Wikipedia at 20 - Stories of an Incomplete Revolution

Wikipedia's first twenty years: how what began as an experiment in collaboration became the world's most popular reference work.We have been looking things up in Wikipedia for twenty years. What began almost by accident—a wiki attached to an nascent online encyclopedia—has become the world's most popular reference work. Regarded at first as the scholarly equivalent of a Big Mac, Wikipedia is now known for its reliable sourcing and as a bastion of (mostly) reasoned interaction. How has Wikipedia, built on a model of radical collaboration, remained true to its original mission of "free access to the sum of all human knowledge” when other tech phenomena have devolved into advertising platforms? In this book, scholars, activists, and volunteers reflect on Wikipedia's first twenty years, revealing connections across disciplines and borders, languages and data, the professional and personal.
The contributors consider Wikipedia's history, the richness of the connections that underpin it, and its founding vision. Their essays look at, among other things, the shift from bewilderment to respect in press coverage of Wikipedia; Wikipedia as "the most important laboratory for social scientific and computing research in history”; and the acknowledgment that "free access” includes not just access to the material but freedom to contribute—that the summation of all human knowledge is biased by who documents it.
Contributors
Phoebe Ayers, Omer Benjakob, Yochai Benkler, William Beutler, Siko Bouterse, Rebecca Thorndike-Breeze, Amy Carleton, Robert Cummings, LiAnna L. Davis, Siân Evans, Heather Ford, Stephen Harrison, Heather Hart, Benjamin Mako Hill, Dariusz Jemielniak, Brian Keegan, Jackie Koerner, Alexandria Lockett, Jacqueline Mabey, Katherine Maher, Michael Mandiberg, Stephane Coillet-Matillon, Cecelia A. Musselman, Eliza Myrie, Jake Orlowitz, Ian A. Ramjohn, Joseph Reagle, Anasuya Sengupta, Aaron Shaw, Melissa Tamani, Jina Valentine, Matthew Vetter, Adele Vrana, Denny Vrandecic

List of contents

Preface
Introduction: Connections
Joseph Reagle and Jackie Koerner
I.Hindsight
1: The Many (Reported) Deaths of Wikipedia
Joseph Reagle
2: From Anarchy to Wikiality, Glaring Bias to Good Cop: Press Coverage of Wikipedia's First Two Decades
Omer Benjakob and Stephen Harrison
3: From Utopia to Practice and Back
Yochai Benkler
4: An Encyclopedia with Breaking News
Brian Keegan
5: Paid With Interest: COI Editing and its Discontents
William Beutler
II.Connection
6: Wikipedia and Libraries
Phoebe Ayers
7: Three Links: Be Bold, Assume Good Faith, and There Are No Firm Rules
Rebecca Thorndike-Breeze, Cecelia A. Musselman, and Amy Carleton
8: How Wikipedia Drove Professors Crazy, Made Me Sane, and Almost Saved the Internet
Jake Orlowitz
9: The First Twenty Years of Teaching with Wikipedia: From Faculty Enemy to Faculty Enabler
Robert E. Cummings
10: Wikipedia as a Role-Playing Game, or Why Some Academics Do Not Like Wikipedia
Dariusz Jemielniak
11: The Most Important Laboratory for Social Scientific and Computing Research in History
Benjamin Mako Hill and Aaron Shaw
12: Collaborating on the Sum of All Knowledge Across Languages
Denny Vrandečić
13: Rise of the Underdog
Heather Ford
III.Vision
14: Why Do I Have Authority to Edit the Page? The Politics of User Agency and Participation on Wikipedia
Alexandria Lockett
15: What We Talk About When We Talk About Community
Siân Evans, Jacqueline Mabey, Michael Mandiberg, and Melissa Tamani
16: Towards a Wikipedia For and From Us All
Adele Vrana, Anasuya Sengupta, and Siko Bouterse
17: The Myth of the Comprehensive Historical Archive
Jina Valentine, Eliza Myrie, and Heather Hart
18: No Internet, No Problem
Stéphane Coillet-Matillon
19: Possible Enlightenments: Wikipedia's Encyclopedic Promise and Epistemological Failure
Matthew Vetter
20: Equity, Policy, and Newcomers: Five Journeys from Wiki Education
Ian A. Ramjohn and LiAnna L. Davis
21: Wikipedia Has a Bias Problem
Jackie Koerner
IV.Vision
22: Capstone: Making History, Building the Future Together
Katherine Maher
Contributors
Index

About the author

edited by Joseph Reagle and Jackie Koerner

Summary

Wikipedia's first twenty years: how what began as an experiment in collaboration became the world's most popular reference work.We have been looking things up in Wikipedia for twenty years. What began almost by accident—a wiki attached to an nascent online encyclopedia—has become the world's most popular reference work. Regarded at first as the scholarly equivalent of a Big Mac, Wikipedia is now known for its reliable sourcing and as a bastion of (mostly) reasoned interaction. How has Wikipedia, built on a model of radical collaboration, remained true to its original mission of “free access to the sum of all human knowledge” when other tech phenomena have devolved into advertising platforms? In this book, scholars, activists, and volunteers reflect on Wikipedia's first twenty years, revealing connections across disciplines and borders, languages and data, the professional and personal.
The contributors consider Wikipedia's history, the richness of the connections that underpin it, and its founding vision. Their essays look at, among other things, the shift from bewilderment to respect in press coverage of Wikipedia; Wikipedia as “the most important laboratory for social scientific and computing research in history”; and the acknowledgment that “free access” includes not just access to the material but freedom to contribute—that the summation of all human knowledge is biased by who documents it.
Contributors
Phoebe Ayers, Omer Benjakob, Yochai Benkler, William Beutler, Siko Bouterse, Rebecca Thorndike-Breeze, Amy Carleton, Robert Cummings, LiAnna L. Davis, Siân Evans, Heather Ford, Stephen Harrison, Heather Hart, Benjamin Mako Hill, Dariusz Jemielniak, Brian Keegan, Jackie Koerner, Alexandria Lockett, Jacqueline Mabey, Katherine Maher, Michael Mandiberg, Stephane Coillet-Matillon, Cecelia A. Musselman, Eliza Myrie, Jake Orlowitz, Ian A. Ramjohn, Joseph Reagle, Anasuya Sengupta, Aaron Shaw, Melissa Tamani, Jina Valentine, Matthew Vetter, Adele Vrana, Denny Vrandečić

Product details

• Authors: Jackie Koerner, Joseph Reagle, Joseph M. Reagle, Joseph M. (EDT)/ Koerner Reagle, Joseph M. Jr Reagle
• Assisted by: Jackie Koerner (Editor), Joseph Reagle (Editor), Joseph M Reagle (Editor), Joseph M. Reagle (Editor)
• Publisher: The MIT Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 31.10.2020
• EAN: 9780262538176
• ISBN: 978-0-262-53817-6
• No. of pages: 320
• Subjects: Natural sciences, medicine, IT, technology > IT, data processing > General, dictionaries; Non-fiction book > Politics, society, business > Society; Social sciences, law, business > Media, communication > Book trade, library system