Wikipedia:WikiProject University of Virginia/Writing About Digital Forms

Wikipedia as media
Event details
Dates:	MWF week of Monday 21 October 2019
Time	9-10am
Where:	Monday New Cabell 068, Wednesday and Friday 2nd floor of the Harrison Institute/Small Library
Slides	Wikipedia as media
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Wikipedia as media is a a presentation in "ENWR 1510 Writing and Critical Inquiry: Writing About Digital Forms", an autumn 2019 class at the University of Virginia. On Monday 21 October 2019 user:bluerasberry will present "Wikipedia as Media", a lecture and workshop in this series. This is a private event for students in the class and invited guests.

see outcomes

Preparation

Create a Wikimedia account if you do not have one.
please sign in so that your instructor can find your account name and the article you edited
Bring your device to the event. Wiki's editing interface is best on non-mobile display.
Read the assigned essays
- Cassano, Jay. “Black History Matters, So Why Is Wikipedia Missing So Much Of It?” Fast Company. (2015).
- Graham, Mark. “Wikispace: Palimpsests and the Politics of Exclusion.” (269-282). Critical Point of View: A Wikipedia Reader. (2011).

Questions and answers

Accuracy, representation

One of my main questions with wikipedia is the question of accuracy. All throughout school we have been repeatedly told to not trust wikipedia as a source. However, Cassano’s article says “The existence of an entry on Wikipedia gives it weight. It’s kind of like ‘Oh, it’s on Wikipedia? Then it’s important.’ ” How can we identify which articles on wikipedia are an academic source?
Wikipedia follows the practice of university libraries. Whatever you learn from your library and in your classes, that is what Wikipedia attempts to follow.
For on-wiki guidance see
- Category:Wikipedia reliable source guides
- Wikipedia:Reliable sources
Cassano mentions that wikipedia recognizes and has a page dedicated to the issue of under representation of minority groups (specifically African Americans). Do you believe these Edit-A-Thons will help solve this issue or do you think there needs to be alternative steps taken in solving the issue?
They are useful and other strategies are necessary. The only solution which definitely works for increasing representation is increasing funding to community organizations in that demographic. If there is money or resources available, then the community will organize to represent itself.

Validity, representation

Are the claims that Wikipedia is not a valid source always, or mostly true? What do some experienced Wikipedia professionals have to say?
The "validity" of any source is not absolute, but rather in comparison to the available other options. One major advantage of Wikipedia over all previous encyclopedias is that Wikipedia cites sources rather than relying on the personality and expertise of its authors. Anyone wanting to check Wikipedia can check the sources it cites; anyone who wants to check most other works will have to personally contact the authors, which makes no sense because not everyone in the world can do that. Experienced Wikipedia editors generally feel that they are on the correct side of history, and that using citations which anyone can check is more important than having celebrity authors who are unable to respond to questions.
Does Wikipedia have any initiative to represent minority groups in greater detail or popularity?
Yes, there are many initiatives. The main one is the international coalition of Wikimedia community affiliates. Check the list - meta:Wikimedia movement affiliates

New topics, regional bias

The Graham article mentions that people on Wikipedia are “running out of new topics to write about, and some research shows that direct work on articles is decreasing while indirect work is increasing” (274). What do direct work and indirect work mean?
One way of dividing Wikipedia engagement is between content and administration. Direct work is content development and indirect work is administration. Here are some admin roles. These are from my notes at User:Bluerasberry/presentation#Example_user_roles.
- Community governance
- Help and training
- Content creation
- External relations
- Human resources
- Quality control
- Outreach
- Mediation
- Misconduct patrol
- Policy
- Software development
- Legal
Note that every role or duty of a conventional publishing house also exists in Wikipedia. Think about direct and indirect work like the collaboration between authors and publishers. Authors are out in the world, and publishers have an internal organization to present the media of the authors.
How can Graham expect there to be as many Wikipedia articles about small, unknown places as large, famous places? How can it be considered a sign of bias that the U.S has more articles than small countries like Nauru? In order for an article to be written, we need people with experience and knowledge of the subject. The U.S is much more well-known and has many more people who participate in Wikipedia. Why does Graham consider the gap in representation to be bias instead of a logical result?
Graham notes that Wikipedia seeks to cover everything but has not achieved even progress in doing this. Wikipedia's shortcoming is only relative to its own stated goals. Other information sources, like a university library, will have an even worse bias than Wikipedia, because libraries also fail to provide accessibility to underrepresented topics like the culture of Nauru. Making an encyclopedia with high quality universal coverage is a big challenge, but even if Wikipedia fails to achieve this, it still can get closer to that goal than the competing media sources.

India, restrictive

Why do you think communities in India have accepted Wikipedia use it as a reliable source for educational purposes, while the site has been rejected by most educators in the US?
United States has global cultural hegemony right now in terms of domestic media production and also English language's international use as the lingua franca. This means that people in the United States have many media options to choose other than Wikipedia. In India, and in much of the world, Wikipedia has less competition for topics in its scope of coverage, and relatively more people use it in the absence of other options.
How do you think Wikipedia’s policy to be more restrictive to edits and act as more of an encyclopedia instead of a Wiki has affected the site’s popularity and overall success?
The stable community of editors on Wikipedia treat Wikipedia's policies with reverence, especially the idea of using citations. Many people who dislike Wikipedia have the emphasis on citations as their chief complaint, and would prefer a more open wiki where anyone can add information without needing a citation. When these arguments arise I feel like the Wikipedia community has the stronger position, and the opposing side which wants more wiki-editing freedom has not seriously understood the cost of omitting citations.

African American, inclusivity

Do you think that Wikipedia’s lack of African American representation can be addressed through methods like Edit-A-Thons, or will representation come with addressing societal issues like the digital divide?
Both of these are correct. Edit-a-thons, like those of Wp:AfroCROWD and WP:Black Lunch Table help, but also the root cause of lack of representation in Wikipedia is lack of representation in positions of power in society.
In Grahams article, he observes that “Wikipedia debates often mirror the exclusion of alternate narratives offline, with contributions disproportionately coming from young, Western males”(Graham 269). Do you think that focusing on inclusive editing of Wikipedia can increase inclusivity and representation in the real world?
Yes, definitely. Inclusive editing in Wikipedia increases media representation. Inclusivity and representation were negative traits before the advent of Internet. The world has changed so much so quickly the rise of Internet popularity in 1995 or the advent of user generated content around the year 2000.

Best/worst, ethnicity gap

In your personal opinion what do you believe is the most valuable part of wikipedia as well as what do you believe is the worst part about wikipedia?
Wikipedia has two valuable parts - its media reach and its community based governance. If people could not gain media reach through Wikipedia, or if its editors did not perceive its governance as fair, then people would not contribute. The worst part is that it is starved for content. I know the outside world sees Wikipedia as covering lots of topics, but internally in Wikipedia we only talk about how we will grow it to be 10-1000 times larger as quickly as possible, and hopefully within a generation or less.
In the article Black History Matters… It is stated, “There is a gap that exists when it comes to people of color on Wikipedia, both as subjects of articles and as contributors.” As a professional do you believe this is true and if so what do you believe is the best way of fixing it?
The best way of fixing representation problems is by giving money to university programs which understand and care about accuracy in media. I hesitate to point to a single intervention, because there are many models for improvement. All of them require labor or money, and not too much, so coming up with ways to finance local community engagement is a workable strategy.

Minority representation, place in media

Do you find the most pressing issue on Wikipedia to be the lack of minority editors or the lack of minority representation in the information itself? Are there other issues with Wikipedia that receive less public attention that we should be aware of?
It depends on the minority community. When a community is highly underrepresented, then the best way to increase representation is to fund the wealthy established community outsiders to lay an information foundation. When the information foundation is in place, then there has to be a flip to only fund the community to represent itself. An analogy is that if no tools exist, you cannot expect people with nothing to make tools. But once the tools exist, you can give them to people to make more of their own tools.
What do you believe is Wikipedia’s value as a whole or most valuable feature? What is its influence on the world of information and/or culture?
Wikipedia's most valuable feature is its policy base emphasizing values from the humanities. This is very unusual in an organization. Wikipedia's influence is in providing universal access to all information when no other organization in the world is attempting that.

edit-a-thons, policy development

Have edit-a-thons proved an effective means of increasing representation for minority groups?
Probably not. I say this, and at the same, I have presented hundreds of them. You can see an event list in NYC at Wikipedia:Meetup/NYC. To me, the point of edit-a-thons or Wikipedia editing parties is to host a fun social event to recruit the organizers who will design other programs to increase representation for minority groups. I wish we could do without the events to identify those organizers, but right now, the events are the strategy we use to indirectly achieve the goal.
What do you think of how Wikipedia’ editing policies have evolved? Are they moving in a progressive direction or moving away from the platform’s original purpose?
The policies have been remarkably stable from about 2005. What is astounding about this is that also, Wikipedia's policies were unprecedented and untested, and that these ideas came from crowdsourcing and not from any mastermind planning. Policies might be trending to be more progressive, but that was always the platform's original purpose.

Lane on reliability, leadership

Do you, in your personal opinion, believe that Wikipedia is a reliable source? If so, how reliable? Reliable enough to cite in a research paper?
Wikipedia is a great way to either identify citations or come to learn that there is some media challenge in finding citations. In general, do not cite any encyclopedia, but instead cite the sources on which the authors base the encyclopedia. See Wikipedia:Citing Wikipedia.
Are the heads of Wikipedia aware of the inherent bias that exists on their site? What do you think the cause of this bias is (in your opinion)?
Many or most power structures in Wikipedia come from the election of Wikimedia community editors. This means that the heads typically align with Wikimedia community values, and consequently, would know about bias and all other challenges. I feel that the major cause of bias is challenges governing the money. Personally, I would like to see more business research in Wikipedia, perhaps from university business and accounting students. I feel that the money is well spent now, but dividing resources globally among all cultural demographics is a strange and difficult challenge.

Primary sources, representation / credibility

As Graham discusses, is Wikipedia’s controversial credibility caused by a lack of primary sources or “free to edit for all” format? What steps can be taken to ensure Wikipedia’s credibility as an academic source?
Wikipedia gets much better in quality and scope of coverage every year. Most of the bias against Wikipedia is historical and has roots in the idea that anything which originated on the Internet lacks credibility. Wikipedia's reputation improves as people born after 1980 (Snake People) come to positions of power and authority.
How can increasing representation on Wikipedia contribute to its credibility to various audiences?
Representation increases accuracy and scope of coverage.

Edit-a-thons, Lane on inclusion/deletion

Just how effective are Edit-A-Thons? It doesn’t seem that such small occasions can affect a whole lot, but direct editing does obviously create some level of change. Are the efforts of Edit-A-Thons great, or does more need to be done in order to correct some sexist or racist bias?
Wikipedia mirrors the sexism and racism which exist in society, then corrects it a bit. Within the Wikipedia community, the consensus opinion is that Wikipedia is less sexist and racist than other institutions, like universities in the United States, or newspapers, or television, or government, or any other source of media or power. We in Wikipedia focus on its problems, but at the same time, it is doing better than any other organization in terms of increasing accessibility for what it covers and its attempted global scope. Wikipedia offers extraordinary freedoms and other organizations should try to be more like Wikipedia.
How would you (Lane Rasberry) stand on the issue between inclusionists and deletionists? Adding more details about African-American culture or correcting racial bias in other pages is clearly beneficial, but does everything need to be included? (Personally, I think I would be an inclusionist, and I’d want to gather as much as possible, but I understand that adding too much could mean the loss of readability or order.)
The inclusionist/deletionist debate was more active in the period around and before 2010. Mostly it was a conflict between people who understood Wikipedia fundamental policy and people who did not. Inclusionists believed that Wikipedia should present more information without citing sources, which lowers the quality of the encyclopedia. Deletionists believe that people should only add information to Wikipedia if they can cite reliable sources, and this is the status quo. There is some ambiguity in Wikipedia about what constitutes a reliable source, but in general, what a university librarian would say is reliable is what Wikipedia would say is reliable. Discussions of inclusion versus deletion are discussions of the balance of whether Wikipedia should sacrifice quality to improve scope or sacrifice scope to improve quality. Most people inside Wikipedia say that quality comes first, and most people outside Wikipedia are inclusionist and want Wikipedia to lower its quality to have more coverage.

Wikipedia alternatives, schools on Wikipedia

Graham himself mentioned a possible solution to the war between inclusionists and deletionists on Wikipedia, which is to create one Wikipedia for each of them and to let users decide between them. If this solution were to be put into action, which version of Wikipedia would be “victorious”, more popular?
This has happened lots of times. There have been thousands of competitors to Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Skype, Wikipedia, and all the rest. I was online to watch all this. I am not sure if people younger than me have memories of a hundred web platforms appearing then dying. All these many platforms which were born and died from 1995-2015 were some dream of some passionate communities or financiers. Before the Internet people did not know what could work and what would not. Now people have more intuition. Two heavily promoted Wikipedia alternatives are Citizendium, a deletionist alternative, and Everipedia, and inclusionist alternative. Neither could work. The right balance and secret to Wikipedia's success is simple - let anyone edit, and require people to cite a source which a university librarian would identify as reliable.
Since so many authorities are “governing” Wikipedia pages, and almost able to “instant-delete” “troll” edits on Wikipedia pages and correct them, and Wikipedia’s page editing rules include “no original research”, why do schools still not accept Wikipedia as a valid source?
The world recently changed a lot and some changes take 1-2 generations. In 2010 probably the majority of the world's presidents, CEOs, and people in positions of power never had email addresses and had little concept of Internet. Instead of asking why schools do not accept Wikipedia, today's students might ask about the extent to which their values differ from previous generations. The change here is not about Wikipedia specifically, it is about understanding why anyone should care about anything at all if it is from the Internet. The previous generation dismissed the Internet as a fad; the current generation sees the Internet as a fundamental part of routine life.

Representation, Google

The following quote from the Cassano article made me ask the question why is it the responsibility of black people to add black history? Can’t other people, such as the majority of white men editing and adding to Wikipedia, research and write pages? How can/ does Wikipedia make people who don’t relate to a certain topic care? “The result is a lack of black Wikipedia editors and a lack of articles relating to important aspects of black history.”
They can, for example, software developers may not care at all about the content in the platform but can make changes which enable entire new communities to contribute content. There are some things that outsiders can do well. However, there comes a point where community representation is necessary for quality and getting appropriate scope.
“The existence of an entry on Wikipedia gives it weight. It’s kind of like ‘Oh, it’s on Wikipedia? Then it’s important.’” What effect does being the first result of a google search have on the importance of Wikipedia and does it affect who will edit Wikipedia at all?
The affect of Wikipedia's media reach is massive. Wikipedia has 1 billion unique visitors a year and it indirectly has reached 2 billion people. This is bizarre and unprecedented in history, and it came from a nonprofit community activist global inclusive values system. Of course the media power of Wikipedia is a recruitment tool into the ideology of its community of editors.

School view, student engagement

How can we change the widespread view that Wikipedia is an unreliable source across schools and universities?
Get older and get a good job, and have conversations with your peers about social issues. In your free time contribute something to public benefit or the nonprofit sector. Try to give your time and attention more than money if you can.
What can we do as university students to inform our professors of the many benefits of Wikipedia?
Instead of talking about Wikipedia, talk about the benefits of online access to media. Think about how to deliver how quality information to everyone in the world however that can happen. Ask big questions about covering all topics and reaching everyone on earth. Think about who has access to library resources and who does not.

Article:population ratio, editing earlier

On page 277 of Graham’s article, it is mentioned that countries possessing a greater quantity of Wikipedia articles per 100,000 users often contain a reduced internet usage per capita. Why is this the case?
I checked this and I think Graham had a gap in understanding. There is a portfolio of articles which Wikipedia editors make in a systematic way, like Category:Decades by country or Category:Sports by country. This means that for any country, setting up the first few thousand articles is easy regardless of population. All this means is that judgements of Wikipedia article to population ratios do not make sense to apply to small population countries, because the first set of articles is a zero point.
Suppose that academic sectors were to instruct students to create edits and contribute to the content provided on Wikipedia at an early age (that is, beginning in elementary school, for instance). Do you believe that this would facilitate the enrichment of students and perhaps ameliorate the system of education in the United States?
The base skill required to edit Wikipedia is probably the concept of source reliability. Some people understand this from age 10 (rarely, and typically autistic), we get more editors around age 12-13, then the majority of American students learn this concept in their second year of university in some research literacy class in their English department. A person who does not understand the value of citations or have a sense source reliability would have challenges actually editing Wikipedia. Wikipedia has a bias to kick out editors who do not use citations in the way the Western World appreciates using them

Lane on edit-a-thons, inclusionist/deletionist

In our class, we have been discussing Edit-A-Thons and their development. It is apparent that these events are perceived differently by people, and many people have differing views on these events. How effective are Edit-A-thons? Do you believe they have the power to make a change? Are they a catalyst for these minority movements, or are they a waste of energy? Are Edit-A-Thons enough or do we need to do more? If so, then what else can we do?
I like the term "Wikipedia editing party" more than "edit-a-thon" because I like to emphasize that the point is for people to gather to socialize. At these parties people talk about media access and reliability and plan how to best share the most reliable sources. To me, the point is community building, and not necessarily getting people to gather to type text. The important part is having a fun social experience that people remember, and not the impact of the sentences people type on that day. As social events which inspire people I think these events are great, because so many people enjoy them, make friends, and find them memorable. To actually make global change at scale we have to do something different.
In the words of Graham, “Wikipedia is often described as an exercise in both anarchy and democracy”(np). Do you hold the same viewpoint of Wikipedia? Do you think these two aspects of Wikipedia have allowed for the ongoing “war” between deletionist and inclusionist? Do either overpower each other in today’s use of Wikipedia?
Yes, I often use those words. Personally I say it both ways: "Wikipedia is an exercise in anarchy and democracy", and "Wikipedia is not an experiment in anarchy and democracy". This text is from WP:5P. Wikipedia's governance heavily draws on anarchist principles. Both anarchy and democracy support the deletionist side of things. Advocates for inclusionism are something like authoritarians - they typically want exceptions to the rules or an extra-judicial mandate to correct a perceived problem in a certain way. The inclusionist side typically will not engage in discussion, whereas the deletionist, democratic, and anarchist sides are all high promoters of online discourse.

Africa, cause of bias

According to Graham, “Almost all of Africa is poorly represented in Wikipedia” (np). I would assume it is because there is a lack of people who physically go there to conduct research. Do you think that Wikipedia should consider hiring editors to go there to research more about the places in Africa to discover and explore what these African countries have to offer in order to create pages on the platform to expand the resources and information for the encyclopedia?
There are several organizational dynamics at play. One is that "Wikipedia" is the platform, and not an organization. The "Wikimedia Foundation" is the organization with the money. The "Wikimedia community" is the online crowd of volunteers which tell the foundation what to do with the money. The community has told the foundation to never hire editors; the idea is that editors should be independent and only answer to their own communities. Instead, the foundation should give grants to local organizations. Regarding Africa: there is not a single organization or university in Africa which anyone in the world has ever identified which has made any minimal attempt to apply for funding. No one ever expected that the generous available funding would go untouched. It is really challenging to discuss why not even one university anywhere in Africa would accept a million dollars to run a Wikipedia community program, which could include supporting editors. There are many interesting social issues here to explain this environment, not just in Africa, but in many regions.
A thought that I spurred upon me as I was reading the Black History Matters, So Why Is Wikipedia Missing So Much Of It?, is that because of a lot of the information that we retain and learn at school (regarding the US education system) is quite skewed when seeing the accomplishments of white people in comparison to those of colour. Do you think the lack of colour representation on Wikipedia boils down the flaws within the US education system and the curriculums that are provided to the students?
No, the United States much is better at diversity representation than any other country in the world. There are problems in the United States and problems in other countries, and we need online collaboration to learn from each other. If I pointed to more specific problems that would be politics and I try to avoid that.

Significance, fairness

If Wikipedia is lacking in certain minority topics (like influential African-Americans, for example), what does Wikipedia as a community mean to them?
Underprivileged communities will be underrepresented everywhere. I feel like among available options, Wikipedia offers any community the most valuable media reach at the lowest possible cost. Anyone who does not want Wikipedia's offer for what it is can follow their other interests.
Social media and popular culture has often been dictated by white people. Additionally, many social media platforms have a white male founder, including Wikipedia. Does white dominance in social media mean there was never a fair chance for minorities to be equally represented in the Wikipedia community?
Wikipedia's values came from the community and not the founder. Unlike with other platforms, Wikipedia depended on volunteers and community rather than financial investment. There is a place for Jimbo as founder but he did not create Wikipedia from a designed vision. Early founding principles of Wikipedia and the community have always heavily emphasized diverse representation. Wikipedia's multilingual development was from its inception, for example. The problem with bias and representation probably is not primarily due to Wikipedia policy, but in lack of empowerment in society generally. Wikipedia has relatively more diversity representation and empowerment than any other organization, such as universities, etc.

Program

Monday 21 October: 0:00-0:05 - Welcome; 0:05-0:30 - Wikipedia as Media; 0:30-0:35 - review of class readings; 0:35-0:50 - Discussion, questions; 0:50-1:00 - thx

Wednesday 23 October

2nd floor of Harrison Institute/Small Library

topics

Wikipedia editing workshop

Friday 25 October

2nd floor of Harrison Institute/Small Library

Wikipedia editing workshop

Contact

Lane Rasberry (user:bluerasberry) for Wiki issues
Cherrie Kwok, instructor