Clay Shirky on Wikis UNI presentation

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Personal Motivation Meets Collaborative Production Clay Shirky – Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations

description

Presentation on a chapter of Clay Shirky's book, Here Comes Everybody

Transcript of Clay Shirky on Wikis UNI presentation

Page 1: Clay Shirky on Wikis UNI presentation

Personal Motivation Meets Collaborative Production

Clay Shirky – Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations

Page 2: Clay Shirky on Wikis UNI presentation

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

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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)

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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%)

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(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

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(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

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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

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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

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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

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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)

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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

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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.