[p2p-research] threat of wiki bio deletion

Sat Dec 1 16:07:34 CET 2007

On Dec 1, 2007 9:24 AM, Henrik Ingo <henrik.ingo at avoinelama.fi> wrote:

> Now that we have people here that follow Wikipedia more actively than
> me, it seems like a good opportunity to ask the question I've always
> wondered about:
>
> Is the issue of creating "editions" of Wikipedia often discussed? I
> mean the whole question of deletionism seems to me to be a
> misunderstanding of the opportunities created by an internet
> wikipedia. The problem deletionists try to solve is that of
> quality/trustability, they try to delete all such material that would
> not normally make it into a traditional encyclopedia, or at least
> material which can be suspected to be wrong or just poorly written.
> Yet, the great thing about wikipedia (or the internet in general) is
> that it is not a traditional encyclopedia - it can contain an infinite
> amount of information (why not have bio's of all of us there?) and be
> updated fast, rather than through a slow perfectionist process.

Henrik, good point. There are actually quite a few forks of Wikipedia out
there, since the platform (media wiki) and the content are both open, and it
is fairly simply to grab the database dumpt, just export via XML specific
categories.

I think one issue for some people is that Wikipedia is widely know, highly
visible, so there is a "power law" at work, that makes some people concerned
that their content or bio page are being debated for deletion. If you google
"wikipedia bio page deletion" you will find a few authors and "net" notable
people being concerned about their bios being removed from wikipedia. I
think the concern is rooted in the "power law" of highly pervasive network
links that lead back to wikipedia, and therefore make having a "presence"
about you, or what you are doing on wikipedia a good way to increase your
"visibility" and "findability" online

Personally, it's not a really big deal to me whether they delete pages that
i make on Wikipedia, but it is frustrating to spend time, and then have
people come along and pass inaccurate judgements and start mangling work I
put into it. it is for this reason that I have stopped contributing to
wikipedia, and have "forked" my energies into other wikis and communities
while back.

>
>
> It seems that the antagonists in the deletionist vs inclusionist
> debate have forgotten that they are dealing with an infinite medium,
> where all solutions ( -> forks) may co-exist. The sensible thing to do
> would be to have one "source" Wikipedia, which would strive for
> maximum inclusionism, and then have editions which strive for a
> certain treshold of quality, certain topics etc... (And there are
> mechanisms that can be implemented to make sure the original source is
> still efficiently re-used, the editions would be subsets of the
> inclusionist full wikipedia.)

I agree, I think that due to the "centrality" of wikipedia, as a source and
due to the "open" nature of the medium, people with projects, and
"notability" could put more energies towards  increasing the visibility,
findability, and uptake/participation  of/in their own knowledge bases, and
open knowledge projects. This might bear more overall "return" in the long
run, than trying to lobby within Wikipedia, which can have mixed results.

>
>
> This would be similar to how Linux distributions work: Sourceforge and
> the internet in general will create an endlees supply of Open Source
> Software, and distributions are there to filter out the true gems for
> easy access to the greater public. Instead now the different camps in
> wikipedia seem to have gotten stuck on the idea of a one true
> wikipedia, and battling over how that should be governed.
>
> **

I agree with you, for sure, although....

I think that in the case of Open Source software projects, for participants,
it's easy to set up your own online tools, workspaces, mailing lists, etc,
plus, you are aware of how these tools work, how to and how much energy ti
takes to admin, how to use them effectively etc which makes the
"costs"/barrier to entry low for people like you and me.

But, for people who lack this knowledge and literacy in technology,
information architecture, and project management/community founding it is
more difficult for them t imagine themselves "forking" a complex set of
processes and software like wikipedia. This description actually applies to
the majority of  people on the internet right now.

Plus, there are "paradigms" that I think people some internet users out
there are operating in, based on my experience consulting to people from
many different professions and disciplines. Those "paradigms" don't yet
realize the nature of digital/network medium, and compare the collaborative
filtering of knowledge to the printed book/academic ontology paradigm that
has dominated in the past few centuries. There are also cultural paradigms
that are driving the "what/who is notable" debate.

Wikipedia is actually a compromise between a more Digitally/participatory
literate, and less digitally/participatory literate world views and
"paradigms".

Some of the social structure, rules, cultural judgements, and technical
function of wikipedia reflect the "digitally literate" world view, (such as
being openly editable, copyleft content, technical exportablility via XML,
collective governance, etc), and some reflect the "print paradigm" world
view.

I think this set of compromises made by Wikipedia ove time, and the balance
they struck, were very key to Wikipedia's success. They also cause cultural
clashes, and different energies and solutions to emerge (such as
citizendium, on the one hand, that is a drive towards more "expert"-vetted
content, and other forks that want to make things more open, and less
centrally controlled)

>
> I'm aware of Citizendium
> (http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2006/sep/21/wikipedia.comment)
> and there also seems to be various Wikipedia editions for - say - PDA
> type of devices. But since the deletionists still seem to be so active
> in Wikipedia, it seems to me that this solution is not yet obvious to
> the majority of Wikipedians?
>
> Lastly, I should note that this is a solution that could be
> implemented by Wikipedia itself (as in, edited.wikipedia.org or
> similar) or it could be launched as a "deletionist fork" (which
> Citizendium seems to be?)

>
> henrik
>
>
> On Dec 1, 2007 11:43 AM, Tere Vadén <tere.vaden at uta.fi> wrote:
> > I *hate* deletionism. Arguing for deletion of articles on net theorists
> > because they have mainly published on the net is madness. Though, maybe,
> > it is mostly young males influenced by natural science and just learning
> > the skills of using references who represent the tendency. Hate the sin,
> > not the sinner, eh? I would love to see a ultra-inclusionist wikipedia
> > from which nothing but advertisement and illegal stuff would be deleted.
> >
> > In any case, I tried to improve the article by adding a little bit on
> > the CTheory article.
> >
> >
> > Michel Bauwens wrote:
> > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Michel_Bauwens
> > >
> > > Dear friends, it appears, unless I am mistaken, that there is a new
> > > deletionist attempt to take my bio off the wikipedia, which I think
> > > would be unfortunate, as it is often cited.
> > >
> > > May I appeal to your cooperation, as I can't do this myself, to
> support
> > > the noteworthyness of the page?
> > >
> > > I'm appealing especially to my academic friends in cc, since part of
> the
> > > motivation seems to be my exterior position to the acedemia.
> > >
> > > I think at this stage, since there is already a lot of supporting
> > > material in earlier discussions, some short statements against
> deletion,
> > > but motivated, would be sufficient,
> > >
> > > Many thanks for this,
> > > Michel Bauwens
> > >
> > > --
> > > The P2P Foundation researches, documents and promotes peer to peer
> > > alternatives.
> > >
> > > Wiki and Encyclopedia, at http://p2pfoundation.net; Blog, at
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> > >
> > > Basic essay at http://www.ctheory.net/articles.aspx?id=499; interview
> at
> > >
> http://poynder.blogspot.com/2006/09/p2p-very-core-of-world-to-come.html
> > > <
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> > >
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> > >
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>
> --
> email: henrik.ingo at avoinelama.fi
> tel:   +358-40-5697354
> www:   www.avoinelama.fi/~hingo <http://www.avoinelama.fi/%7Ehingo>
> book:  www.openlife.cc
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