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Wikipedia is no longer just another source of knowledge about the world. It is fast becoming a central source, used by other powerful knowledge brokers like Google and Bing to offer authoritative answers to search queries about people, places and things and as information infrastructure for a growing number of Web applications and services. Researc...
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"Publication forms the core structure supporting the development and transmission of scientific knowledge" (Galbraith2015). Yet, with the WorldWideWeb a dominant part of current scientific publication and information-dissemination, internet "publication" is still paper-based in its style and methods. As will become painfully obvious, such a paper-b...
Previous studies have focused on the differences in the art appreciation process between individuals, and indicated that novice viewers of artworks, in comparison to experts, rarely consider the creation process of the artwork or how this may relate to style. However, behavioral changes in individuals after educational interventions have not been e...
Citations
... Algunas particularidades del proyecto Wikimedia son su constitución como fundación sin fines de lucro, su política editorial basada en la verificabilidad, el punto de vista neutral y la ausencia de amplificación algorítmica (Keegan, 2020). Ford (2015) sostiene que la Wikipedia puede considerarse una «fábrica de hechos». Esto se debe a una serie de procesos, entre los que destacan la revalorización de una idea de sabiduría colectiva inspirada en los principios del código abierto y en la ley de Torvalds 2 . ...
Este artículo presenta una experiencia de investigación-acción en la enciclopedia Wikipedia en español. Se realizó sobre el espacio de portales, los cuales permiten la selección y curación de contenidos y la creación de recorridos temáticos. Para ello se elaboró un diagnóstico sobre su estado actual y se generaron instancias colaborativas a partir de tecnología wiki. En función de una situación definida por el declive en la participación, las acciones apuntaron a reactivar los espacios, actualizar la infraestructura y contenidos, mejorar el acceso desde dispositivos y facilitar su presentación en conjunto.
Las intervenciones se realizaron por un equipo interdisciplinario de docentes y estudiantes universitarios (hombres y mujeres) durante 2020-2021, en colaboración con editores voluntarios. En total, fueron rediseñados unos 120 portales. Los resultados demuestran algunas potencialidades de la Wikipedia como recurso educativo abierto (REA). Junto con ello, se reflexiona sobre los desafíos de la producción colaborativa entre pares en entornos sociotécnicos. La metodología complementa el análisis de registros y datos disponibles en la plataforma, junto con la sistematización de la experiencia.
... Este proceso se basó en el modelo epistémico de Wikipedia que ganó aceptación social, así como la capacidad del proyecto para ganarse la confianza del público y ofrecer una alternativa a los medios convencionales. (Benjakob & Harrison, 2019 [traducción propia]) Ford (2015) coincide en que Wikipedia puede entenderse como una "fábrica de hechos". Esto se debe a una serie de procesos, entre los que destacan la revalorización de una idea de sabiduría colectiva inspirada en los principios del código abierto y la ley de Torvalds. ...
Resumen. El artículo analiza la producción y uso de contenidos sobre COVID-19 en Wikimedia en español. La llegada de la pandemia motivó acciones colectivas para generar entradas y contenidos de actualidad, en su misión de brindar información clara, neutral y confiable. En base a un abordaje cuantitativo y cualitativo de registros disponibles, así como herramientas analíticas oficiales y comunitarias, el artículo investiga: cantidad y tipo de objetos generados; visualización de artículos principales; dinámicas de edición y trabajo colaborativo; calidad y comparación entre ediciones. Los resultados muestran dinámicas de creación colaborativa que varían en función de temas, motivaciones de editores y volumen de la comunidad. Permiten ponderar en qué medida Wikimedia fue una fuente consultada y confiable, poniendo de relieve el lugar de las plataformas sin fines de lucro y la colaboración en masa, en un ecosistema mediático global en el que convergen medios de masas y sociales.
Abstract. The article analyzes the production and use of content on COVID-19 in Wikimedia in Spanish. The arrival of the pandemic motivated collective actions to generate current entries and content, in its mission to provide clear, neutral and reliable information. Based on a quantitative and qualitative approach of available records, as well as official and community analytical tools, the article investigates: quantity and type of objects generated; pageviews of main articles; editing dynamics and collaborative work; quality and comparison between editions. The results show collaborative creation dynamics that vary depending on themes, editor motivations and community volume. They allow us to assess the extent to which Wikimedia was a consulted and reliable source, highlighting the place of nonprofit platforms and mass collaboration in a global media ecosystem where mass and social media converge.
... A technical explanation for a review being chosen in the snippet view is that the review is cited on Wikipedia, which is deemed credible by Google (Ford, 2015). The reviewer's publisher can use tag commands in the html code of the review's webpage for tailoring a specific section to display in a snippet. ...
The shift of academic discourse to an online space without guardians gives motivated academic cyberbullies an opportunity to harass susceptible recipients. Cyberbullying by higher education employees is a neglected phenomenon; despite the dangers it poses to academic free speech as well as other negative outcomes. In the absence of an adequate definition for Online Academic Bullying (OAB) as a surfacing threat, its’ targets cannot readily gauge its severity or confidently report that they are victims. Nor do their attackers have a reference point for understanding and, perhaps, correcting their own incivility.
To remedy this, we propose an analytical framework grounded in Routine Activity Theory (RAT) that can serve as an appropriate reporting instrument. The OABRAT framework is illustrated with an Emeritus Professor's case and the varied examples of cyber harassment that he experienced. This scientific influencer was relentlessly attacked on social media platforms by varied academics for expressing contrarian, but evidence-based, opinions. Spotlighting OAB's distinctive attacks should raise awareness amongst researchers and institutional policy makers. The reporting instrument may further assist with identifying and confronting this threat.
This article also flags ethical concerns related to dissident scholars’ usage of online platforms for informal, public debates. Such scholars may face an asymmetrical challenge in confronting cyber harassment from hypercritical academics and cybermobs on poorly moderated platforms. Universities should therefor consider appropriate countermeasures to protect both the public and their employees against victimisation by academic cyberbullies.
... Wikipedia is also a place where knowledge is contested and purposely contestable, by design (Ford 2015). Each article has an accompanying online edit history in which users can track how the article's content has evolved and where its content is debated by editors in disagreement. ...
en As digital era open government initiatives are deployed globally, researchers are debating their effects on democratic governance. We develop a framework to evaluate whether these initiatives improve or undermine democratic governance and apply it to the case of Government of Canada Wikipedia editing and an automated Twitter account (@gccaedits) tracking this activity. Through content analysis of edits and analysis of access to information requests we show that while most edits made are useful and non‐partisan, the response of news media and government managers ultimately renders the editing a threat to democratic governance. This complexity highlights the importance of assessing the merits of open government initiatives in their broader socio‐political context. The findings also suggest that more fundamental shifts in contemporary political, media and administrative cultures are necessary before the potential benefits of open government reforms can materialize.
Sommaire
fr Alors que les initiatives de transparence gouvernementale à l’ère numérique se déploient à l’échelle mondiale, les chercheurs discutent de leurs incidences sur la gouvernance démocratique. Nous établissons un cadre afin d’évaluer si ces initiatives améliorent ou, au contraire, nuisent à la gouvernance démocratique, et l’appliquons au cas de révisions sur Wikipedia par le gouvernement du Canada, ainsi qu’au compte Twitter automatisé (@gccaedits) qui suit cette activité. Par le biais d’une analyse de contenu des révisions et de l’analyse des demandes d’accès à l’information, nous démontrons que malgré le fait que la plupart des révisions soient utiles et non partisanes, la réponse des médias d’information et des gestionnaires gouvernementaux font de ces révisions une menace pour la gouvernance démocratique. Cette situation complexe rehausse l’importance d’évaluer les avantages des initiatives de transparence gouvernementale dans un contexte sociopolitique plus large. En outre, nos résultats indiquent que des changements fondamentaux dans les cultures politique, médiatique et administrative contemporaines sont encore indispensables avant que les réformes visant la transparence du gouvernement puissent se matérialiser.
... Según datos de la propia enciclopedia, solo en Argentina se visualizan mensualmente más de 150 millones de artículos (WMF, 2018, 3 de noviembre). Ford (2015) sostiene que la misma puede entenderse como una "fábrica de hechos", en la medida en que ha devenido una fuente de autoridad. Esto se debe a una serie de procesos, entre los que destacan la revalorización de una idea de sabiduría colectiva (inspirados por los principios de código abierto y la ley de Torvalds 1 ), así como alianzas con actores corporativos, que posicionan a Wikipedia como un contenido destacado entre los resultados de los principales buscadores web (Van Dijck, 2016). ...
El trabajo analiza procesos de producción colaborativa en la enciclopedia libre Wikipedia, tomando el caso del artículo Aborto en Argentina de su edición en español. El debate generado durante el tratamiento legislativo en 2018 del Proyecto de ley de Interrupción Voluntaria del Embarazo (ILE), implicó una fuerte movilización de la opinión pública en una disputa entre posiciones proelección y provida. Todo ello en un ecosistema tecnocomunicacional donde conviven plataformas de software social con medios de masas. El análisis se desarrolla en cuatro ejes: 1. evolución del artículo; 2. perfil de ediciones y editores; 3. discusiones y controversias; 4. uso de fuentes para validación del contenido. El artículo se sustenta en un análisis cuan-ti-cualitativo de datos disponibles en la plataforma, alimentando una reflexión sobre métodos digitales.
The paper analyzes processes of collaborative production in Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, taking the case of the article Aborto en Argentina (Abortion in Argentina) of its Spanish edition. The debate generated during a bill treatment on Voluntary Interruption of Pregnancy in 2018, implied a strong mobilization of public opinion in a dispute between "pro-choice" and "pro-life" positions. All this within a techno-communication ecosystem where social software platforms coexist with mass media. Presentation is developed in four areas: 1. evolution of the article; 2. editions and editors profile; 3. discussions and controversies; 4. sources usage for content validation. The article is based on a quantitative-qualitative analysis of available data on the platform, fueling a reflection on digital methods.
... These early studies, of course, predate the widespread public adoption of the Internet in the mid-1990s and the huge growth of the Internet as a contributor to knowledge as measured by its prominence in the scholarly literature (see Meyer, Schroeder, & Cowls, 2016). The Internet and its ability to allow the distributed and shared production of knowledge has contributed not just to the scale and scope of research using digital materials, but has also reconfigured the ways that knowledge is created across disciplines (Meyer & Schroeder, 2009, 2015. ...
In the Introduction to this special issue on the Social Informatics of Knowledge, the editors of the issue reflect on the history of the term “social informatics” and how the articles in this issue both reflect and depart from the original concept. We examine how social informatics researchers have studied knowledge, computerization, and the workplace, and how all of those have evolved over time. We describe the process by which articles were included, how they help us understand the field of social informatics scholarship today, and reflect briefly on what the future of the field holds.
Purpose
The astonishing thing about Wikipedia is that despite the way it is produced, the product is as good as it is and not far worse. But this is no reason for complacency. As others have documented, Wikipedia has representational blind spots, produced by the nature of its editorial community and their discursive conventions. This article wishes to look at the potential effect of sources on certain of these blind spots.
Design/methodology/approach
The author used an extended example, the Wikipedia article on the Philippine–American War, to illustrate the unfortunate effects that accompany a lack of attention to the kind of sources used to produce narratives for the online encyclopaedia. The Philippine–American War article was chosen because of its importance to American history. The war brought to the fore a debate over the future of the USA and the legitimacy of a republic acquiring overseas colonies. It remains controversial today, making it essential that its representation on Wikipedia is soundly constructed.
Findings
Inattention to sources (a lack of bibliographical imagination) produces representational anomalies. Certain sources are privileged when they should not be and others are ignored or considered as sub-standard. Overall, the epistemological boundaries of the article in terms of what the editorial community considers reliable and what the community of scholars producing knowledge about the war think as reliable do not overlap to the extent that they should. The resulting narrative is therefore less rich than it otherwise could be.
Originality/value
While there exists a growing literature on the representational blind spots of Wikipedia (gender, class, geographical region and so on), the focus has been on the composition of the demographics of the editorial community. But equally important to the problem of representation are the sources used by that community. Much literature has been written that seeks to portray the social world of the marginalized, but it is not used on Wikipedia, despite it easily meeting the criteria for reliability set by the Wikipedia community. This is a tragic oversight that makes Wikipedia's aim to be a repository for the knowledge of the world, a laudable goal to strive for, even if in reality unobtainable, even harder to achieve than ever.
La consolidación de la memoria colectiva dispone de Wikipedia como un lugar de encuentro que garantiza la participación democrática de la sociedad. Además, su apelación a la neutralidad como norma de conducta básica limita tentaciones subjetivas que podrían condicionar los resultados finales. Con este artículo pretendemos mostrar el vigor y dinamismo que aporta la enciclopedia online a la recuperación, mantenimiento y difusión de acontecimientos históricos que forman parte de la idiosincrasia de un país a través del análisis de dos entradas que conmocionaron a la sociedad española: los atentados del 11M en Madrid y de agosto de 2017 en Barcelona.
In recent years, the incel community has been the subject of much scholarly and public fascination due to its violent and spectacular misogyny, which has resulted in acts of mass violence. In this essay, I argue that the incel psyche can best be understood through a reading of the incel wiki, which was established after a large incel community on Reddit was banned. During the ban, all of the content was lost, and in an attempt to regain their power a group of users created a wiki as a collaborative knowledge repository and archive. I argue that this archive not only serves as a way of reclaiming power via the process of embracing the incels’ symbolic castration but reveals the social epistemology of the group, as well as their shared fantasies, by creating an imaginary order. As a collaborative knowledge space and archive, the wiki allows for the sublimation of incel desire.
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine the rather unsuccessful Wikiproject for Cambodia. Despite its lack of success, it is a case that can be used to draw lessens for dealing with the issue of geographical under-representation on Wikipedia as a whole. After presenting evidence of the Wikiproject’s failure to achieve the goals for which it was created, the author will discuss the pressing issues of imbalances in geographical coverage on Wikipedia as well as the deeper issues involved in remedying these imbalances, namely, the question of who gets to represent whom.
Design/methodology/approach
The author takes a broadly qualitative approach to the study of Wikipedia. For this study, the Cambodia Wikiproject main page, as well as the various talk page archives associated with it, was downloaded in November 2016 and subjected to a content analysis. Descriptive statistics are also used when necessary to build the argument.
Findings
Wikiproject Cambodia has failed to appreciably improve the coverage of Cambodian topics. This is likely due to its inability to attract for a prolonged period of time a champion able to anchor the project and provide a sense that someone is listening. But the makeup of the project members also suggests that even if a champion could be found, the question of who gets to represent whom remains difficult to deal with. It is unlikely that Cambodia will anytime soon develop a strong community of Wikipedia editors given the economic and social constraints the country imposes on the most of its population.
Originality/value
This work builds on the small, but growing body of literature dealing with coverage gaps in Wikipedia. Given Wikipedia’s growing importance as part of the everyday information infrastructure people use, such gaps and potential solutions to these gaps should be a vital part of the information science community’s agenda.
