wikipedia
that’s the site.
here’s the wikipedia page on wikipedia:
its says..
Wikipedia (wɪkɨˈpiːdiə/ or wɪkiˈpiːdiə/ wik-i-pee-dee-ə) is a collaboratively edited,multilingual, free Internet encyclopedia supported by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation. Wikipedia’s 30 million articles in 287 languages, including over 4.3 million in the English Wikipedia, are written collaboratively by volunteers around the world. Almost all of its articles can be edited by anyone having access to the site. It is the largest and most popular general reference work on the Internet, ranking seventh globally among all websites on Alexa as of July 2013, and having an estimated 365 million readers worldwide.
Wikipedia was launched on January 15, 2001, by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger. Sanger coined the name Wikipedia, which is a portmanteau of wiki (a type of collaborative website, from the Hawaiian word wiki, meaning “quick”) and encyclopedia.
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http://www.technologyreview.com/featuredstory/520446/the-decline-of-wikipedia/
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our early on take/learnings on/from wikipedia:
hypertext allows for learning by whimsy, ability to add/edit allows for decentralization, democracy and a share economy..
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nov 2014 – via #ccourses: Learn about #Wikipedia editing w/ @annebalsamo @vaparedes!
http://t.co/pIlh850g7R
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resonating comments from session:
#Wikipedia is our ubiquitous, but unevenly produced, cultural archive. – @annebalsamo #ccourses
Original Tweet: https://twitter.com/catherinecronin/status/530135141633785856
Storming Wikipedia http://t.co/nLaNs8wV0L – from @FemTechNet DOCCS 2013 #ccourses
Original Tweet: https://twitter.com/catherinecronin/status/530136234728099840
Unpacking #Wikipedia’s five pillars http://t.co/NEwFT5iMqT = valuable work with students. great point by @vaparedes #ccourses
Original Tweet: https://twitter.com/catherinecronin/status/530139998507372545
check out http://t.co/zHEOAYRMA2 for lots of dataviz projects about wikipedia editing. wonder how one accesses the data? #ccoursesOriginal Tweet: https://twitter.com/yinbk/status/530140595973406721
building legacy w/wikipedia – (2010)
http://vimeo.com/9828745
How we made editing Wikipedia twice as fast
Larry Sanger (co-founder) – revolutionary shift in society as big as printing pressinternets rebirth called: web 2.02 min – Charles Leadbeater – not i need/want but i can – a player not just a spectator – how highly dispersed people can come together to create.. the basis for creating democratic politics.. societies more democratic3 min – Tim OReilly – web 2.0 – making web whatever you want it to be – 2nd coming of the web.. 1st one – everyone was trying to make it like tv… but it was really always participatory5 min – more of a conversation than a lecturePhoebe Ayers – wikipedian6 min – jan 2 2000 – Larry and Ben – wiki wiki means quick.. quick way of everyone working together… possibility to create encyclopedia with same method7 min – Jimmy Wales8:50 – Ndesanjo Macha – digital activist – when i was in tansinia all the books were so old.. wishing i had up to date.. i was blogging swahili – first blog in an african language.. i thought cyperspace – if we’re going toward info age – we need that to be in our languages – not just english16 min – 2003 – Larry sends email to Jimmy about recognizing expertise… via Jimmy – he wanted there to be a credentialism.. when ie: often times the 17 yr old was right in the edit when the 40 yr prof was wrong18 min – act of creating knowledge with others – Ndesanjo21 min – Larry – use wikipedia as first resource.. then check sources.. if not – danger of people assuming things are right when they are wrong… less quality writing held up as an exemplar22 min – nature of content – the interlinkedness – very interactive/dynamic – is a strength – Ndesanjo23 min – most wikipedians don’t even pretend that they are getting at the truth24 min – doing away with gate keeper – in my view gatekeeper is the key player in truth (same guy that was worried about me-ism earlier on)24 min – pre-eminant gatekeeper – that of encyclopedia – Bob McHenry: wikipedia as compilation w/o any of control/authority/consistency… it’s like nothing but a game…which is fine.. as long as people know it’s a game.. don’t pay attention to the stuff written on any given day26 min – no mechanism to reel people in before publish – Larry – no mechanism for accuracy before publish – Bob – as thought as britanica we had solicited manuscripts.. and then printed.. we didn’t do that we solicited them then spent sometimes years on edit.. to make sure it was as reliable as possible.. i don’t see that in wikipedia.. the publish rough drafts27 min – a catastrophe to the truth – part of the fragmentation of mass society… by increasing individualization (same me-ism guy) – in terms of truth – that means truth gets personalized28 min – 1.7 minutes to get an error changed – Ndesanjo – you can go up to see the discussion/debate of edit – sometimes i learn more from that debate than from the info29 min – when you democratize this – truth is a casualty – (me ism guy)31 min – Charles – i think as long as it’s transparent.. it’s a good thing..Tim – makes visible process that happens in coming up with a34 min – Bob on people determined they have the truth and forcing sharing… then asked – so the truth is not democratic.. Bob: no, if it were wouldn’t we all know it37 min – problem of instant info – keeps people from hard work of forming own ideas…39 min – you don’t learn about the world from self-expression – you learn about the world from experts… 99% of kids have nothing to say – Keen (me ism guy)41 min – Charles – internet is just letting us do p to p at greater scale43 min – archiving stories – Ndesanjo46 min – on expertise – Keen – soon cult of expert will replace cult of amateur47 min – Njesanjo – amateur – people who love what they do..
Jonathan Zittrain – 2015 – on big think:
why wikipedia works really well
http://bigthink.com/videos/the-model-for-wikipedia-is-truly-unique
wikipedia works really well in practice but not in theory…
idea of having a scheme where the day to day governance/edits… to have the people doing that be members of the public at large… extraordinarily devolution of responsibility out to people who are … taking an oath to subscribe to the principles behind wikipedia: neutrality/fairness… can that survive.. i don’t know
how to shore it up… we should solve a problem with a problem – we haven’t really figured out in 21st cent what to do w/kids in school.. i think it’d be wonderful to make.. part of curriculum: part of your task.. you’d be graded on… edits to (on a service like) wikipedia…
whoa. onto something.. and then… graded on.. keeping school as school…? but i love the idea of the world editing/creating on wikipedia…
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wikipedia’s ongoing search for the sum of all human knowledge… 15 yrs in (jan 2016)
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Aaron insight on wikipedia.. from the boy who could change the world:
1\ free culture (wikipedia)
p 16 – i mean, talking to your girlfriend can often be more enjoyable than listening to music, but i don’t think we need to start suing girlfriends.
p 17 – i’m optimistic that if you provide something people really like, and you make it easy for them to pay you for it, that you’ll do fine.
p 18 – geek seem a lot more willing to treat people based on what they can do rather than who they are
p 21 – on why bad ui – experts don’t need goo ui ‘ they know exactly what to do already and they just want to be able to do it as fast as they can
p 22 – tim berner lee‘s original plan was to let the web be a collab space… and web pages would be the trails left behind by their activities. web browsers would have an edit button that you could click and modify or annotate any page…
chip as easy ui/entry (a mechanism simple enough) to leaving trail to/for io dance ness
p 27 – sharing isn’t immoral.. it’s a moral imperative… there is not justice in following unjust laws.
p 28 – it is possible to take on grand projects
p 30 – semantic web.. berners-lee.. users together to build grand data bases
p 31 – a third way.. million-dollar users…wikipedia points to a diff model.. where all users come to one website… perhaps time to try 3rd way
again – chip as easy ui/entry to leaving (wikipedia ish) trail to/for io dance ness
p 35 – wikipedia too important both as resource and as model.. to see it fail
p 36 – on Jimmy Wales saying – wikipedia isn’t wisdom of mobs/swarm.. he insisted it as rather different… written by ‘a community.. dedicated group of a few hundred volunteers… who all know each other.. much like a traditional org.’
p 37 – wales saying wikipedia not that shocking.. his view is actually much more shocking.. around a thousand people wrote the world’s largest encyclopedia in four years for free. could this really be true?
p 39 – when put it all together, story becomes clear: an outsider makes one edit to add a chunk of info. then insiders make several edits tweaking/reformatting….. categorizing across entire site… as a result, insiders account for vast majority of edits. but it’s the outsiders who provide nearly all of the content.
makes sense.. writing encyclopedia.. you’d have to know tons of info… doing all background research seems impossible for a few.. on other hand… everyone has a bunch of obscure things that … they’ve come to know well..
p 40 – even if all formatters quit – wikipedia would still be immensely valuable…. so… growing it requires making it easier and more rewarding to contribute..
dangerous is wikipedia continues down this path of focusing on the encyclopedia at the expense of the wiki, it might end up not being much of either
p 42 – wikipedia runs because of community. .. a group of people that took the project as their own and threw themselves into making it succeed
everyone knows wikipedia as the site anyone can edit. the article about tree frogs wasn’t written because someone in chard decided they needed one and assigned it to someone; it was written because someone, somewhere, just went ahead and started writing it. and a chorus of others decided to help out.
huge. on collaboration (agenda) vs cooperation (choice everyday)
this is so unusual, we don’t even have a *word for it. it’s tempting to say democracy but that’s woefully inadequate… ie: wikipedia doesn’t hold a vote and elect someone to be in charge of vandal fighting. .. wikipedia doesn’t do anything at all. someone simply sees there are vandals .. and steps up to do the job
*word – perhaps – stigmergyness..?
p 43 – on the volunteerism ness of it.. that eliminates infighting about who gets to be what…. tasks get done by people who genuinely want to do them..
wikipedia’s biggest problems have come when it’s strayed from this path, when it’s given some people official titles and specified tasks… power..
labels et al
p 48 – building a community is tough.. need just right combo of tech rules and people.. we’re still at very early stages of understanding what it is that makes that work (2006)
perhaps free people – let’s do this first: free art-ists.
ibp ness to the tech, people, rules..
p 49 – wikipedia as a community set up to make itself… and since wikipedia first to do that.. hardly know anything about building communities like that… radical collaboration… instead of assigning tasks… let anyone work on whatever they wanted, whenever they felt like it…
stigmergyness. – ginormous
p 50 – extending wikipedia’s success …means figuring out key principles of radical collab
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Gary S. Stager Stephen Wolfram, perhaps the world’s greatest living mathematician and scientist told me that Wikipedia is “stable” enough that Wolfram Alpha and Mathematica can pull from it.
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Aaron Halfaker – perhaps heading rna ish route to helping wikipedia..?
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another/longer twitter/swimming reflection..
twitter has led me to/thru ie: wikipedia.. creating a more everyday life wikipedia ness.. an ongoing/pivoting dance ness..
which has helped me see perhaps a more legit/real fake news ie: that most of us are not-us.. science of people ness..
and all the ridiculous/shiny ways we keep perpetuating that/irrelevant s.. the more i hear our souls screaming.. i need you to wake up
cc/grazies.. @jack @jimmy_wales @flakenstein @cblack_ @leashless @campoSOFIA
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