w ikipedia pedai p edia p Wiki CRITICAL POINT OF VIEW A Wikipedia Reader 2 CRITICAL POINT OF VIEW A Wikipedia Reader CRITICAL POINT OF VIEW 3 Critical Point of View: A Wikipedia Reader Editors: Geert Lovink and Nathaniel Tkacz Editorial Assistance: Ivy Roberts, Morgan Currie Copy-Editing: Cielo Lutino CRITICAL Design: Katja van Stiphout Cover Image: Ayumi Higuchi POINT OF VIEW Printer: Ten Klei Groep, Amsterdam Publisher: Institute of Network Cultures, Amsterdam 2011 A Wikipedia ISBN: 978-90-78146-13-1 Reader EDITED BY Contact GEERT LOVINK AND Institute of Network Cultures NATHANIEL TKACZ phone: +3120 5951866 INC READER #7 fax: +3120 5951840 email: [email protected] web: http://www.networkcultures.org Order a copy of this book by sending an email to: [email protected] A pdf of this publication can be downloaded freely at: http://www.networkcultures.org/publications Join the Critical Point of View mailing list at: http://www.listcultures.org Supported by: The School for Communication and Design at the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences (Hogeschool van Amsterdam DMCI), the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) in Bangalore and the Kusuma Trust. Thanks to Johanna Niesyto (University of Siegen), Nishant Shah and Sunil Abraham (CIS Bangalore) Sabine Niederer and Margreet Riphagen (INC Amsterdam) for their valuable input and editorial support. Thanks to Foundation Democracy and Media, Mondriaan Foundation and the Public Library Amsterdam (Openbare Bibliotheek Amsterdam) for supporting the CPOV events in Bangalore, Amsterdam and Leipzig. (http://networkcultures.org/wpmu/cpov/) Special thanks to all the authors for their contributions and to Cielo Lutino, Morgan Currie and Ivy Roberts for their careful copy-editing. This publication is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 3.0 Unported. To view a copy of this license, visit: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/. 4 CRITICAL POINT OF VIEW A Wikipedia Reader CRITICAL POINT OF VIEW 5 The INC Reader series is derived from conference contributions and produced CONTENTS by the Institute of Network Cultures. They are available in print and pdf form. Critical Point of View is the seventh publication in the series. Previously published INC Readers: Geert Lovink and Nathaniel Tkacz INC Reader #6: Geert Lovink and Rachel Somers Miles (eds.), The ‘C’ in CPOV: Introduction to the CPOV Reader 9 Video Vortex Reader II, 2011 ENCYCLOPEDIC KNOWLEDGE This reader continues to examine critical issues that are emerging around the success of YouTube, the rise of other online video sharing platforms, and how the moving image Joseph Reagle has become expansively more popular on the web, contributing to the culture The Argument Engine 14 and ecology of the internet and our everyday lives. Dan O’Sullivan Download a free pdf from www.networkcultures.org/videovortex. What is an Encyclopedia? From Pliny to Wikipedia 34 INC Reader #5: Scott McQuire, Meredith Martin and Sabine Niederer (eds.), Lawrence Liang A Brief History of the Internet from the 15th to the 18th Century 50 Urban Screens Reader, 2009 This reader is the first book to focus entirely on the topic of urban screens. Offering Amila Akdag Salah, Cheng Gao, Krzystztof Suchecki, and Andrea Scharnhorst texts from a range of leading theorists to case studies on artist projects, screen operators Generating Ambiguities: Mapping Category Names of Wikipedia to UDC and curators experiences, this collection offers a rich resource for exploring the inter - Class Numbers 63 sections of digital media, cultural practices and urban space. Download a free pdf from COMPUTATIONAL CULTURES www.networkcultures.org/urbanscreens. R. Stuart Geiger INC Reader #4: Geert Lovink and Sabine Niederer (eds.), The Lives of Bots 78 Video Vortex Reader: Responses to YouTube, 2008. Nathaniel Tkacz This reader is a collection of critical texts dealing with the rapidly emerging world of online The Politics of Forking Paths 94 video – from its explosive rise in 2005 with YouTube, to its future as a significant form Edgar Enyedy and Nathaniel Tkacz of personal media. Download a free pdf from www.networkcultures.org/videovortex. ‘Good luck with your wikiPAIDia’: Reflections on the 2002 Fork of the Spanish Wikipedia. 110 INC Reader #3: Geert Lovink and Ned Rossiter (eds.), An interview with Edgar Enyedy MyCreativity Reader: A Critique of Creative Industries, 2007. Peter B. Kaufman This reader is a collection of critical research into the creative industries. The material Video for Wikipedia and the Open Web 119 developed out of the MyCreativity convention on International Creative Industries Re– Johanna Niesyto search held in Amsterdam, November 2006. This two-day conference sought to bring A Journey from Rough Consensus to Political Creativity: Insights from the English the trends and tendencies around the creative industries into critical question. and German Language Wikipedias 139 Download a free pdf from www.networkcultures.org/mycreativity. Hans Varghese Mathews Outline of a Clustering Procedure and the Use of its Output 159 INC Reader #2: Katrien Jacobs, Marije Janssen and Matteo Pasquinelli (eds.), C’LICK ME: A Netporn Studies Reader, 2007. INTERVENTIONS This anthology collects the best material from two years of debate from ‘The Art and Scott Kildall and Nathaniel Stern Politics of Netporn’ 2005 conference to the 2007 ‘C’LICK ME’ festival. The C’LICK ME Wikipedia Art: Citation as Performative Act 165 reader opens the field of ‘internet pornology’, with contributions by academics, Nicholas Carr artists and activists. Download a free pdf from www.networkcultures.org/netporn. Questioning Wikipedia 191 INC Reader #1: Geert Lovink and Soenke Zehle (eds.), Alan Shapiro Incommunicado Reader, 2005. Diary of a Young Wikipedian 203 The Incommunicado Reader brings together papers written for the June Florian Cramer 2005 conference ‘Incommunicado: Information Technology for Everybody A Brechtian Media Design: Annemieke van der Hoek’s Epicpedia 221 Else’. The publication includes a CD-ROM of interviews with speakers. Patrick Lichty Download a free pdf from www.networkcultures.org/incommunicado. Digital Anarchy, Social Media, and WikiLeaks 226 6 CRITICAL POINT OF VIEW A Wikipedia Reader CRITICAL POINT OF VIEW 7 POLITICS OF EXCLUSION Maja van der Velden When Knowledges Meet: Wikipedia and Other Stories from the Contact Zone 236 Heather Ford The Missing Wikipedians 258 Mark Graham Wiki Space: Palimpsests and the Politics of Exclusion 269 Gautam John Wikipedia in India: Past, Present and Future 283 Dror Kamir and Johanna Niesyto User DrorK: A Call for a Free Content Alternative for Sources. An interview with Dror Kamir 288 GOVERNANCE & AUTHORITY Andrew Famiglietti The Right to Fork: A Historical Survey of De/centralization in Wikipedia 296 Matheiu O’Neil Wikipedia and Authority 309 Mayo Fuster Morell The Wikimedia Foundation and the Governance of Wikipedia’s Infrastructure: Historical Trajectories and its Hybrid Character 325 Christian Stegbauer and Morgan Currie Cultural Transformations in Wikipedia – or ‘From Emancipation to Product Ideology’. An interview with Christian Stegbauer 342 Shun-ling Chen The Wikimedia Foundation and the Self-governing Wikipedia Community: A Dynamic Relationship Under Constant Negotiation 351 APPENDICES CPOV Conferences 372 ‘WikiWars’ Conference I in Bangaore CPOV Conference II in Amsterdam CPOV Conference III in Leipzig Author Biographies 379 8 CRITICAL POINT OF VIEW A Wikipedia Reader INTRODUCTION 9 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS INTRODUCTION THE ‘C’ IN CPOV There are always many threads that lead up to a collaborative project. We would like to men- tion a few meetings and conversations. Geert’s interest in critical Wikipedia research started GEERT LOVINK AND NATHANIEL TKACZ in late 2007 when he gave his first talk on the matter at the Dutch national meeting of pub- lic libraries. Almost a year later he discussed his interest in Paris with French philosopher Gérard Wormser, who said we should look into analogies between Wikipedia and efforts of the 18th century encyclopedians. In January 2011, while wrapping up this publication, Wikipedia turned ten. It was a moment to pause and take stock of the project, to reflect on the past, and to speculate as to what the The two of us met at a workshop organized by Michael Dieter in Melbourne in 2008. From future holds. The event was standard press for major news outlets and technology reviews, there we decided to work together and build a research network. Geert was already in touch and there were celebrations in several cities across the globe. Well-worn factoids and forgotten with Johanna Niesyto (Siegen, Germany), and she came on board around the same time. events were dusted off and organized into timelines and top-ten lists. 1 Experts and historical Soon after, Geert met up with Sunil Abraham and Nishant Shah from the Centre for Internet figures rehashed the same sound bites that made them experts and historical figures. Number and Society in Bangalore in Café De Balie in Amsterdam to talk about possible collaborations crunching of all sorts was also in full flight – now up to 17 million articles, with 3.5 million in – the deal was made in no time. The roadmap for the following conferences in Bangalore the English version and 400 million unique visitors per month. But the numbers were seldom (January 2010), Amsterdam (March 2010), and Leipzig (September 2010), and for this delivered with the same gusto or marvelled at as when Wikipedia first became public fodder. publication, was