New New Media Chapter 4: Wikipedia

1. New New MediaChapter 4: Wikipedia By: Paul Levinson

2. Quick Facts • Wikipedia was created in January 2001 by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger. • It had more than 2,750,000 articles written in English by 2009. • Wikipedia now has over 11.3 million articles in over 10 different languages, none being written by a chosen expert. • Known as the most reliably, locatable source of information on the web • Anybody can write and edit entries presented on Wikipedia.

3. Terminology • Exclusionists- Wanting to limit Wikipedia’s entries. • Inclusionists- Wanting to keep and expand on the entries. • Deletionists- Focusing on removing entries deemed unnecessary for an encyclopedia. • Mergists- Wanting to merge two or more articles into one when each is insufficient to stand on its own.

4. More Terms • Sock Puppets- Accounts created by an individual for additional support for their positions or beliefs. • Meat Puppet- An account created by a real individual for support in an associate’s project. • Checkusers- Administrators with granted power of viewing Ips or account holders information.

5. New New Vandals • Entries on Wikipedia’s pages are sometimes deliberate errors, which are quickly corrected by editors. • There are wars raging on everyday between the editors that favor truth and the ones that like to disrupt the processes. • The pranks include misspellings, providing false information on a subject or person, to assassinations of political characters or celebrities. • Milton said truth and falsity must challenge each other in the “marketplace of ideas” because censorship changes the overall outcome.

6. Inclusion vs. Exclusion • Two different readers trying to make the best Wikipedia. • Neither are vandals, they have differing opinions on what’s relevant and worthy for an encyclopedia. • Old Media encyclopedias were exclusionisticdue to limited printing space on paper. • Exclusionistic policies are no longer necessary due to unlimited virtual space available.

7. Editorial Powers • Any editor can make changes to an entry, no difference in sex, race, age, education, religion, or location. • Reverting pages follow the Three Revert Rule, or each entry can only be reverted three times in a 24 hour period. • The Three Revert Rule does not apply to blatant mistakes or false statements. • Edit Wars- Two editors undoing each others work.

8. Administrator’s Powers • Administrators have two main powers: blocking accounts of editors and protecting an entry, once protected no changes can be made by anyone. • An account can be blocked for any matter of time from one day to indefinitely but can be appealed and overturned by other administrators. • A page can also be protected for any matter of time but also unprotected by administrators. • Wheel Wars- administrators reversing another’s actions.

9. Replacement of Old Media • Books and newspapers have the inability to be corrected or updated without a reprint. Newspapers print new editions daily and updates on stories to stay recent. • It is still not enough to say books are no longer needed. Books still have more information then Wikipedia in many different subjects. • Book’s are more reliable even though they have the possibility of being destroyed because the text stays on that page. The internet text is frequently changing with more additions. • It doesn’t mean Wikipedia’s not reliable, Wikipedia is the most reliable, locatable source of information on the Web. • 7

10. Banning of Wikipedia • United Kingdom banned the use of Wikipedia after the posting of a album cover with a naked girl on it. • The ban lasted for three days and covered the entire site. • The interconnectedness of all the pages led to the banning of the entire site and not just the page. • This effort was destructive to Wikipedia, no consensus was assisted by the editors in the UK, which is the main process on which the online encyclopedia operates.