Network and charting scholarship and stories about The Wikipedia from around the world. </b>
<h2 align="center"><strong>CPOV: Critical Point of View</strong></h2>
<h2 align="center"><strong>Wikipedia
and the Politics of Open Knowledge</strong></h2>
<div align="left" class="pullquote">Proposal for a research network, two conferences
and a reader</div>
<div align="left" class="pullquote"> </div>
<div class="pullquote"> Organized by Centre for Internet & Society
(Bangalore, India) and the Institute of Network Cultures (Amsterdam,
Netherlands)</div>
<p><strong><br /></strong></p>
<p><strong>Introduction:</strong> It would be no exaggeration to state that
Wikipedia is at the brink of becoming the de facto global reference of dynamic
knowledge. The highly visible clashes amongst opinion leaders, university
professors, Web 2.0 ‘evangelists’ and publishers over accuracy, anonymity,
trust, vandalism and expertise only seem to fuel further growth of Wikipedia
and its user base. In this respect, what does it mean to now say that Wikipedia
has become “mainstream”?</p>
<p>The accelerated growth and scope of Wikipedia as
a knowledge reference of universal ambition is unheard of. The Google search
engine gives preferential treatment to Wikipedia in an attempt to beat search
engine optimizers and to provide a more fruitful experience to its users. Apart
from leaving its modern counterparts <em>Britannica</em> and <em>Encarta</em> in
the dust, such scale and breadth places Wikipedia on par with such historical
milestones as Pliny the Elder's <em>Naturalis Historia</em>, the Ming Dynasty's <em>Wen-hsien
ta-ch' eng</em>, and the key work of French Enlightenment, the Encyclopédie.</p>
<p>Wikipedia owns a whole set of characteristics –
including number and automation (bots) of contributors, regularity of updates,
fluidity, ease of search, number of languages, and growing user base. In doing
so, this online encyclopedia might be cited as the most visible and successful
example of the migration of FLOSS (Free/Libre/Open Source Software) principles
into mainstream culture. Those of us who believe in pluralism, and the
possibility of another world have reason to celebrate and defend Wikipedia from
intellectual- property-right-maximalists
and promoters of proprietary models of knowledge production and dissemination.
However, such celebration and defense should contain critical insights,
informed by the changing realities of the Internet at large and the Wikipedia
project in particular.</p>
<p>The Wikimedia Foundation has recently employed
its first research analyst and provides spaces for “Wikipediology”, including
projects such as the Wiki Project on vandalism studies. Nonetheless, critical
Wikipedia research should also be done outside the self-reflexivity of the
Wikimedia Foundation and its community. There is an urgent need for
quantitative and qualitative research from an Humanities and Arts perspective
that could benefit both the wider user base and the active Wikipedia community
itself.</p>
<p>More than this though, as one of the largest if
not the largest self-contained general knowledge reference of our time,
Wikipedia offers critical insights into the contemporary status of knowledge,
its organizing principles, function, and impact; its production styles,
mechanisms for conflict resolution and power (re-)constitution. New strategic
and tactical operations of knowledge/power are clearly at work. The concept of
the open remains ambiguous in this formation, serving as both a rallying
concept and masking new agonistic encounters.</p>
<p>By permanently (re)formulating the open and
inclusive as the guiding Wikipedia principle being formulated by the community
itself, one might also look at this norm as a narrative or even call it a
founding myth. For example, the demographic profile of the Wikipedia editor as
a white male geek with a limited mono-cultural worldview based on Western
rationality remains a concern. However, the question of (non)diversity being
formulated in Wikipedia discussions needs also to be posed beyond existing
stereotypes and at the general level of discourse. The question of
(post)identity and representation is not necessarily resolved via the
discursive construction of 'inclusion', if such inclusion may require leaving
competing knowledge histories and practices at the door and if it puts a
culture of editing not next to a culture of listening/hearing.</p>
<p>In the most material and perceptional way, every
new technology modifies conditions of possibility for knowledge. The logic of
technologies bleeds into the very structures and organizing principles of
knowledge and today, both medium and message may reflect the<em> </em>ideas of the (organized) network<em>,</em> multitude or the Deleuzian
machine<em>.</em> It is through a selected mix of technological and
normative conditions – the distributed architecture of the net, the Wiki
software platform, commons-based property licenses and the FLOSS zeitgeist –
that Wikipedia as the encyclopedia of the information age emerges, both
continuing and transforming the Enlightenment encyclopedic impulse or <em>will
to know</em>.</p>
<p>The authors of these proposal are aware of the
seemingly conflicting overarching research agenda: At one level is a
philosophical, epistemological and theoretical investigation of knowledge
artifacts and social, culture construction in terms of , authority and
politics. At the other level the research agenda is an empirical, anecdotal,
sociological investigation of the specific phenomenon of the Wikipedia. This
has been done on purpose so that the learnings from theoretical research
activities can inform practice oriented research and vice-versa.</p>
<p>Overall the conferences and reader may include
the following areas inviting theoretical, empirical, practical and art-based
contributions:</p>
<ol type="1" start="1"><li><em>WikiTheory
(opening session)</em></li><li><em>Wikipedia and
Critique of Western Knowledge Production</em></li><li><em>Encyclopedia
Models-- from 18th to 21th Century</em></li><li><em>Wiki Art</em></li><li><em>Designing Debate</em></li><li><em>Critique of Free and Open</em></li><li><em>Global
Politics of Exclusion</em></li><li><em>The
Place of Resistance</em></li><li><em>Wikipedia and Education</em></li><li><em>Wiki-analytics, Wikipedia as Platform and Software Studies</em></li><li><em>Wikipedia and Conditions of Knowledge Production<br /></em></li></ol>
<p> </p>
<h3>Descriptions of the Sessions/Fields of Interest</h3>
<p class="callout"> <em>1. WikiTheory –
Mining for Concepts (opening session)</em></p>
<p>Besides providing a general overview of the
topics to come, and with an emphasis on diverse global approaches, the aim here
is develop concepts that could be used in further research and that could fit
into larger projects on Internet culture and the critique of the free and open.
Is it possible to develop a counter-hegemony of critical practices that
situates itself in the midst of technological cultures? What kind of critical
lessons does Wikipedia provide in the face of overwhelming Web 2.0 hype and P2P
utopianism? How can a radical Wikipedia critique be developed that does not
present itself as the cynical ‘I told you so’ outsider or mimic the
neo-conservatist position of Andrew Keen? What kind of insight can Wikipedia
offer regarding the continuing tension between knowledge and information?</p>
<p class="callout"><em>2.
Wikipedia and Critical Histories of Western Knowledge Production</em></p>
<div class="pullquote">This session may include topics like: western vs.
non/post-western knowledge production, textual vs. oral tradition, visual vs.
textual knowledge, Wikipedia and language diversity, and indigenous knowledge.</div>
<p>The persistence of almost buried
master-narratives: The Western tradition of Enlightenment tends to permeate
both common and official understandings of knowledge on Wikipedia. Mirroring
the Enlightenment itself, Wikipedia both offers a very particular type of
knowledge and simultaneously makes claims upon the universal - e.g. in the
formulation of visionary goals, structure of articles, author positions,
writing style, categorization of entries, conflict resolution models and so on.
The ways in which such ideals persist and continue to bear their mark on the
present in often subtle ways requires further attention. Indeed, the 'grand
narratives' of the Enlightenment that Jean-Francis Lyotard claimed had
retreated with the emergence of 'computerized societies' continue to inform the
popular imaginary in ways largely untouched by the deconstructive moment.
Frederic Jameson once referred to this as the 'persistence of buried
master-narratives', a 'political unconscious' that guides decisions
irrespective of philosophical status. Likewise, this resonates with Foucault's
urge 'to reveal a <em>positive unconscious</em> of knowledge' as that which
performs the task of subjugation but operates beyond contention. What matters
here is not truth or belief, but operation.</p>
<p>The predominance of textual or even linguistical
cultures: The current system of Wikipedia citation prejudices textual systems
of knowledge over oral and visual systems of knowledge. This under-values the
knowledge systems of cultural memory and related technique such as mnemo
techniques or oral poetry on the one hand, and illiterate populations on the
other hand.</p>
<p> </p>
<p class="callout"><em>3.
Encyclopedia Models-- from 18th to 21th Century</em></p>
<p>The word made durable: In this session we want to
give an overview of various attempts to create a collection of global
knowledge. In order to get a better understanding of the cultural specificity
of the underlying code on which Wikipedia is built, this topic seeks to dig
further into the histories of the encyclopedia. D' Alembert's <em>Preliminary
Discourse</em> to the <em>Encyclopedie</em> is often described as the most
succinct statement of European Enlightenment, and the Encyclopedie itself as
the material project of Enlightenment. It is through the <em>Encyclopedie</em>
that the Enlightenment becomes durable, tangible and disseminated. What can be
learned by examining such historical precedents?</p>
<p>Encyclopedias have been said to be sources of
national images and stereotypes of the self and the other within Europe. In
Wikipedia image construction tends to be both disembogue and masked in favor of
a cosmopolitan, global self-understanding. This session might interrogate to
what extent knowledge production’s construction of national images is shifted
from a discursive to an automatic georeferencing system of construction.</p>
<p>As machines think (or maybe Knowing Machines or
The Machinic Intellect): This session may also look to historical attempts to
revolutionize knowledge through the creation of new technologies and to what
extent these alternate histories resonate with Wikipedia specifically and the
technologies of the Net as driven by knowledge imperatives more generally. Examples
include the Mundaneum, the Memex, the Galactic Network and project Xanadu. </p>
<p class="callout"><em>4.
Wikipedia Art</em></p>
<p>Art at the gates: Wikipedia Art is understood
both as artwork and intervention. Taking place largely on Wikipedia itself, the
project Wikipedia Art was considered controversial and was quickly removed (see
recent debate on nettime-l). What does this project reveal about this type of
knowledge production? What is the threshold of legitimacy for this type of
knowledge and how are the boundaries policed? What is at stake in the rejection
of art?</p>
<p class="callout"><em>5.
Models of Disambiguation and Designing Debate </em></p>
<div class="pullquote"><em>May
include topics like: </em>Dissent made visible, After Talk / Alerts /
Mailing Lists, the role of forum software, technical opportunities for
discontent, barnstars/award culture.</div>
<p>The paradox of neutrality: The Neutral Point of
View policy of Wikipedia does not always accurately depict the state of debate
on topics: The view held by a corporate lobby, using funded research, will find
equal space as the opinions of thousands of disadvantaged persons who might be
impacted by the actions of the corporate lobby. Would it make sense to replace
the NPoV policy and think about Wikipedia as a space of open political
agonality; as a battle for meaning underpinned by the desire for reason?</p>
<p>New crises of authenticity: As Wikipedia gains
the status of default reference for other printed textual knowledge artifacts –
there are emerging challenges of representation; longevity born digital
references; digital manipulation of sources; and circular referencing.
Shuddhabrata Sengupta of CSDS/Sarai says “Wikipedia encouraged in its community
the active exercise of a critical and skeptical attitude towards any received
form of knowledge”. In this context the evolving notions of authenticity has to
be further interrogated given the rise of peer-produced knowledge and the
diminishing cult of the expert. <em></em></p>
<p> </p>
<p class="callout"><em>6.
Critique of Free and Open </em></p>
<div class="pullquote">May include topics like: the parasite model of
free culture (“You work for free, others will make the money from your free
labour.”), governance, the role of developers, economy of Wikipedia, the beliefs
of the founders as the political foundation of Wikipedia, critical
interrogation of knowledge in relation to 'the open'.</div>
<p>Vacuous collaboration: Master concepts like
freedom and openness are at constant risk of remaining empty or constituting an
‘empty signifier’. The failure to fill such concepts has lead to many
descriptions of Wikipedia as 'collaborations' or even 'ad hoc meritocracies'
(Alex Bruns). Both these second-tier notions also tend to mask the
reconfiguration of the political and new forms of closure.</p>
<p>Paid and voluntary community manipulation: Many
Wikipedians hold strong opinions on range of sensitive areas including identity,
religion, science, politics, culture, and use sophisticated techniques such as
astro-turfing on Wikipedia. Additionally, some states, corporations and
organized religious groups sometimes pay specialists to engage in astro-turfing
in order to remove critical opinions and rewrite information from Wikipedia.</p>
<p> </p>
<p class="callout"><em>7.
Global Politics of Exclusion </em></p>
<div class="pullquote"><em>May
include topics like: </em>non-western, language, connectedness, oral
histories, women, non-geeks.</div>
<p>Tyranny of the connected: In societies which are
compounded by digital and participation divides, the connected usually always
win over those who don't have access and time to spare.</p>
<p>Gendered Knowledge: While women are strongly
represented among readers, globally, they are
hardly represented among contributors. In offlist chats, women express
that they do not feel comfortable when contributing to Wikipedia conversations.
They even felt silenced by the perception of Wikipedia as a masculine tech
culture. Some women have already created an alternative space of discussion at
wikichix.org. Does the separation of discussion spaces and the marginalization
of domestic issues and social impacts on Wikipedia turn back time?</p>
<p>Morality laundering: Moral standards that exist
in one country are being exported to other countries via Wikipedia. For
example, photo-realistic images of human bodies on pages dealing with sexuality
and anatomy are being replaced with drawings. Does this type of common
denominator approach undermine the pluralism of global sexuality? The call and
eventual refusal of image censorship for the entry on Mohammad represents a
similar scenario.</p>
<p>Language diversity: Despite the self-imposed
normative claim of language diversity and the self-description of Wikipedia as
a truly multi-lingual project, English is the Lingua Franca in translingual
meta projects and policy discussions. Also, on the level of content, is the
English Wikipedia the 'Leitmedium' in terms of (content) synchronization. In
what other ways does the language divide operate on Wikipedia?</p>
<p>Global governance: Governance of Wikipedia has
evolved and become increasingly sophisticated to match its phenomenal growth
and the attention it has garnered. While these changes in governance have
managed to sustain the growth of Wikipedia and prevent its credibility from
being undermined, there is a need to understand the impact that various
governance mechanisms have on the different incarnations of Wikipedia
throughout the world. Such analysis should consider separately (and compare)
different national chapters, plus extend beyond Wikipedia projects to the
governance of the Wikimedia Foundation.</p>
<p></p>
<p>Form and format: As the Wikipedia becomes a
standard of documentation and knowledge archive, it becomes important to focus
on traditional, oral and ephemeral knowledges which might die because of the
limitations of technologised platforms to capture them. Oral histories,
community knowledges, incipient systems of documenting personal and collective
memories, etc. start getting lost as the logo-centric, ‘objectively verifiable’
structures of knowledge production come into being. Rather than a critique of
Wikipedia, analysis needs to concentrate on ways by which such knowledge
systems are not lost and further tools which need to be developed in order to
make them accessible and visible.</p>
<p> </p>
<p class="callout"><em>8.
The Place of Resistance</em></p>
<p>Why do people resign from Wikipedia? Are critical
voices silenced by the majority of the mass? Does the exclusion of the
Wikipedia Art project reveal that within Wikipedia is no place for contesting
forms, repertoires, styles that go beyond linguistic approaches? Rituals and
mechanisms of exclusion offers critical insights into the contemporary status
of resistance formation in an paradigmatic age of diversity and inclusion.
Going beyond and extending the thinking of social movement scholars such as
Touraine or Melucci the study of Wikipedia might inform culture and identity
approaches of social movement studies and vice versa.</p>
<p>Can Wikipedia said to be a social movement and/or
how do social movement actors appropriate the Wikipedia to built alternatives?</p>
<p class="callout"><em>9.
Media Literacy and Education </em></p>
<p>Knowing about knowing: While technologies like
newspapers, television, radio and cinema have given birth to educational
institutions that engage in media studies, thereby providing tools for the
discerning citizen-consumer and future professional, there is still much work
required to develop similar critical models for emerging projects like
Wikipedia. The common institutional (non)response to warn against the ‘dangers’
of Wikipedia-like projects and discourage or ban their use seems grossly
inadequate. The rise of 'prosumers' suggests a need for new 'production
literacies' in addition to the traditional 'consumption literacy'. Furthermore,
there is also a growing number of meta projects on Wikipedia that seek cooperation
with schools and academia. But is the Wikimedia foundation and select national
bodies the legitimate actors to teach media literacy or is this rather a public
relations effort? What would Wikipedia literacy entail?</p>
<p class="callout"><em>10.
Wiki-analytics, Wikipedia as Platform and Software Studies</em></p>
<div class="pullquote"><em>Possible Topics: </em>Protocological
Knowledge, Knowledge vs. Information, Cultural Analytics, Cybernetics in the
present, (Un)dead labour and the posthuman bot.</div>
<p>Knowledge in the neighborhood of software: Can we
start thinking of Wikipedia as an interplay of editors and technology, since
software and notification systems are such an important part of the Wikipedia
project? Indeed, whilst humans argue over knowledge statements, 'bots' do much
of the dirty work and general knowledge housekeeping – a kind of (un)dead
labour. The presumption here, of code as politics, is that the wiki principles
themselves need to be debated from a perspective of software studies. To what
extent has bot politics triumphed over vernacular expertise or lead to an empowerment of the e-tech geeks
in knowledge projects? Related to this is the question of the cultural history
of Wikipedia as a platform. What is the relation between policy formation and
technical protocols? Is Wikipedia knowledge
Cybernetic?</p>
<p>Wikipedia as a data set: Besides the automation
participation in the form of the bot, Wikipedia is an information artifact
through and through. What kind of data analysis techniques can contribute to a
radical critique or illuminate network regularities beyond human
interpretation? What additional anonymised data sets of edit and use history
should be released by the Wikimedia Foundation to promote media literacy and
education.</p>
<p> </p>
<p class="callout"><em>11.
Wikipedia and Conditions of Knowledge Production</em></p>
<div class="pullquote">Possible Topics: Politics of knowledge production,
question of authority, The fallacy of objectivity, Wikipedia and the Public
Sphere.</div>
<p>The alarm that traditional bastions of
knowledge production and consumption (like universities and publishing houses)
raise against Wikipedia, brings into sharp relief, the fact that the Wikipedia
is a part of a much larger knowledge production industry. With the Wikipedia’s
integration into more ‘mainstream’ usage, it becomes necessary to focus on how
the emergence of such a space (and the principles it embodies) also affects the
much larger and global politics, aesthetics and mechanics of knowledge
production. Wikipedia has substantially changed academic trends of publication,
citation, classroom pedagogy and research. It has also been central to many
debates about who produces knowledge and who has the ‘right’ to be an Authority
on the knowledge thus produced.</p>
<p>Moving beyond the class-room and questions
of plagiarism or teaching, there is need to investigate the pre-conditions and
the contexts within which Wikipedia emerges, and the kind of questions it poses
to processes of knowledge production, consumption and verification.</p>
<p> </p>
<h3><em>Production
Details</em></h3>
<p>Besides setting up a network for critical
Wikipedia research with its own mailing list and organizing two events early
2010 in Bangalore and Amsterdam (to start with), the aim is to gather materials
for a Wikipedia Research Reader that will be published in the INC Reader series
around September-October 2010.</p>
<div class="pullquote">Research and editorial group: Geert Lovink and
Sabine Niederer (Amsterdam), Nathaniel Tkacz (Melbourne), Sunil Abraham
(Bangalore), Johanna Niesyto (Siegen), Nishant Shah (Bangalore).</div>
<h3><em>Contact
info: </em></h3>
<p>Sunil Abraham: <a href="mailto:sunil@cis-india.org">sunil@cis-india.org</a></p>
<p>Nishant Shah: <a href="mailto:Nishant@cis-india.org">Nishant@cis-india.org</a></p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>For more information on how to apply to the Bangalore WikiWars conference, please <a title="CPOV - Critical Point of View : Wikiwars" class="internal-link" href="/research/conferences/wikiwars">click here</a>.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/research/conferences/conference-blogs/Wikiwars'>https://cis-india.org/research/conferences/conference-blogs/Wikiwars</a>
</p>
No publishernishantWikipediaart and interventioncyberculturesdigital subjectivesVandalismdigital artdigital pluralism2009-07-13T09:07:42ZBlog EntryAnalysing Wikipedia: A First Attempt at Clustering
https://cis-india.org/raw/histories-of-the-internet/blogs/wiki-analysis-and-assist/our-first-attempt-at-clustering
<b>In this, their second update on their Analysing Wikipedia project, Kiran Jonnalagadda and Hans Varghese Mathews discuss their first attempt at grouping the various editors of a frequently edited Wikipedia document, each distinguished from the others by some particular interest, through a quick machine process requiring minimal human intervention.</b>
<p>For our first trials, we attempted two ways of analysing Wikipedia. Here’s
a description of the first:</p>
<p>Given a target article, we retrieved its revision history over the last
<em>n</em> days and made a list of all the users who had edited the article
during this period. Then, for each of them, we made a list of all the other
articles they had edited during the same period. We filtered this for
outliers:</p>
<ol><li>Wikipedia administrators rack up thousands of edits each month as they
revert vandalism and annotate pages across the site. Our data downloading
script can remove them from consideration in one of two ways. We used both in
various combinations while attempting to arrive at a reasonable dataset for
analysis:</li>
<ol type="a"><li>Ignore anyone who made more than a specified number of
edits.</li><li>Ignore explicitly specified users.</li></ol>
<li>Some users (almost always anonymous) make one edit to an article and are
never seen again. Others make an edit but have no articles in common with any
of the other editors, typically because they edited to make an annotation,
such as making a link to the same article in another language Wikipedia. We
added the ability to filter for these by requiring that users have at least
one other (or more) articles in common.</li></ol>
<p>The following is Hans’s explanation for how the data thus retrieved was
analysed.</p>
<h3>Report of an Experiment in Clustering</h3>
<ol start="0">
<li>
<p>The object of the exercise described in what follows was to see if the various
editors of a frequently edited Wikipedia document could be clustered in different
groups, each distinguished from the others by some particular interest, through
some <em>quick</em> machine process requiring minimal human intervention.
The experiment was not entirely unsuccessful; but the supervention of human judgement
upon machine decision was more haphazard than one could wish.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>The Wikipedia page named <strong>Evolution</strong> was chosen as the primary document;
and for our collection of editors we chose, out of all the editors that this page had
had from November 2008 through January 2009, those who had in that same period
edited at least one other Wikipedia page. The rationale for proceeding so was to
compute in some very quick and convenient way a <em>measure of similarity</em> between
each pair of the editors to be clustered: without <em>at all</em> considering, at this stage,
the textual character of their individual interventions. The data from which these
similarities were computed constituted a matrix, with a row for each such ancillary
document and a column for each editor; and the entry in the <em>i<sup>th</sup></em>
row and the <em>j<sup>th</sup></em> column was 1 if the <em>i<sup>th</sup></em>
page had been edited by the <em>j<sup>th</sup></em> editor, and 0
otherwise. The similarity between any pair of editors was then assessed by counting
the pages they had both edited against the counts, for each, of those pages that
one had edited but the other not: but in such a way that, among the pages both
had edited, those that were <em>on the whole</em> less edited received more weight; while
among the pages only one or other had edited, those that were on the whole less
edited received less weight.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>The similarities thus obtained were collected in a square and <em>symmetric</em> matrix,
having as many rows and columns as there were editors: with the similarity between
the <em>i<sup>th</sup></em> and the <em>j<sup>th</sup></em> editor being the entry in the
<em>i<sup>th</sup></em> row and the <em>j<sup>th</sup></em> column, and
the entry in the <em>j<sup>th</sup></em> row and the <em>i<sup>th</sup></em>
column as well. This matrix of similarities
was then used to cluster the editors in a variety of ways, using various techniques.
Three among these clusterings were retained, on considerations of variation in size
between, and of <em>coherence</em> within, their constitutive clusters: with the coherence of
a given cluster of individuals being measured by
λ<sub>1</sub>/(λ<sub>1</sub> + λ<sub>2</sub> + ... + λ<sub><em>k</em></sub>), where
λ<sub>1</sub> is the largest among the positive eigenvalues {λ<sub>1</sub>, λ<sub>2</sub>, ... λ<sub><em>k</em></sub>} of the submatrix
recording the similarities between the individuals in that cluster.</p>
<div class="pullquote">A square matrix <em>A</em> of numbers, with <em>m</em> rows and columns say, may be regarded as device
for <em>rotating the direction</em> and <em>rescaling the length</em> of any vector <strong>v</strong> having <em>m</em> numerical entries
or components: through the usual multiplication, with the <em>i<sup>th</sup></em> component of the resultant vector
A · <strong>v</strong> being (A<sub><em>i</em>1</sub><em>v</em><sub>1</sub> +
A<sub><em>i</em>2</sub><em>v</em><sub>2</sub> + ... + A<sub><em>im</em></sub><em>v<sub>m</sub></em>),
where <em>A<sub>ij</sub></em> is the entry in the <em>i<sup>th</sup></em> row and <em>j<sup>th</sup></em>
column of <em>A</em>, while <em>v<sub>j</sub></em> is the <em>j<sup>th</sup></em> component of <strong>v</strong>.
An <em>eigenvector</em> <strong>u</strong> of <em>A</em> is a vector of <em>unit length</em>
whose direction is only reversed, if it is at all rotated; and one has <em>A</em> · <strong>u</strong> = λ<strong>u</strong> for some
<em>eigenvalue</em> λ now, with a reversal of direction if λ < 0, and with the size or ‘absolute value’
|λ| being the rescaling of length.</div>
<div class="pullquote">A vector <strong>v</strong> has the usual <em>Euclidean</em> length ||<strong>v</strong>|| =
(<em>v<sup>2</sup><sub>1</sub></em> + <em>v<sup>2</sup><sub>2</sub></em> ... +
<em>v<sup>2</sup><sub>m</sub></em>)<sup>½</sup> here. To specify
the direction of <strong>v</strong> we must consider the <em>m</em> <em>standard
basis vectors</em> we obtain by taking the <strong>0</strong>
vector here, whose <em>m</em> components are all zeroes, and replacing any one of these with 1; and
<strong>e</strong><sub><em>k</em></sub> usually denotes the vector which has 1 for its <em>k<sup>th</sup></em> component and zeroes everywhere else.
Now for each <em>j</em> ∈ {1, 2, ..., <em>m</em>} the <em>direction-number</em> <em>v<sub>j</sub></em>/||<strong>v</strong>|| is the cosine of the angle between
<strong>v</strong> and <strong>e</strong><sub><em>j</em></sub> in the plane this pair of vectors would determine, whenever <strong>v</strong> is not a multiple of
<strong>e</strong><sub><em>j</em></sub> : whenever <strong>v</strong> cannot be obtained from <strong>e</strong><sub><em>j</em></sub> by multiplying each component of the latter with
some number. Note that when <strong>v</strong> is so obtained the <em>direction-number</em> <em>v<sub>j</sub></em>/||<strong>v</strong>|| would be either
1 = cosine(0<sup>◦</sup>) or −1 = cosine(180<sup>◦</sup>) : which is appropriate, since <strong>v</strong> would lie either along
<strong>e</strong><sub><em>j</em></sub> itself or along its reverse −<strong>e</strong><sub><em>j</em></sub>
in any plane that <strong>e</strong><sub><em>j</em></sub> might help determine. The word “plane”
has its common geometrical meaning now.</div>
<p>We note that such a criterion of coherence would favour those clusters in which
the similarities between members were more uniform than elsewhere: were the
similarities between them used to locate all the editors in some Euclidean space,
using some technique like multidimensional scaling for instance, our criterion would
favour <em>globular</em> clusters over <em>flat</em> or <em>chainlike</em> ones.
Regarding variation between the
sizes of constitutive clusters in a clustering, the desideratum was that the largest
such cluster should not exceed too much the mean size of the remainder, when their
difference is scaled by the variation in size there.</p>
<p>The specifics of the clustering techniques that were employed, and the statistical
tests which decided the retention of clusterings, are set out in the technical
supplement to this report; and the computation of similarities described in <strong>1</strong> may be
found there as well.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Each cluster within a retained clustering was next used to induce a weighting
on the collection of edited pages, in the evident way, with the weight of a document
relative to a cluster being the proportion of the individuals there who had edited it;
and the names of its most frequently edited pages were taken as indicative of the
interest of that group or ‘pack’ of editors. A choice between the three retained
clusterings might now be made by considering how <em>distinctively</em> the separate interests
of their several constitutive packs could be characterised.</p>
<p>Such judgements are apt to vary considerably between individuals, of course:
but we note that there were appreciable congruences between the three clusterings
that were retained. Each clustering yielded one notably coherent pack, consisting
of the same individuals almost in each clustering, set apart by their attention to
<em>creationism</em> and <em>intelligent design</em>. Each retained clustering also yielded a pack
whose members seemed to have a special interest in <em>evolution as theory and fact;</em>
and these cognate groups almost overlapped as well. Another group identifiable
in all three clusterings had its members linked by their common attention to the
Wikipedia <em>Sandbox</em>. These results are hardly surprising. But we note that all three
clusterings did indicate a small group, somewhat more coherent in one than in the
other two, of individuals linked by an interest in the <em>gastrointestinal tract.</em></p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Given the ‘virtual’ character of our packs or groups we should expect that
some individuals may sit well in more than one of them; and we should find a way
to allot such an individual to each among the groups with which he might have
comparable affinities. A convenient way to do so would be to locate our editors in
some Euclidean space, again, so that each group may be identified with the <em>centroid</em>
of the points to which its members are assigned. An individual who is markedly
further from the centroid of his own group, than his fellows there, might now be
allotted to some other groups: if, for instance, his distances from their centroids,
compared to his distances from the rest, are markedly closer to his distance from
his assigned centroid. Proceeding so would work best with globular spatial clusters,
again, and we should be cautious about how similarities between individuals will
be used to spatially locate them: especially when some very few of the clusters in
a clustering are markedly more coherent than the others.</p>
</li></ol>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/raw/histories-of-the-internet/blogs/wiki-analysis-and-assist/our-first-attempt-at-clustering'>https://cis-india.org/raw/histories-of-the-internet/blogs/wiki-analysis-and-assist/our-first-attempt-at-clustering</a>
</p>
No publisherjaceWikipedia2011-08-04T06:11:49ZBlog EntryAnalysing Wikipedia: An Introduction
https://cis-india.org/raw/histories-of-the-internet/blogs/wiki-analysis-and-assist/analysing-wikipedia
<b>Kiran Jonnalagadda and Hans Varghese Matthews introduce their project, aimed at producing tools that will allow anyone to analyse editing behaviour on Wikipedia. This is the first in a series of posts documenting their work. </b>
<p>There used to be a time, only a few years ago, when the typical
savvy internet user, in seeking an understanding of some new concept,
would look it up on a Google search. Today, for an increasing number of users,
the first reference likely to be looked at is Wikipedia. It is also
usually the last.</p>
<p>Wikipedia’s prominence has grown phenomenally over the last few
years, and that has made it important for anyone seeking acceptance
of their version of facts. Vandalism is commonplace. Most of it is quickly removed and cleaned up, but some slips through, and the tools for fighting such vandalism remain relatively behind the curve.</p>
<p>We at the Centre for Internet and Society wondered if there was a
way to detect pack editing behaviour, when a group of users edit
together to push their agenda, across pages. The tools for fighting
one vandal at a time are increasingly improving. Pack editing is
harder to deal with. We don’t know if we have a solution, but we did think we should try.</p>
<p>I’m Kiran Jonnalagadda, your collaborator on this blog. I’m
working with Hans Varghese Matthews, our resident statistician, who’s
attempting to build mathematical models of pack behaviour. I write
the code to pull the data from Wikipedia’s edit history that Hans
needs and will later implement his algorithms in a set of tools that
anyone can use to analyse Wikipedia.</p>
<p>We started a month ago with some initial experiments that I’ll
describe in subsequent posts. Do let us know what you’d like to see
come out of this project.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/raw/histories-of-the-internet/blogs/wiki-analysis-and-assist/analysing-wikipedia'>https://cis-india.org/raw/histories-of-the-internet/blogs/wiki-analysis-and-assist/analysing-wikipedia</a>
</p>
No publisherjaceIntroductionWikipediaVandalismAnalysis2011-08-04T06:11:46ZBlog EntryWikiWars: Programme
https://cis-india.org/research/conferences/conference-blogs/uploads/wikiwarsprog
<b>The programme for Wikiwars, 12th, 13th January - MS Office document</b>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/research/conferences/conference-blogs/uploads/wikiwarsprog'>https://cis-india.org/research/conferences/conference-blogs/uploads/wikiwarsprog</a>
</p>
No publishernishantWikipedia2010-01-05T17:37:43ZFile