These are some of the drafts that went into my dissertation on Wikipedia.
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Open Content
Communities
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In this brief essay I sketch the characteristics of an open content
community by considering a number of prominent examples, reviewing
sociological literature, teasing apart the concepts of open and voluntary
implicit in most usages of the term, and I offer a definition in which
the much maligned possibility of "forking" is actually an integral aspect
of openness.
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Four Short
Stories about the Reference Work
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Many histories can be written of the reference work. There is the
chronicle of technical and institutional forces intertwined in the
production of the book: of conquest, co-option, trade wars, empire and
religion. Also, there's the drama of clashing conservative and
progressive impulses: the expectation for the humble reference work to
fixate the social order, or to shatter it and form a new realization of
social possibility. There are tales of great and eccentric personalities:
the perseverance of men who dedicate their lives to the tasks of
organizing everything known about the universe. Finally, there is the
story of collaboration: of people standing on the shoulders of giants and
of plagiarism.
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A Case of
Mutual Aid: Wikipedia, Politeness, and Perspective Taking
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This paper explores the character of "mutual aid" and interdependent
decision making within the Wikipedia. I provide a brief introduction to
Wikipedia, the key terms associated with group decision making, and the
Wikipedia dispute resolution process. I then focus on the cultural norms
(e.g., "good faith") within Wikipedia that frame participation as a
cooperative endeavor. In particular, I argue that the "neutral point of
view" policy is not a source of conflict, as it is often perceived to be,
but a resolution shaping norm. However, the naive understanding that this
policy is about an unbiased neutrality is also problematic. I conclude by
identifying some notions from negotiation literature that may be
inappropriate or require adaptation to the Wikipedia case.
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Is the Wikipedia
Neutral?
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Claims of neutrality and accusations of bias are common themes of
contemporary discourse about the media, government, education, and
technology. In this essay I extend earlier work on the collaborative
culture of Wikipedia (an on-line and free encyclopedia) to specifically
focus on the fundamental but often misunderstood notion of neutrality....
This essay is inspired by earlier debates on neutrality of technical
standards, literature on bias in technical systems, my present
fascination with this Wikipedia norm and a change in my belief that while
an important concept, the label of neutrality was an unfortunate coinage
in the Wikipedia context.
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Wikipedia's Heritage: Vision, Pragmatics, and
Happenstance
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This essay explores development of globally available digital reference
works from their first imaginings to contemporary cases. My hope in
undertaking such a project is to identify technical and social aspects of
digital reference work production that can contribute to an understanding
of a prominent contemporary exemplar, the Wikipedia, a free online
encyclopedia. Why did it take over 50 years for the vision of "[w]holly
new forms of encyclopedias" (Bush 1945: 8) to be realized? The answer,
presented in this essay, was that it required an alignment of a coherent
goal, technical practicality, and serendipity: vision, pragmatics, and
happenstance. ...
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Do as I Do:
Leadership in the Wikipedia
:
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In this paper I consider how notions of leadership operate in
collaborative on-line cultures. In particular, I consider the seemingly
paradoxical, or perhaps merely playful, juxtaposition of informal
tyrant-like titles (e.g., "Benevolent Dictator") in otherwise seemingly
egalitarian voluntary content production communities such as the
Wikipedia. To accomplish this, I first introduce the Wikipedia as an open
content community and review existing literature on the role of
leadership in such communities. I then relate ethnographic and archival
data on how leadership is understood, performed, and discussed in the
Wikipedia community. I conclude by integrating concepts from existing
literature and my own findings into a theory of leadership and note other
communities and leaders against which this theory could be tested.
...
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In Good Faith: the Collaborative
Culture of Wikipedia
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The Wikipedia is not merely an online encyclopedia; while the Web site
is useful, popular, and permits anyone to contribute, the site is only
the most visible artifact of an active community. Unlike previous
reference works which stand on library shelves distanced from the
institutions, people, and discussions from which they arose, the
Wikipedia is a community and the encyclopedia is a snapshot of its
continuing conversation. That conversation reflects and, of course,
shapes the Wikipedia culture. For example, conversations are supposed to
abide by the cultural norm of Wikiquette (Wikipedia 2006w1), which
includes the principles of "assume good faith" (Wikipedia2006ag) and
"please do not bite the newcomers" (Wikipedia2005pdn). Such Wikipedia
norms and their relationship to the technology, discourse, and vision of
a free on-line encyclopedia prompt me to ask,
what factors contribute
to the development and maintenance of this community's
collaborative—"good faith" — culture?
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