---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Stefan Merten Hi list! I just returned from the conference_ "Wikipedia: Ein kritischer Standpunkt" which was the German language successor of the "Wikipedia: A Critical Point of View" earlier this year in Amsterdam. .. _conference: http://www.cpov.de/ Onde more it turned out to be a very interesting conference with a couple of new insights into Wikipedia. To me the most important session was the first one about "Geschichte und Politik freien Wissens" ("History and politics of free knowledge"). The organizers had asked me to write a report on this session for the conference blog and I share it with you below. Grüße Stefan === 8< === 8< === 8< === 8< === 8< === 8< === 8< === 8< === 8< === 8< === I enjoyed the first session of the German language CPOV conference `Wikipedia: Ein kritischer Standpunkt`_. In fact to me it was one of the most interesting of all five sessions. Here is a report about this session which has been attended by about 100 persons. It took place on Saturday 2010-09-25 in Leipzig. Ulrich Johannes Schneider ------------------------- The session started with a very interesting and relevant talk by `Ulrich Johannes Schneider`_. Schneider's talk was titled "Produktionsformen vernetzten Wissens seit der Aufklärung" ("Forms of production of networked knowledge since the Enlightenment"). As the director of the library of the University of Leipzig he is an expert for encyclopedias. As such he reminded us that Wikipedia is an encyclopedia and in his talk explained what that means. He started with the observation that there are many persons who are annoyed that Wikipedia is not exact and that there are errors. Schneider is not annoyed by this. Instead he made clear that this is the normal perspective on every encyclopedia. For instance Diderot as the one who created the first encyclopedia ever was annoyed by his work. Right after he completed the first encyclopedia Diderot wanted to create a new, improved one. Since that time there were always attempts to create improved encyclopedias. However, during the print era such attempts for an improved version often failed. Schneider outlined that what is new in an encyclopedia as a form of knowledge is that while usually knowledge is presented in books an encyclopedia presents knowledge in the form of articles. However, the only way to present knowledge in the form of articles is by an alphabetical sorting system. This is different for instance to scientific sorting systems which usually try to sort the topics of a certain field in an hierarchical way. Encyclopedias pull knowledge to the surface. They do not explore topics in depth but may contain links to deeper knowledge. Schneider mentioned that there are also scientific encyclopedias which are usually introductions into a certain field. Another aspect of this pulling knowledge to the surface is that you expect an encyclopedia to have articles which are comprehensible for the average reader. This also differs from scientific texts which need to be comprehensible for experts in the field. Another common critique in universal encyclopedias is that they are not systematic. Schneider made clear that knowledge as such is not systematic and especially if you want to present knowledge from all fields the alphabetical organization is the only one possible. Besides presenting knowledge from all fields in one encyclopedia it is also common for single encyclopedia articles to combine knowledge from all fields. This particularly includes the practical applicability of knowledge. As an example he told us about an article about vanilla. In an article the content of an original scientific book about the plant was used but also a cooking recipe. Schneider made clear that an editorial process is decisive for an encyclopedia. The single authors of an article disappear in this process. Of course in practice the editorial process is a struggle. For instance the scientific author claims that the article is still not complete whereas the publisher stresses that the book needs to be printed. Schneider also emphasized that in the editorial process the creation of a certain perspective is necessary. Of course if you have a certain perspective this can be criticized. Schneider finished with three qualities he finds important for an encyclopedia. First an encyclopedia may not be too difficult. Second an encyclopedia needs to be written in a single, non-specialized language. Third the success of an encyclopedia is bound to an audience. In the case of book based encyclopedias this is clear because the publishers can not survive if the audience doesn't like the encyclopedia. One question from the discussion was whether there have been encyclopedias with a specific perspective. Schneider replied that there have been such encyclopedias such as a catholic encyclopedia. As I said I liked this talk very much because he told us what an encyclopedia is supposed to be. For many criticizers of Wikipedia I have the impression that they want something different from an encyclopedia and in this sense I think their critique is void. Felix Stalder ------------- The second talk in this section came from `Felix Stalder`_. Felix' talk had the title "Vom freien Wissen zur demokratischen Wissensordnung" ("From free knowledge to a democratic order of knowledge"). One of the things I liked very much in his talk was the opening appeal that instead of starting from some theoretically thinkable features people should think about feasible alternatives. Felix explained that today terms like "free", "open" and "community" are central in information capitalism and that participation can be seen as the new spectacle. In this sense it is very important to distinguish between the frontend of a web application and the backend. For instance in Facebook the frontends are open and decentralized. The backends, however, i.e. the software which processes all the input and the data, is proprietary, non-open and closed. By this there is a discrepancy between the public and the private knowledge. Felix made clear that this is inherent to commercial products. For advertisement to work the user is seen as the product which is sold to advertisers. Google is another example here. Felix went on with three guiding principles he sees for a democratic order of knowledge. First the legitimation needs to come from active participation. Second monopolies of knowledge need to be prevented. Third knowledge of minorities needs to be protected. The remainder of the talk checked how Wikipedia can be assessed regarding these points. Regarding participation in an economic sense Felix remarked that Wikipedia has been founded shortly after the burst of the dot.com bubble. There was no venture capital involved and also no advertisement. He claimed that today Wikipedia would be founded differently - although Felix gave no arguments why this should be the case. One of the results of this non-commercial nature of Wikipedia is that the user management is not central to Wikipedia. He underpinned this by the observation that the user management of Wikipedia is quite buggy. In a commercial system of course the user management is absolutely central. As far as the editorial practice is concerned Felix said that there are a few users who edit a lot. Still he emphasized that the mass of editors is important. He also claimed such processes are very characteristic for peer production projects. Felix explained that in Wikipedia there is no data mining or user profiling. In this sense the frontend and the backend are congruent. In fact there is no proprietary knowledge and one reason of this is that MediaWiki as the underlying software is Free Software. As far as the prevention of knowledge monopolies is concerned Felix said that there is a complex and contradictory set of rules which grew over time. There is no conflict resolution mechanism which is an advantage for insiders. Insiders have implicit knowledge which leads to a social closure. As far as the knowledge of minorities is concerned Felix sees only a weak editorial control over the various fields. In fact Wikipedia represents topics at the border of the common knowledge and as such Wikipedia represents knowledge of minorities. On the other hand Felix sees a dictate of the common sense. One expression is the constant battle between inclusionists and exclusionists. For instance in the German Wikipedia there is often a debate whether it is the Wikipedia for Germany or the Wikipedia for the German language. Also in cultural topics there is often a debate about the relevance of topics. He concluded that Wikipedia is both, a democracy of knowledge and a frustration machine. Felix explained that there are many processes in Wikipedia but after all they are public and they are discussed. Felix closed with the claim that there is reason for optimism. He argued that the editorial and the economical model force Wikipedia to keep the level of frustration limited. He reminded us that there is a very similar point with the maintainers of Free Software projects. There as in Wikipedia the maintainers need the community. He finished in saying that this is a great thing already. After all this is real democracy and not an ideal democracy. During the discussion Felix was asked whether he has practical alternatives regarding the social closure. He replied that this social closure is a standard problem in peer production projects. One of the possible reasons he sees is that in the free time there is less regulation than in business. That might be a reason for instance for the gender problems in Free Software. He also stated that because power structures are not allowed by ideology the still developing power structures are kept implicit and are not reflected. My personal view here is that this may be the case for Wikipedia but in Free Software projects the power structures are usually explicit in that it is clear that the maintainer has more power than others. As a practical attempt to counter the social closure Felix mentioned assessments from external persons. For Wikipedia he mentioned two examples. One is a prize for the best article which is evaluated by non-Wikipedians. Another form of external assessment is the book project which brings new views into Wikipedia. Christian Stegbauer ------------------- The last talk in the first session was given by `Christian Stegbauer`_. The title of this talk was "Wikipedia - Von der Befreiungs- zur Produktideologie" ("Wikipedia - From the emancipation ideology to the product ideology"). Unfortunately this talk was so dense and full of details that I had a pretty hard time to follow the talk. Thus I'll report only about a view points Stegbauer made. One of Stegbauer's claims is that Wikipedia undergoes a process of institutionalization. Stegbauer said that this is an unavoidable social process and as such can not be fought. In my opinion Stegbauer's main claim was that Wikipedia moves from an emancipation ideology to a product ideology. The emancipation ideology is still the "official" one and for instance contains claims such as that everyone may participate and the knowledge of the world flows together in Wikipedia. Other parts of this ideology is that Wikipedia overcomes copyright and the access to knowledge is free in Wikipedia. On the other hand there is a product ideology which becomes important more and more. The product ideology consists of things like an emphasis on quality or competition with established encyclopedias. According to Stegbauer this change is driven by various things and the pressure from outside is one. He cited one Wikipedian who said that "when something happens on Monday it will appear in the Spiegel (a major German weekly magazine)." Another driver is Jimbo Wales who wants to see quality in Wikipedia. As a result only good authors are welcome. Also the distance between activists and newcomers gets bigger with the growing experience of the elders. At the same time with the growth of the project the separation of work becomes more necessary. As results of this change Stegbauer mentioned things like secret mailing lists. He cited one Wikipedian by "I don't want to let every idea to be destroyed by chatting". Other results is that the admins more and more are seen as a leading class and the existence of criteria for relevance and quality. Stegbauer stated that ideologies need to stand the test of practice. As such the emancipation ideology still appeals to and invites people but in the perspective of the "makers" it doesn't stand the day to day practice test. The perspective of the less involved is that they stay with the emancipation ideology by which they have been invited. Of course these different perspectives lead to conflicts. In a conclusion Stegbauer mentioned that there is an institutionalization in the transformation of Wikipedia. The change in ideologies splits Wikipedia into realists and idealists. The negative spiral Stegbauer sees in Wikipedia can be explained in that externals can not understand the internal conflicts. Another reason is that the preconditions for participation grow and as a result the emancipation ideology can not be practiced any more. The product ideology deters new participants and keeping or improving the quality in terms of the product ideology becomes more difficult. Finally the attraction gets less with the institutionalization prozess because there are less options for a "career" in Wikipedia. In the discussion one participant claimed that the contrast is not as sharp as Stegbauer claims. Rather the difference between the emancipation ideology and the product ideology has always been there. Stegbauer agreed but still emphasized that the main focus moves. Another participant claimed that this is a quite normal process also seen in other projects. He called it a build-up ideology vs. a update ideology. Stegbauer replied that you need an ideology as long as you have no institutionalization. As soon as you have an institution the ideology becomes superfluous. Still the problem of the split exists. In a discussion I had later in a pub someone changed the term "product ideology" to "production ideology". I like this very much because I share the impression that what we see here is less the orientation in a product but in a certain production process. .. _Ulrich Johannes Schneider: http://www.cpov.de/?page_id=516 .. _Felix Stalder: http://www.cpov.de/?page_id=520 .. _Christian Stegbauer: http://www.cpov.de/?page_id=522 .. _`Wikipedia: Ein kritischer Standpunkt`: http://www.cpov.de/ -- Diego Saravia [email protected] NO FUNCIONA->[email protected]