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As a child, I believed that all educated people were wise.  In particular, I placed educators and authorities on a high pedestal and I entered the academy both to seek their wisdom and to become one of them.  Unfortunately, eleven years of higher education has taught me that parts of the academy is rife with many of the same problems that plague society as a whole: greed, self-absorbtion, addiction to power, and an overwhelming desire to be validated, praised, and rewarded.  As Dr. Gorman laments the ills of contemporary society, I find myself nodding along.  Doing ethnographic work in the United States often leaves me feeling disillusioned and numb.  It breaks my heart every time a teenager tells me that s/he is more talented than Sanjaya and thus is guaranteed a slot on the next “American Idol.”

The pervasive view that American society is a meritocracy makes me want to scream, but I fear as though my screams fall on deaf ears.

To cope with my frustration, I often return to my bubble.  My friends all seem to come from Lake Wobegon where “the women are strong, the men are good looking, and all of the children are above average.”  I have consciously surrounded myself with people who think like me, share my values, and are generally quite overeducated.  I feel very privileged to live in such an environment, but like all intellectuals who were educated in the era of identity politics, I am regularly racked with guilt over said privilege.

The Internet is a funny thing, especially now that those online are not just the connected elite.  It mirrors and magnifies the offline world - all of the good, bad, and ugly.  I don’t need to travel to Idaho to face neo-Nazis.  I don’t need to go to Colorado Springs to hear religious views that contradict my worldivew.  And I don’t need to go to Capitol Hill to witness the costs of power for power’s sake.  

If I am willing to look, there are places on the Internet that will expose me to every view on this planet, even those that I’d prefer to pretend did not exist.  Most of the privileged people that I know prefer to live like ostriches, ignoring the realities of everyday life in order to sustain their privileges.  I am trying not to be that person, although I find it to be a challenge.

In the 16th century, Sir Francis Bacon famously wrote that “knowledge is power.”  Not surprisingly, institutions that profit off of knowledge trade in power.  In an era of capitalism, this equation often gets tainted by questions of profitability.  Books are not published simply because they contain valued and valid information; they are published if and when the publisher can profit off of the sale of those books.  Paris Hilton stands a far better chance of getting a publishing deal than most astute and thought-provoking academics.  Even a higher education is becoming more inaccessible to more people at a time when a college degree is necessary to work in a cafe.  $140,000 for a college education is a scary proposition, even if you want to enter the ratrace of the white collar mega-corporations where you expect to make a decent salary.  Amidst this environment, it frustrates me to hear librarians speak about information dissemination while they create digital firewalls that lock people out of accessing knowledge unless they have the right academic credentials.

I entered the academy because I believe in knowledge production and dissemination.  I am a hopeless Marxist.  I want to equal the playing field; I want to help people gain access to information in the hopes that they can create knowledge that is valuable for everyone.  I have lost faith in traditional organizations leading the way to mass access and am thus always on the lookout for innovative models to produce and distribute knowledge.

Unlike Dr. Gorman, Wikipedia brings me great joy.  I see it as a fantastic example of how knowledge can be distributed outside of elite institutions.  I have watched stubs of articles turn into rich homes for information about all sorts of subjects.  What I like most about Wikipedia is the self-recognition that it is always a work-in- progress.  The encyclopedia that I had as a kid was a hand-me-down; it stated that one day we would go to the moon.  Today, curious poor youth have access to information in an unprecedented way.  It may not be perfect, but it is far better than a privilege-only model of access.

Knowledge is not static, but traditional publishing models assume that it can be captured and frozen for consumption.  What does that teach children about knowledge?  Captured knowledge makes sense when the only opportunity for dissemination is through distributing physical artifacts, but this is no longer the case.  Now that we can get information to people faster and with greater barriers, why should we support the erection of barriers?

In middle school, I was sent to the principal’s office for correcting a teacher’s math.  The issue was not whether or not I was correct - I was; I was ejected from class for having the gall to challenge authority.  Would Galileo have been allowed to write an encyclopedia article?  The “authorities” of his day rejected his scientific claims.  History has many examples of how the vetting process has failed us.  Imagine all of the knowledge that was produced that was more successfully suppressed by authorities.  In the era of the Internet, gatekeepers have less power.  I don’t think that this is always a bad thing.

Like paper, the Internet is a medium.  People express a lot of crap through both mediums.  Yet, should we denounce paper as inherently flawed?  The Internet - and Wikipedia - change the rules for distribution and production.  It means that those with knowledge do not have to retreat to the ivory towers to share what they know.  It means that individuals who know something can easily share it, even when they are not formally declared as experts.  It means that those with editing skills can help the information become accessible, even if they only edit occasionally.  It means that multi-lingual individuals can help get information to people who speak languages that publishers do not consider worth their time.  It means that anyone with an Internet connection can get access to information traditionally locked behind the gates of institutions (and currently locked in digital vaults).

Don’t get me wrong - Wikipedia is not perfect.  But why do purported experts spend so much time arguing against it rather than helping make it a better resource?  It is free!  It is accessible!  Is it really worth that much prestige to write an encyclopedia article instead of writing a Wikipedia entry?  While there are certainly errors there, imagine what would happen if all of those who view themselves as experts took the time to make certain that the greatest and most broad-reaching resource was as accurate as possible.

I believe that academics are not just the producers of knowledge - they are also teachers.  As teachers, we have an ethical responsibility to help distribute knowledge.  We have a responsibility to help not just the 30 people in our classroom, but the millions of people globally who will never have the opportunity to sit in one of our classes.  The Internet gives us the tool to do this.  Why are we throwing this opportunity away?  Like Dr. Gorman, I don’t believe that all crowds are inherently wise.  But I also don’t believe that all authorities are inherently wise.  Especially not when they are vying for tenure.

Why are we telling our students not to use Wikipedia rather than educating them about how Wikipedia works?  Sitting in front of us is an ideal opportunity to talk about how knowledge is produced, how information is disseminated, how ideas are shared.  Imagine if we taught the “history” feature so that students would have the ability to track how a Wikipedia entry is produced and assess for themselves what the authority of the author is.  You can’t do this with an encyclopedia.  Imagine if we taught students how to fact check claims in Wikipedia and, better yet, to add valuable sources to a Wikipedia entry so that their work becomes part of the public good.

Herein lies a missing piece in Dr. Gorman’s puzzle.  The society that he laments has lost faith in the public good.  Elitism and greed have gotten in the way.  By upholding the values of the elite, Dr. Gorman is perpetuating views that are destroying efforts to make knowledge a public good.  Wikipedia is a public-good project.  It is the belief that division of labor has value and that everyone has something to contribute, if only a spelling correction.  It is the belief that all people have the inalienable right to knowledge, not just those who have academic chairs.  It is the belief that the powerful have no right to hoard the knowledge.  And it is the belief that people can and should collectively help others gain access to information and knowledge. 

Personally, I hold these truths to be self-evident, and I’d rather see us put in the effort to make Wikipedia an astounding resource that can be used by all people than to try to dismantle it simply because it means change.

[Note: Versions of this post also appear at Corante/Many2Many and apophenia.]

 

23e4



Posted in Culture, Education, Publishing, Web 2.0 Forum
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32 Responses to “Knowledge Access as a Public Good”

  1. Nathan Says:

    danah,

    So much of what you write here is so good. There is a ton of truth in it, I think. I read it with pleasure.

    That said, you said:

    While there are certainly errors [in Wikipedia], imagine what would happen if all of those who view themselves as experts took the time to make certain that the greatest and most broad-reaching resource was as accurate as possible.”

    Yes, why not? Like lib-tech blogger Michael Stephens says, its all about trust! And I agree - life is all about trust. Who do you trust? Who can you trust? Why don’t many academics think that Wikipedia is a “trustworthy venture” whereby they ought to expend their time and effort?

    Enter librarian Thomas Mann’s post that also came out today:

    “The authors of these essays [the Federalist papers], which provide the rational grounding of our Constitution’s framework of checks and balances, had no idealistic illusions about the perfectibility of human nature. To the contrary, they assumed that short-sightedness, selfishness, and ignorance are constant factors in human life, and that we are always in need of protection from each other. The system they crafted, based on such assumptions, continually prevents the accumulations of power to which unregulated, unchecked, and unbalanced “invisible hand” operations lead.”

    Although it is conceivable that some who feel they have been burned by Wikipedia would agree, isn’t it really Mann’s ideas here that are a part of the problem? I mean - these can’t possibly be self-evident truths too, right? And if they aren’t, then the sooner ideas like Mann’s die out the better, right?

    Well, if that’s the case, it seems to me that America’s founders were indeed very wrong, and that librarian Karen Schneider’s phrase “the user isn’t broken” (probably bantered about hundreds of times at this past week’s American Libary Association [ALA] conference) is correct instead.

    In other words, all we need to do is embrace the vision! [very appealing I must say] you and folks like Karen espouse, and digging down deep, love and trust each other.

    I’m sorry Dana - I understand why some academics are wary about Wikipedia and expending their energies there - and I don’t think its just because they want to perpetuate their privileges. For it is indeed true that much of their hard work and effort are not realized or appreciated (and is it good for any of us to be unthankful here?). Many of the fruits of their labor that have benefitted others are not acknowledged - just as they perhaps do not acknowledge the importance and dignity of the janitor in their building (”he wouldn’t even have a job if it wasn’t for me…”).

    The users - all of us - are broken.

  2. K.G. Schneider Says:

    Nathan, as you would learn from reading my post on the same as well as other analyses, my phrase “the user is not broken” (no contractions, thank you, it doesn’t scan that way) refers primarily to library software design, which if it were extended to automobile manufacture would produce cars that would require special training to operate and would operate only on library-specific roads. I have never argued that all we need to do is trust one another, any more than I have bought into the notion that Wikipedia is flawless.

    danah is is right that Wikipedia is a marvelous source, and she is also correct that the Gormanesque view of the world is a weak pedagogical model. There are only two ways to learn? *Really?* As a writer, librarian, and library science instructor, I find that specious — though it fits in nicely with a world-view of Books Good, Web Bad.

    danah is also right that we should be fixing Wikipedia, not arguing about it. I do wonder if that’s even possible, because there are indeed some “hive mind fabulists” who insist on the mystical power of anonymous content (I was called a “fetishist” for arguing for the value of expert content). We are at that point in history because companies such as Britannica were too absorbed in their bottom line — an accusation that can be slung equally forcefully at Google — while the major information profession was ignoring change or, in the case of Gorman, vociferously arguing against it.

    As for Mann, his recent contribution is more elegant than his earlier shrill tirade he wrote for the union representing Library of Congress employees, but it boils down to the same: Change Be Bad.

    Thank goodness we finally have a woman contributing to this discussion, but it’s too little too late.

    215f
  3. Nathan Says:

    Karen,

    I apologize for misrepresenting your statement – the point is heartily conceded (though of course given the pedagogical role of libraries, library catalog developers have to much, much more to take into consideration than automobile developers!). In any case, I should have checked and then indicated that I was using the words in a different way than you were.

    I agree with much of what danah (and you) say about Wikipedia and experts and knowledge as a public good, and I actually tend to think that your views on these issues are in many ways superior to Gorman’s. Again though, he makes good points, and as I said above I can’t say I blame many academics for being wary of Wikipedia and contributing there. Why don’t we give them some benefit of the doubt – that when they say they don’t trust it for these reasons (which they list), its that they simply really don’t trust it and not because they are determined to keep people down? After all, if users are broken (my usage) at all levels, this should not surprise us.

    Finally, re: Mann. Which recent contribution are you talking about? The ones here at Britannica (Parts 1 and 2) or the one he recently wrote that David Weinberger covered? ( http://tinyurl.com/yo5snp ) In any case, where did he ever say anything there giving credence to your, I think simplistic, “change be bad” label? He actually talked about using LibraryThing tags in library catalogs in that second paper. I suggest you are way off here Karen.

    Always enjoy the debate!

  4. Seth Finkelstein Says:

    Umm, why should experts be donating their time to fix Wikipedia, when Wikipedia’s basic culture is fueled by attacking them? In the sense that, at best, one is required to suffer fools gladly, and at worst, being an expert in the topic is regarded as a conflict of interest. Danah Boyd’s remark “I am a hopeless Marxist” must surely be true, in arguing that “capitalists” should give - not even sell, but give - Wikipedia the rope to hang them with!

    This pitch that the group that Wikipedia, organizationally, attracts its core contributors by deriding, somehow *should* save Wikipedia from the intrinsic failures of its model, because It’s For The Children - that’s always struck me as very manipulative.

    I’d say experts should NOT bail out Wikipedia. It’s a rigged game, because Wikipedia plays “heads I win, tails you lose”. If an expert writes a good Wikipedia article, that gets claimed as the wisdom of crowds and presented as proof that amateurs can do just as well as experts. If an expert writes a bad Wikipedia article, that’s proof either that experts can’t do better than amateurs, or that still other experts should bail out Wikipedia.

    And don’t forget that while Wikipedia itself is run by a nonprofit, there’s $14 million dollars of venture capital invested in for-profit Wikia corporation, which, while legally separate, still benefits enormously from the Wikipedia mystique. Working to make someone else (indirectly) rich is not my idea of charity.

  5. K.G. Schneider Says:

    Seth, the Wikipedia community got to be a closed loop through strength in internal numbers. That could change.

    I agree with you on the fiscal implications, and think that needs more play (and would have been a far more interesting lede for this entire discussion).

  6. Steve Lawson Says:

    This is an interesting, welcome contribution to this discussion. I’m less sanguine about Wikipedia than boyd, but this is the part that made me pause:

    >it frustrates me to hear librarians speak about information dissemination while they create digital firewalls that lock people out of accessing knowledge unless they have the right academic credentials.

    Please forgive this academic librarian for being defensive, but this is mostly a matter of dealing with the rights-holders, isn’t it? It would be much easier for us if we didn’t have to create those firewalls, but as long as we are buying or licensing the content from someone else, we have little choice.

  7. Many-to-Many Says:

    knowledge access as a public good

    Over at the Britannica Blog, Michael Gorman (the former president of the American Library Association) wrote a series of posts concerning web2.0. In short, he’s against it and thinks everything to do with web2.0 and Wikipedia is bad bad bad….

  8. Aggregated CILIP blogs Says:

    Gorman: the bottom line

    As someone who has responded to Michael Gorman’s postings on the Britannica Blog concerning web2.0 ,

  9. Computer Training » Says:

    […] Knowledge Access as a Public GoodAs a child, I believed that all educated people were wise. In particular, I placed educators and authorities on a high pedestal and I entered the academy both to seek their wisdom and to become one of them. Unfortunately, eleven years of higher education has taught […]

  10. Seth Finkelstein Says:

    Amusing:

    http://www.roadkillbill.com/Wikipedia.jpg

  11. Jan Sandred Says:

  12. anon Says:

    “…imagine what would happen if all of those who view themselves as experts took the time to make certain that the greatest and most broad-reaching resource was as accurate as possible.”

    Real experts? No need to imagine; ask some who have tried. Otherwise, lots of people view themselves as experts. Few realize they are in fact just annoying cranks, but they learn this very quickly: they and their followers can camp out on a page and use it to tell The Truth. These seem able to take as much time as required. A few will do whatever it takes to get their way, including pursuing the discussion in the real world.

    224b
  13. K.G. Schneider Says:

    “anon”’s critique of Wikipedia is one I have heard as well. I think the phrase I recall is “self-important b—–ds.” The illusion that Wikipedia is truly a people’s encyclopedia has allowed it to become Britannica with another funding model.

  14. Sage Ross Says:

    Seth said:

    “Wikipedia’s basic culture is fueled by attacking [experts]”

    This is simply wrong. Most Wikipedians–especially those most invested in the project, those who embody and reshape the basic culture of Wikipedia–have a high level of respect for experts and the knowledge they produce. This is built into both the editing policies and the evolving evaluation processes: expert sources are privileged over non-expert sources; articles that reach “Featured Article” status are expected to use the best sources available for the given topic; unsourced content can be challenged and removed easily, while well-sourced content tends to stick around.

    Those who claim expertise are not given special deference (except insofar as they earn the respect of fellow editors, which happens quickly when scholars use their knowledge to build high-quality content). But their vetted, traditionally-published knowledge products are given special deference.

    As for “Working to make someone else (indirectly) rich is not my idea of charity.”… That’s what academic experts dedicate their lives to doing: teaching and sharing knowledge so that others can be successful. If you’re worried about contributing to Wikia (rather a small blip in the internet economy) simply by adding to Wikipedia’s mystique, what about the explicitly for-profit publishing industry (the bane of many a young writer) and the mystique of the printed word?

  15. Seth Finkelstein Says:

    Dan, you’re confusing experts with product of expertise - Wikipedia has a very weird sort of belief system where it absolutely fetishizes the latter yet detests the former. It’s sort of like someone who loves eating steak and chicken, but is also an extreme animal-rights advocate (you can sometimes find people like that, who haven’t grasped at some level that meat doesn’t come from the supermarket - the Wikpiedian version seems to be that reliable sources are handed down from on-high somewhere).

    Academic experts get paid - though not much, and below the stars, not enough. Sorry, but look at the Kool-Aid you have imbibed -you are casting around to justify getting paid *nothing* to do what’s basically *scut-work*, because someone has spouted a line about its quasi-spirtual import on the world. Do you see why I call Wikipedia a cult?

    Bonus link:

    http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2005/12/16

  16. solec Says:

    Is not only about Wikipedia. Moreover, Wikipedia is only an example of a more wider trend: open educational resources.

    There is an interesting research done (and published for free in pdf): Giving Knowledge for Free: The Emergence of Open Educational Resources

    http://213.253.134.43/oecd/pdfs/browseit/9607041E.PDF
    “Learning resources are often considered key intellectual property in a competitive higher education world. However, more and more institutions and individuals are sharing their digital learning resources over the Internet, openly and for free, as Open Educational Resources (OER).”

    Accessing the resource is not what makes the difference but what you do, what you think, with the information available. In sum, learning makes the difference.

    Regards,

    Soledad

  17. Social Synergy Says:

    […] Danah Boyd’s recent article about the attitudes in academia towards open knowledge applications like Wikipedia raises some points worth considering: […]

  18. Web Browser for S60 Says:

    Brecht, Laural, boyd, and Hyperlinks

    Bertolt Brecht held that theater, above all, was a way to educate. Brecht talked about his plays as if they were political meetings, and expected the audience to play a part — the part of “participating in the discussion”. To…

  19. One Man & His Blog Says:

    The good Doctor Tinworth, my wife Lorna, has told me many times how Wikipedia is becoming a battleground in universities, particularly in the sciences. More and more students are handing in papers which cite only Wikipedia as a source. Anyone who know…

  20. Bill Hooker Says:

    I would have liked to subscribe by RSS to danah boyd’s entries here, but unfortunately that is no longer possible. Feedburner does not know whether the problem is temporary, or whether the feed has been terminated.

  21. Carol Says:

    Ms. boyd (why lowercase, by the way?): You say Wikipedia presents us with an “ideal opportunity to talk about how knowledge is produced, how information is disseminated, how ideas are shared. Imagine if we taught the ‘history’ feature so that students would have the ability to track how a Wikipedia entry is produced and assess for themselves what the authority of the author is. You can’t do this with an encyclopedia.”

    I can only imagine that you’re so caught up in the ideological giddiness of Web 2.0 that you can’t see just how revealing, and detrimental to your cause, this passage really is.

    1) I’m glad you distinguish in this passage between Wikipedia and an encyclopedia, thus admitting that Wikipedia isn’t anything of the sort. For no encyclopedia worth the name would be vulnerable to the kind of abuse and shenanigans tarnishing Wikipedia daily - from the Essjay scandal to, most recently, the reporting of murders before the bodies are even found.

    2) The idea that we’d have to “teach” students how to “discover” who the author is and his or her authority is absurd. We have the ability now, and we don’t have to “teach” it: it’s called a byline, an author line, and an author bio, which lists the author’s background and published works, something long standard in real encyclopedias.

    Wikipedia is useful as a community chat room of sorts, but that’s it. Thank you for confirming its many shortcomings.

    1f53
  22. Ben Yates Says:

    Carol: danah’s point wasn’t that students should discover who authors are, but that they should assess their credibility and possible bias — and that they should ALWAYS do this, whether they read something in Wikipedia or Britannica or the Washington Post.

  23. john Says:

    K. G. Schneider says:
    “my phrase “the user is not broken” refers primarily to library software design, which if it were extended to automobile manufacture would produce cars that would require special training to operate and would operate only on library-specific roads.”

    But of course automobiles do require special training to operate, a license in fact, and they only work our infrastructure of automobile specific roads that we spend billions of dollars per year to build and maintain. If went spent as much social resources on library/literary education and support as we do on driver education and support, we’d have society of philosopher kings.

    I am not sure that the “user is not broken” slogan means anything at all when most people can be taught to use a library catalog in less than ten minutes.

  24. Ferdi Zebua Says:

    Just wanna say that I find the conversation happening at danah’s blog more refreshing and enlightening (and because of the wikipedia criticism, not despite of)

  25. Bob Watson Says:

    Some public libraries … there are no stats that I know of providing numbers … make a point of contributing to Wikipedia. We have staff who are knowledgable on purely local issues (history, geography, etc.) that cannot be economically updated via print, nervermind that such print would not be available to the curious non-resident.

    We’re glad to take ownership if only to demonstrate to our taxpayers that we have staff members interested in “information” rather than the latest popular fiction.

    Wikipedia fits a middle ground. Caveat Emptor, as always.

  26. K.G. Schneider Says:

    John, users cannot be “taught” not to make typographical/orthographical errors, nor *should* they be taught that last-in-first-out is optimal ordering for a library catalog. Imagine if Google were LIFO–you’d never find anything.

    Most common technologies require some familiarity, and perform better if you know more about them. But they don’t require special training *above* similar, competing technologies. You’ve also ignored the other point I am making, which is that our data structure keeps us a walled garden.

    Ferdi, I agree, aphophenia’s discussion puts Britannica’s to shame.

  27. The Interactive » Clay Shirky vs Michael Gorman: heavyweights fight a battle of ideas Says:

    […] Sven Birkerts - The Threat to Individuality Roger Kimball - Technology, Temptation and Virtual Reality Danah Boyd - Knowledge Access as a Public Good Robert McHenry - Web 2.0: Hope or Hype […]

  28. Michael Chui Says:

    Carol,

    danah’s name is lowercase because of graphical symmetry between the first and last letters.

    And to your first point, you are merely referencing the sanctity of the encyclopedia, of which there is none but what is given by us, and why should we give it that? Should the impeachment of Bill Clinton lead us to conclude that the office of President should be abolished?

  29. John Connell: the blog » Blog Archive » Values and the Future of Education Says:

    […] I previously praised the distinction, raised by Amartya Sen, amongst others, between Human Capital and Human Capability. Education is, we have to recognize, a primary driver for economic prosperity, but it is also the route to freedom, to knowledge as a public good (thank you to Danah Boyd for the phrase), and to a fairer society. The latter, of course, require some agreement - or at least a continuing debate - on a range of basic values that education should both reflect and reproduce. But with every new day and every new week that I spend in education, I have the privilege of meeting more and more people who strive to identify these values and who are working to bring the systems they work within and the people they work amongst into the reality of the 21st Century. […]

  30. Totally Wired Says:

    Add WikiScanner To Your Lesson Plan

    Ask any teen if they’re familiar with Wikipedia and they will enthusiastically nod “yes.” It’s their homework lifeline to the chagrin of many educators who lament that it’s often used as an original source in many-a-term paper. There’s been lots…

  31. teaching middle school math with technology articles Says:

    teaching middle school math with technology articles

    Free Upload File Centre Www.fastuploadfiles.com

  32. sara Says:

    “Why are we telling our students not to use Wikipedia rather than educating them about how Wikipedia works?”
    It could be very interesting. There are maaany blank pages still in Wikipedia.

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