clay shirky on wikis uni presentation
DESCRIPTION
Presentation on a chapter of Clay Shirky's book, Here Comes EverybodyTRANSCRIPT
Personal Motivation Meets Collaborative Production
Clay Shirky – Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations
On the author & the book
Clay Shirky is a key thinker on the social and economic effects of the Internet.
Key quote ‘the internet is run on love’
Referred to as ‘New media’s favorite cheerleader’
Most recent publication: Cognitive Surplus: Creativity and Generosity in a connected age (2010)
Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations (2008)
Overview: Here Comes Everybody- gives a thorough analysis of how people collaborate when given the tools to work together – free from traditional organisational structures
Defining a few key terms
Wiki: is a website that allows the creation and editing of any number of interlinked web pages via a web browser using a simplified markup language or a WYSIWYG text editor. (Wikipedia: Wiki retrieved 13.05.2011)
In general – a wiki is a website with user generated content
The word Wiki is the Hawaiian word for ‘fast’.
Wikipedia: is a free, webbased, collaborative, multilingual encyclopedia project supported by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation. (Wikipedia: About retrieved 13.05.2011)
Mass collaboration: is a form of collective action that occurs when large numbers of people work independently on a single project, often modular in its nature (Wikipedia : Mass Collabroation retrieved 13.05.2011)
Summary
A brief history of Wikipedia
On Wikipedia
On Wikipedia Content
Division of Labor
Motivation for contribution
On vandalism and quality
On wiki love and criticisms
Discussion questions and activity
* Note – anything in grey is data that has been updated since Shirky wrote this book or it is information from external sources
A brief history of Wikipedia
The failure of Nupedia
Exclusive to experts
Article creation process – 7 steps to completion
Less than 20 articles in 9 months
Ward Cunningham – creator of the first wiki
The birth of Wikipedia 2001 – 2003 WikiMedia Foundation
On Wikipedia – key (up-to-date) facts and figures
Number of content pages 3,640,423
All pages (including talk pages, redirects etc) 23,985,572
Number of page edits since Wikipedia was set up 462,875,551
Number of registered users: 14,584,277
Ranks the worlds 7th most popular website
Wikipedia is available in 280 languages
Taken from Wikipedia statistics 13.05.2011
An image estimating the size of a printed version of Wikipedia as of August 2010. (using volumes of Encyclopædia Britannica)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Size_of_English_Wikipedia_in_August_2010_(L).svg
On Wikipedia Content
More than just a free user-generated encyclopedia – it is aslo a news source (Shirky gives example of London Bombings pg. 116-116)
Example: Wikipedia article on Death of Osama bin Laden
Total revisions 3811
Average time between edits 0.44 days
252 ‘watchers’
Number of edits made by the top 10% of active users 2442 (68%)
(spontaneous) division of labor
How does Wikipedia work?
Creating new articles
Editing existing articles
‘A Wikipedia article is a process, not a product, and as a result, it is never finished’ Shirky pg. 119
(spontaneous) division of labor
‘Chaos’ - Jimmy Wales
Predicable balance
2 main types of Wikipedians
1. One off editors
2. Dedicated Wikipedians – Community Portal
‘The majority of contributors [to Wikipedia] edit only one article, once, while the majority of the effort comes from a much smaller and more active group.’ Shirky, p.121
What motivates Wikipedians?
Shirky 3 main motivations
1. Doing something with what you know
2. Get recognised
3. Be part of something for the greater good
How does Wikipedia foster this?
Name of editor (signed in) displayed on page history
The community spirit – Wikipedians and Wikipedia events
Barnstars
On vandalism & quality
How does Wikipedia survive vandalism?
Publish then filter – key attribute to Wiki success but also dangerous
‘Openness, division of labor & multiple motivations…’ (Shirky pg. 135)
A vandal can spend hours damaging an article and it takes one simple ‘revert’ to undo the vandal's damage
A wiki can only survive vandalism if people care about it
Real-time peer review
Quality
‘The type of people who are drawn to writing an encyclopedia for fun are generally pretty smart’ Jimmy Wales, TED talk, 2005
Locked articles
Neutrality
‘It is a product not of collectivism but of unending argumentation’ Shirky pg. 139
On wiki-love & criticisms
Shirky – Ise Shrine is rebuild every few decades – it exists as an act of love – Wikipedia exists for the same reasons.
A wiki can only survive if it is loved by the community who create and maintain it.
Criticisms of Shirky
Collaboration and the digital divide
Wikinomics – the wiki model can be applied to businesses
The wiki platform – a place where everyone is equal (Wikiprogress – bridging the gap between policy makers and citizens)
Conclusions
A wiki is a hybrid of tool and community. Shirky Pg 136
Wikinomics is a new force or movement that is bringing people together on the net to create a giant brain. Anthony Williams, Wikinomics
Jimmy Wales on Wikipedia – imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given access to the sum of all knowledge – that’s what we’re doing. TED Talk, 2005
Discussion question & Activity
What is the relationship between openness and mass collaboration?
Do you agree with Shirky that the wiki model of organisation can not be applied to business or do you agree with Williams that ‘Wikinomics’ is the new way forward?
Update the Wikipedia article on Clay Shirky with your knowledge from this weeks reading.