War and peace; WMF board changes; Arabic and Hebrew Wikipedias
War and peace
The Pacific Standard reports on a study published by Simon DeDeo (Indiana University) last month, looking at conflict in Wikipedia:
| “ | If we were to think of Wikipedia as a society, what lessons could be gleaned from it? According to new research, one thing we might learn concerns the origins of conflict – namely, that it doesn't have one single origin, nor do solutions to conflict. | ” |
DeDeo says he "wanted to understand the structure of conflict and its resolutions – what conflicts look like, what starts them, and what ends them", based on the patterns of constructive changes and reverts to 60 frequently edited pages – entries on global warming, Hillary Clinton, Michael Jackson and an unspecified boy band.
DeDeo had three hypotheses on what might affect these patterns: "administrator lockdowns, users with a history of stirring up trouble, and news coverage related to a Wiki page". He was only able to find a weak correlation with news coverage of a Wikipedia page.
| “ | Lockdowns, which limit who can edit a page, had surprisingly little ability to shut down conflicts, and bad apples had little ability to initiate conflict. | ” |
In the end, DeDeo seems to have remained mystified by it all:
| “ | Conflict is real, it has distinct grammars, but it doesn't have [one] cause. [...] People ruin it together, and people fix it together. | ” |
(Jan. 7) AK
In brief
- Hebrew Wikipedia: Haaretz analyses the preoccupations of the Hebrew Wikipedia: "We are preoccupied with Jews and wars, liberal arts are out, young women have it over older ones, and Hapoel lost again to Maccabi, according to the list of the 100 most popular entries in 2015." (Jan. 13) AK
- Wikimedia Foundation board: The Register reports on the recent, much-discussed changes to the Wikimedia board. (Jan. 12) AK
- 15 years of Wikipedia: Deutsche Welle, Germany's international and English-language broadcaster, looks back on 15 years of Wikipedia. (Jan. 12) AK
- Jimmy Wales on the Arabic Wikipedia: The National covered Jimmy Wales' comments about government censorship and other challenges to growth of the Arabic Wikipedia at the recent Change Makers Forum in Dubai. (Jan. 10) Wales' attendance of the event was however sharply criticised in the Middle East Monitor, which argued that "hanging out with dictators [like those ruling the UAE] is wrong" and tends to delay rather than accelerate any improvement of the human rights situation in such countries. (Jan. 14) AK
- 25 most popular articles: Venture Beat published a list of the most popular Wikipedia articles of the year 2015, following the lead of a similar Wikimedia Foundation blog post. (Jan. 9) AK
- Sports vandalism: In another article based on a Wikimedia blog post, Venture Beat discusses the sports media's propensity to report on vandalism to Wikipedia's sports pages, however short-lived the vandalism may have been: "[...] reporters want an easy story and a few LOLs, even though there is no real news to report." (Jan. 8) AK
- Monkey selfie: As reported by Wales Online, wildlife photographer David Slater still intends to sue the Wikimedia Foundation in the European courts, following the dismissal of PETA's suit arguing that the monkey, "Naruto", owned the copyright to the images. (Jan. 7) AK
- Straight up: In an interview, Richmond, California rapper Wantmore N8 told SF Weekly that he donates to Wikipedia: "A real nigga is just somebody that's going to stand up for what they believe in ... I'm always Googling stuff and I'm always on Wikipedia, so when they ask me for a few dollars to keep the site going, for me to just keep x-ing it out and acting like I don't see it, that's not me being a real nigga." (Jan. 6) G
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