[[Wikipedia]]

/past

/present

/future…

[[en:user:Phoebe_Ayers]]

Wikipedia: the past

What is it? How did it get so big?!

Why are we talking about this?

What is it?• An encyclopediaBut also:

• A repository of open-source media • Testing ground for wikis• Related to wiki-dictionaries, textbooks and

citizen journalism• A reference desk • A huge community • One of the world’s most popular websites • A philosophical problem for information

science…

Why is Wikipedia special?

• Multilingualism/multiculturalism• People are using it• Astonishing size

• It’s remarkably good• Fundamental change to information

production, dissemination, and authority:

• You’ve never seen anything like this before, ever

Wikipedia is “more popular” than…

• Ask Jeeves• Altavista• Google Canada (and other local Googles)• NY Times • Imdb.com • Slashdot.org• Britannica.com (100x more popular)• AOL (passed Jan. 2006)

• 960,000+ articles in English

• 3M+ pages in English

• 20,000+ active users, 800k+ accounts

• Over 2M articles total

• Average article has been edited 15 times+

• 2000+ requests a second

A sense of size…

Based on Erik Zachte’s scripts and Samuel Klein’s estimations – Dec 2005

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:English-language-wikipedia-.png

What’s it good for, anyway?

• “Gateway source”

• When you know nothing about a topic

• Casual information needs

What topics is it good for?

• Current topics

• Popular culture

• Computers, math and (some) science

• Try it!

Wikipedia: the present

How does it work?

Who’s in charge?

Will it bite?!

How do articles get written?

• Someone starts it

• Someone else checks it

• A (possibly third) party edits it…

Article Criteria

• Notable (encyclopedic)

• Not vanity

• Not duplication

• Community consensus…

Edit wars… and other things that go boom

Predictable vandalism… posted and reverted the same minute (10:31)

Lots of community debate …• “Organized POV pushing, IMO, will be the major threat to

Wikipedia in the upcoming decade - much more serious than scalability, server issues, or the threat of litigation.”

• “If Congress has so much time that they can surf, edit, delete, or otherwise modify community contributed content, then they should have no problem editing, deleting, or modifying poilcy such as the Patriot Act. …”

• “I'm in favor of banning the entire IP range for both House and Senate ... These people's salaries are paid with our tax dollars.”

• “I don't think the all the staffers should be barred when only some of them are causing problems, …”

• “Most congressional staffers are intelligent people who are perfectly capable of making valuable contributions to Wikipedia. If we assumed good faith about them, as we do for other contributors, and tried to understand any concerns they have about Wikipedia articles, this wouldn't even be an issue. … “

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/United_States_Congress

• It was a waste of energy and an error in judgment on the part of my staff to have allowed any time to be spent on updating my Wikipedia entry. – Marty Meehan

http://www.lowellsun.com/ci_3444567

Who’s in charge?

• “Wikipedia's present power structure is a mix of anarchic, despotic, democratic, republican, technocratic, and even plutocratic elements”

Meta:Power structure

Who’s in charge?

Answer: this guy

Wikimedia FoundationGoverned by Board of Directors

(5 positions: 1 permanent (Jimmy Wales) 2 Bomis reps, 2 community reps)

Foundation coordinates official (volunteer) positions:Fundraising, legal, technical development, press, etc

MediaWiki (software)

And the projects:

Local chapters: English (en); German (de); Italian (it); etc.: 215 languages in total

Wiktionary Wikinews Wikipedia Wikiversity Wikiquote Wikisource Commons

English-languageWikipediaMeritocracy

(who’s respected) Admins

Long-term users, lots of contribs, heavy community participation

Logged-in users with some contributionsless community participation

Anonymous IP edits

Vandals, trolls, sockpuppets

Foundationboard

Developers, stewards, bureaucrats

Arbcom

Lots of communication…

• On-wiki– Talk pages– Project pages– Meta, Community areas and votes

• Off-wiki– Email lists– IRC

Why does it work?Does it bite?

Wikipedia culture and principles

Official policies – based on:

The 5 pillars of Wikipedia: – Wikipedia is an encyclopedia– Neutral-Point-Of-View (NPOV)– Free content– Be bold, but stay cool– No firm rules!

•http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Five_pillars

Wikipedia culture, cont.

• Hacker and open source culture

• {{sofixit}}

“We make the Internet not suck” – Jimmy Wales

Wikipedia: the future

What’s the future hold? What can I do?

“…if someone is going to slander me horribly on the Web, I'd rather that he chose an editable medium."

– Bertrand Meyer,

“Defense and Illustration of Wikipedia”http://se.ethz.ch/~meyer/publications/wikipedia/wikipedia.txt

What does it mean:• When “authorship” disappears?

• When the world’s largest reference work challenges copyright?

• When millions of users don’t appear to care about “accuracy”… as long as it’s “good enough”?

• When “free information for all” becomes a cause?

The future

• Wikipedia 1.0

• Verifiability

• Is Wikipedia sustainable?

Wikipedia and Librarians

• Talk to your patrons – Gateway source– Not uniformly reviewed– May be inaccurate

• Check cataloging

• Just another source…

Evaluationcriteria

• Edit history – how many, who

• References

• Text style – wikified? Follows formatting conventions?

• Verifiable?

What can an info pro do?

• Edit

• Add sources!

• Categorize

• Provide input …– For instance,

citation format proposal

How?

• Create an account

• Dive in…– Start with topics you love– Participate in clean-up or fact-check projects – Tap into the community – Be bold!

Questions?

Phoebe Ayers:UC Davis,Physical Sciences & Engineering Library

phoebe.ayers @ gmail.com Handout:en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Phoebe Ayers