tag:theconversation.com,2011:/au/topics/wikipedia-2920/articlesWikipedia – The Conversation2023-12-05T22:42:16Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2185172023-12-05T22:42:16Z2023-12-05T22:42:16ZWikipedia’s volunteer editors are fleeing online abuse. Here’s what that could mean for the internet (and you)<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/562311/original/file-20231129-17-hg57m4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=44%2C11%2C7304%2C4120&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>We’re now sadly used to seeing toxic exchanges play out on social media platforms like X (formerly Twitter), Facebook and TikTok. </p>
<p>But Wikipedia is a reference work. How heated can people get over an encyclopedia? </p>
<p>Our <a href="https://academic.oup.com/pnasnexus/article-lookup/doi/10.1093/pnasnexus/pgad385">research</a>, published today, shows the answer is very heated. For example, one Wikipedia editor wrote to another:</p>
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<p>i will find u in real life and slit your throat.</p>
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<p>That’s a problem for many reasons, but chief among them is if Wikipedia goes down in a ball of toxic fire, it might take the rest of the internet’s information infrastructure with it. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/let-the-community-work-it-out-throwback-to-early-internet-days-could-fix-social-medias-crisis-of-legitimacy-213209">Let the community work it out: Throwback to early internet days could fix social media's crisis of legitimacy</a>
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<h2>The internet’s favourite encyclopedia</h2>
<p>In some ways, Wikipedia is both an encyclopedia and a social media platform. </p>
<p>It’s <a href="https://www.semrush.com/website/top/">the fourth most popular website</a> on the internet, behind only such giants as Google, YouTube and Facebook. </p>
<p>Every day, <a href="https://stats.wikimedia.org/#/all-projects">millions of people worldwide</a> use it for quick fact-checks or in-depth research. </p>
<p>And what happens to Wikipedia matters beyond the platform itself because of its central role in online information infrastructure. </p>
<p>Google search relies heavily on Wikipedia and the quality of its search results would <a href="https://ojs.aaai.org/index.php/ICWSM/article/view/14883/14733">decrease substantially</a> if Wikipedia disappeared. </p>
<p>But it’s not just an increasingly authoritative source of knowledge. Even though we don’t always lump Wikipedia in with other social media platforms, it shares some common features. </p>
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<p>It relies on contributors to create the content that the public will view and it creates spaces for those contributors to interact. Wikipedia relies solely on the work of volunteers: no one is paid for writing or editing content. </p>
<p>Moreover, no one checks the credentials of editors — anyone can make a contribution. This arguably makes Wikipedia the most successful collaborative project in history. </p>
<p>However, the fact that Wikipedia is a collaborative platform also makes it vulnerable. </p>
<p>A <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Harassment_survey_2015">2015 survey</a> found 38% of surveyed Wikipedia users had experienced harassment on the platform.</p>
<p>What if the collaborative environment deteriorates, and its volunteer editors abandon the project? </p>
<p>What effect do toxic comments have on Wikipedia’s editors, content and community?</p>
<h2>Abusive comments lead to disengaging</h2>
<p>To answer this question, we started with Wikipedia’s “user’s talk pages”. A user’s talk page is a place where other editors can interact with the user. They can post messages, discuss personal topics, or extend discussions from an article’s talk page. </p>
<p>Every editor has a personal user’s talk page, and the majority of toxic comments made on the platform are on these pages. </p>
<p>We collected information on 57 million comments made on the user’s talk pages of 8.5 million editors across the six most active language editions of Wikipedia (English, German, French, Italian, Spanish and Russian) over a period of 20 years. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/students-are-told-not-to-use-wikipedia-for-research-but-its-a-trustworthy-source-168834">Students are told not to use Wikipedia for research. But it's a trustworthy source</a>
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<p>We then used a <a href="https://perspectiveapi.com/">state-of-the-art machine learning algorithm</a> to identify toxic comments. The algorithm looked for attributes a human might consider toxic, like insults, threats, or identity attacks.</p>
<p>We compared the activity of editors before and after they received a toxic comment, as well as with a control group of similar editors who received a non-toxic rather than toxic comment. </p>
<p>We found receiving a single toxic comment could reduce an editor’s activity by 1.2 active days in the short term. Considering that 80,307 users on English Wikipedia alone have received at least one toxic comment, the cumulative impact could amount to 284 lost human-years. </p>
<p>Moreover, some users don’t just contribute less. They stop contributing altogether. </p>
<p>We found that the probability of leaving Wikipedia’s community of contributors increases after receiving a toxic comment, with new users being particularly vulnerable. New editors who receive toxic comments are nearly twice as likely to leave Wikipedia as would be expected otherwise. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/562555/original/file-20231129-21-2li5ve.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="The wikipedia logo on a yellow office wall" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/562555/original/file-20231129-21-2li5ve.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/562555/original/file-20231129-21-2li5ve.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/562555/original/file-20231129-21-2li5ve.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/562555/original/file-20231129-21-2li5ve.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/562555/original/file-20231129-21-2li5ve.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/562555/original/file-20231129-21-2li5ve.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/562555/original/file-20231129-21-2li5ve.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Wikipedia is just as vulnerable to toxic commentary as other popular websites.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikipedia_Office_Globe.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
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<h2>Wide-ranging consequences</h2>
<p>This matters more than you might think to the millions who use Wikipedia. </p>
<p>First, toxicity likely leads to poorer-quality content on the site. Having a diverse editor cohort is a crucial factor for maintaining content quality. The vast majority of Wikipedian editors <a href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0065782">are men</a>, which is reflected in the content on the platform. </p>
<p>There are <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/14614448211023772">fewer articles about women</a>, which are shorter than articles about men and more likely to centre on <a href="https://ojs.aaai.org/index.php/ICWSM/article/view/14628">romantic relationships and family-related issues</a>. They are also more often linked to articles about the opposite gender. Women are often described as wives of famous people rather than for their own merits, for example.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/30-years-of-the-web-down-under-how-australians-made-the-early-internet-their-own-212542">30 years of the web down under: how Australians made the early internet their own</a>
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<p>While multiple barriers confront women editors on Wikipedia, toxicity is likely one of the key factors that contributes to the gender imbalance. Although men and women are <a href="https://www.datasociety.net/pubs/oh/Online_Harassment_2016.pdf">equally likely</a> to face online harassment and abuse, women experience more severe violations and are more likely to be affected by such incidents, including self-censoring. </p>
<p>This may affect other groups as well: our research showed that toxic comments often include not just gendered language but also ethnic slurs and other biases.</p>
<p>Finally, a significant rise in toxicity, especially targeted attacks on new users, could jeopardise Wikipedia’s survival. </p>
<p>Following a period of <a href="https://icwsm.org/papers/2--Almeida-Mozafari-Cho.pdf">exponential growth</a> in its editor base during the early 2000s, the number has been <a href="https://wikipedia20.mitpress.mit.edu/pub/lifecycles/release/2">largely stable</a> since 2016, with the exception of a brief activity spike during the COVID pandemic. Currently about the same number of editors join the project as leave, but the balance could be easily tipped if the people left because of online abuse.</p>
<p>That would damage not only Wikipedia, but also the rest of the online information infrastructure it helps to support. </p>
<p>There’s no easy fix to this, but our research shows promoting healthy communication practices is critical to protecting crucial online information ecosystems.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/218517/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ivan Smirnov does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>It’s the fourth most popular website in the world, but our new study shows toxic commentary can still thrive on Wikipedia. There’s a lot at stake if too many editors are driven away.Ivan Smirnov, Research Fellow, University of Technology SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2132092023-10-24T12:25:09Z2023-10-24T12:25:09ZLet the community work it out: Throwback to early internet days could fix social media’s crisis of legitimacy<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/555410/original/file-20231023-15-otewua.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C3489%2C2331&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Content moderators like these workers make decisions about online communities based on company dictates.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/content-moderators-work-at-a-facebook-office-in-austin-news-photo/1142321813">Ilana Panich-Linsman for The Washington Post via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In the 2018 documentary “<a href="https://gebrueder-beetz.de/en/productions/the-cleaners/">The Cleaners</a>,” a young man in Manila, Philippines, explains his work as a content moderator: “We see the pictures on the screen. You then go through the pictures and delete those that don’t meet the guidelines. The daily quota of pictures is 25,000.” As he speaks, his mouse clicks, deleting offending images while allowing others to remain online.</p>
<p>The man in Manila is one of thousands of content moderators hired as contractors by social media platforms – <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/03/31/1167246714/googles-ghost-workers-are-demanding-to-be-seen-by-the-tech-giant">10,000 at Google alone</a>. Content moderation on an industrial scale like this is part of the everyday experience for users of social media. Occasionally a post someone makes is removed, or a post someone thinks is offensive is allowed to go viral. </p>
<p>Similarly, platforms add and remove features without input from the people who are most affected by those decisions. Whether you are outraged or unperturbed, most people don’t think much about the history of a system in which people in conference rooms in Silicon Valley and Manila determine your experiences online.</p>
<p>But why should a few companies – or a few billionaire owners – have the power to decide everything about online spaces that billions of people use? This unaccountable model of governance has led stakeholders of all stripes to criticize platforms’ decisions as <a href="https://www.brennancenter.org/sites/default/files/2021-08/Double_Standards_Content_Moderation.pdf">arbitrary</a>, <a href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2022/12/twitter-files-explained-elon-musk-taibbi-weiss-hunter-biden-laptop.html">corrupt</a> or <a href="https://www.oxfordstrategyreview.com/content/social-irresponsibility-how-social-media-works-for-the-west-but-fails-the-rest">irresponsible</a>. In the early, pre-web days of the social internet, decisions about the spaces people gathered in online were often made by members of the community. Our <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/20563051231196864">examination of the early history of online governance</a> suggests that social media platforms could return – at least in part – to models of community governance in order to address their crisis of legitimacy.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">The documentary ‘The Cleaners’ shows some of the hidden costs of Big Tech’s customer service approach to content moderation.</span></figcaption>
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<h2>Online governance – a history</h2>
<p>In many early online spaces, governance was handled by community members, not by professionals. One early online space, <a href="https://thenewstack.io/a-look-back-in-time-the-forgotten-fame-of-lambdamoo/">LambdaMOO</a>, invited users to build their own governance system, which devolved power from the hands of those who technically controlled the space – administrators known as “wizards” – to members of the community. This was accomplished via a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1083-6101.1996.tb00185.x">formal petitioning process and a set of appointed mediators</a> who resolved conflicts between users.</p>
<p>Other spaces had more informal processes for incorporating community input. For example, on bulletin board systems, users <a href="https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300248142/the-modem-world/">voted with their wallets</a>, removing critical financial support if they disagreed with the decisions made by the system’s administrators. Other spaces, like text-based Usenet newsgroups, gave users substantial power to shape their experiences. The newsgroups left obvious spam in place, but gave users tools to block it if they chose to. Usenet’s administrators argued that it was fairer to allow each user <a href="https://fishbowl.pastiche.org/2021/01/12/usenet_spam">to make decisions that reflected their individual preferences</a> rather than taking a one-size-fits-all approach.</p>
<p>The graphical web expanded use of the internet from <a href="https://www.internetworldstats.com/emarketing.htm">a few million users to hundreds of millions within a decade</a> from 1995 to 2005. During this rapid expansion, community governance was replaced with governance models inspired by customer service, which focused on scale and cost. </p>
<p>This switch from community governance to customer service made sense to the fast-growing companies that made up the late 1990s internet boom. Promising their investors that they could grow rapidly and make changes quickly, companies looked for approaches to the complex work of governing online spaces <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/20563051231196864">that centralized power and increased efficiency</a>. </p>
<p>While this customer service model of governance allowed early user-generated content sites like Craigslist and GeoCities <a href="https://datasociety.net/library/origins-of-trust-and-safety/">to grow rapidly</a>, it set the stage for the crisis of legitimacy facing social media platforms today. Contemporary battles over social media are rooted in the sense that the people and processes governing online spaces are unaccountable to the communities that gather in them. </p>
<h2>Paths to community control</h2>
<p>Implementing community governance in today’s platforms could take a number of different forms, some of which are already being experimented with.</p>
<p>Advisory boards like Meta’s <a href="https://about.meta.com/actions/oversight-board-facts/">Oversight Board</a> are one way to involve outside stakeholders in platform governance, providing independent — albeit limited — review of platform decisions. X (formerly Twitter) is taking a more democratic approach with its <a href="https://help.twitter.com/en/using-x/community-notes">Community Notes</a> initiative, which allows users to contextualize information on the platform by crowdsourcing notes and ratings.</p>
<p>Some may question whether community governance can be implemented successfully in platforms that serve billions of users. In response, we point to Wikipedia. It is entirely community-governed and has created an open encyclopedia that’s become the foremost information resource in many languages. Wikipedia is surprisingly resilient to vandalism and abuse, with robust procedures that ensure a resource used by billions remains accessible, accurate and reasonably civil.</p>
<p>On a smaller scale, total self-governance – echoing early online spaces – could be key for communities that serve specific subsets of users. For example, <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/">Archive of Our Own</a> was created after fan-fiction authors – people who write original stories using characters and worlds from published books, television shows and movies – found existing platforms unwelcoming. For example, many fan-fiction authors were <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2022/8/15/23200176/history-of-ao3-archive-of-our-own-fanfiction">kicked off social media platforms</a> due to overzealous copyright enforcement or concerns about sexual content.</p>
<p>Fed up with platforms that didn’t understand their work or their culture, a group of authors designed and built their own platform specifically to meet the needs of their community. AO3, as it is colloquially known, serves millions of people a month, includes tools specific to the needs of fan-fiction authors, and is governed by the same people it serves.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552396/original/file-20231005-25-mahqjw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="text above and below a photo of two people in lab coats standing in a hallway" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552396/original/file-20231005-25-mahqjw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552396/original/file-20231005-25-mahqjw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=817&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552396/original/file-20231005-25-mahqjw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=817&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552396/original/file-20231005-25-mahqjw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=817&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552396/original/file-20231005-25-mahqjw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1027&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552396/original/file-20231005-25-mahqjw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1027&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552396/original/file-20231005-25-mahqjw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1027&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">X, formerly Twitter, allows people to use Community Notes to append relevant information to posts that contain inaccuracies.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://twitter.com/kareem_carr/status/1709198073174311207/photo/1">Screen capture by The Conversation U.S.</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
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<p>Hybrid models, like on Reddit, <a href="https://www.redditinc.com/policies/content-policy">mix centralized and self-governance</a>. Reddit hosts a collection of interest-based communities called subreddits that have their own rules, norms and teams of moderators. Underlying a subreddit’s governance structure is a set of rules, processes and features that apply to everyone. Not every subreddit is a sterling example of a healthy online community, but more are than are not.</p>
<p>There are also technical approaches to community governance. One approach would enable users to choose the algorithms that curate their social media feeds. Imagine that instead of only being able to use Facebook’s algorithm, you could choose from a suite of algorithms provided by third parties – for example, from The New York Times or Fox News.</p>
<p>More radically decentralized platforms like Mastodon devolve control to a network of servers that are similar in structure to email. This makes it easier to choose an experience that matches your preferences. You can choose which Mastodon server to use, and can switch easily – just like you can choose whether to use Gmail or Outlook for email – and can change your mind, all while maintaining access to the wider email network. </p>
<p>Additionally, advancements in generative AI – which shows <a href="https://doi.org/10.1109/MS.2023.3265877">early promise in producing computer code</a> – could make it easier for people, even those without a technical background, to build custom online spaces when they find existing spaces unsuitable. This would relieve pressure on online spaces to be everything for everyone and support a sense of agency in the digital public sphere.</p>
<p>There are also more indirect ways to support community governance. Increasing transparency – for example, by providing access to data about the impact of platforms’ decisions – can help researchers, policymakers and the public hold online platforms accountable. Further, encouraging ethical professional norms among engineers and product designers can make online spaces more respectful of the communities they serve.</p>
<h2>Going forward by going back</h2>
<p>Between now and the end of 2024, national elections are scheduled in many countries, including Argentina, Australia, India, Indonesia, Mexico, South Africa, Taiwan, the U.K. and the U.S. This is all but certain to lead to conflicts over online spaces. </p>
<p>We believe it is time to consider not just how online spaces can be governed efficiently and in service to corporate bottom lines, but how they can be governed fairly and legitimately. Giving communities more control over the spaces they participate in is a proven way to do just that.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/213209/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ethan Zuckerman receives funding from the MacArthur Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Knight Foundation and the (US) National Science Foundation.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Chand Rajendra-Nicolucci receives funding from the MacArthur Foundation and the Ford Foundation. </span></em></p>In the days of online bulletin board systems, community members decided what was acceptable. Reviving that approach to content moderation offers Big Tech a path to legitimacy as public spaces.Ethan Zuckerman, Associate Professor of Public Policy, Communication, and Information, UMass AmherstChand Rajendra-Nicolucci, Research Fellow, Initiative for Digital Public Infrastructure, UMass AmherstLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2085372023-07-14T12:46:55Z2023-07-14T12:46:55ZDonors who feel upbeat are more likely to give to charity – new research<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536690/original/file-20230710-23-liq0z3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=114%2C26%2C5774%2C3831&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Feeling generous?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/hispanic-tattoo-woman-with-smartphone-in-bedroom-royalty-free-image/1443546298?adppopup=true">Vera Vita/Moment via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>The <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/topics/research-brief-83231">Research Brief</a> is a short take about interesting academic work.</em></p>
<h2>The big idea</h2>
<p>When people feel happier, they’re more likely to donate to charity. That’s what we, <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=4l0VNcUAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">two economists</a> <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=LKP05dcAAAAJ">who study what motivates</a> environmentally conscientious consumption and support for free services, found in a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/ej/uead041">new study</a> published in The Economic Journal. </p>
<p>To conduct this research, we analyzed tweets from over 20,000 Twitter users who used the hashtag “#iloveWikipedia.” That slogan is part of a template that Wikipedia suggests to anyone who has just completed a donation on its online platform, so it helped us identify people who have given money to the free online encyclopedia edited by volunteers. Those donations funded the <a href="https://wikimediafoundation.org/">Wikimedia Foundation</a>, the nonprofit that hosts Wikipedia.</p>
<p>We evaluated the donors’ moods by using <a href="https://www.ibm.com/topics/natural-language-processing">natural language processing</a> tools. These tools assigned a score to each tweet to indicate how positive or negative the mood was for each tweet.</p>
<p>For example, a tweet that says “Woohoo! Awesome Pete!” would get a positive sentiment score, while one that says “THIS MADE ME CRY OUT OF ANGER AND SADNESS AND FRUSTRATION.” would get a negative one. We used four different scoring systems, all of which allowed us to gauge how strongly positive or negative a Twitter user’s mood was. We could adjust these sentiment scores by comparing them to a user’s other tweets.</p>
<p>We found that donors’ sentiments became more upbeat up to an hour before they made a gift to support Wikipedia and then declined, becoming more neutral pretty quickly after that. Donors tended to be in especially good moods before making their gifts, but they regressed quickly to their more typical mood afterward.</p>
<p>We can’t be sure why people were feeling happier before they donated than they did afterward, but our findings suggest that feeling good could make you more likely to give to charity. We call this the “preheating effect.” Our observation about donor behavior contrasts with an economic theory that people may give to charity because it makes them feel good about doing the right thing. This feeling is known as a “<a href="https://thedecisionlab.com/reference-guide/psychology/warm-glow-giving">warm glow</a>.” </p>
<h2>Why it matters</h2>
<p>Scholars of philanthropy have long known that <a href="https://www.routledge.com/The-Science-of-Giving-Experimental-Approaches-to-the-Study-of-Charity/Oppenheimer-Olivola/p/book/9781138981430">giving to charity is tied to happiness</a>. What’s less clear is whether being charitable makes people happier, or whether happier people are more charitable. Our study offers new evidence that feeling happy before they’re asked to make a donation makes people more likely to give. </p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/h0033366">Previous studies</a> have sought to make research participants feel happy or sad and then analyzed how those moods may affect their inclination to behave in helpful ways. However, we were able to capture the donors’ real-world moods, which is more relevant to fundraising in terms of determining what might make someone more likely to make a charitable donation.</p>
<h2>What still isn’t known</h2>
<p>Based on the evidence we scraped from tweets, it’s not possible to tell whether being in a good mood makes people more likely to give to charity, or if feeling happy simply makes donors more likely to tweet about their gifts.</p>
<p>Also, our study looked at the apparent emotional state of Twitter users, and not everyone actively uses that social media platform. Because of that limitation, we can’t know whether everyone experiences this same preheating effect. </p>
<p>We also didn’t figure out whether preheating varies across age, gender, race or class lines.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/208537/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Donors’ sentiments expressed on Twitter became more cheerful before they made a gift to support Wikipedia, researchers found.Nathan W. Chan, Associate Professor of Resource Economics, UMass AmherstCasey Wichman, Assistant Professor of Economics, Georgia Institute of TechnologyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1973502023-01-12T05:54:09Z2023-01-12T05:54:09Z2022 wasn’t the year of Cleopatra – so why was she the most viewed page on Wikipedia?<p>At the end of every year, I gather statistics on the most viewed Wikipedia articles of the year. This helps me, a computational social scientist, understand what topics captured the most attention and gives me a chance to reflect on the major public events of the year. I try to use data to determine how the public (and more specifically here, English-language Wikipedia readers) will collectively remember the past year.</p>
<p>In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic, US presidential election, and Kobe Bryant’s death were among the most memorable events. According to Wikipedia readers, 2021 will be remembered for Netflix’s Squid Game, the men’s European Football Championship and the death of Prince Philip.</p>
<p>But in 2022, <a href="https://tahayasseri.files.wordpress.com/2023/01/wikipedia_100_most_viewed_articles_2022.pdf">the list is topped</a> by a somewhat unexpected name – Cleopatra.</p>
<p>Most articles at the top of the list are related to major world events, including the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the death of the Queen and the men’s football World Cup. Elon Musk and Johnny Depp also made the list. In addition to perennial favourites such as the Bible and YouTube, there are a couple of surprises that were probably influenced by external factors like media and popular culture.</p>
<p>For example, the article about Jeffrey Dahmer, the notorious US serial killer who died in 1994, had more than 54 million views, coming in at number two. While aggregate page view statistics alone may not provide a complete understanding of why Wikipedia users were interested in certain topics, changes in view statistics over time can provide clues. </p>
<p>In the case of Dahmer, an increase in page traffic corresponds with the release of the Netflix series <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dahmer_%E2%80%93_Monster:_The_Jeffrey_Dahmer_Story">Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story</a> on September 21. This suggests that the series may have prompted readers to learn more about Dahmer from Wikipedia.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Two graphs side by side, showing that the Jeffrey Dahmer article had a spike of views in September 2022, while the Cleopatra article had high readership all year with a spike in October." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/503410/original/file-20230106-10448-mc22tn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/503410/original/file-20230106-10448-mc22tn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=318&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503410/original/file-20230106-10448-mc22tn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=318&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503410/original/file-20230106-10448-mc22tn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=318&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503410/original/file-20230106-10448-mc22tn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503410/original/file-20230106-10448-mc22tn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503410/original/file-20230106-10448-mc22tn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Daily page view counts of Jeffrey Dahmer and Cleopatra articles in English Wikipedia for 2022.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>However, the massive interest in the article about Cleopatra remains a mystery. While there were some news stories about <a href="https://www.liveforfilm.com/2022/11/24/is-the-cleopatra-remake-finally-going-ahead/">a remake of the classic movie</a> and <a href="https://www.sportingnews.com/us/nfl/news/caesars-sportsbook-super-bowl-commercial-caesar-cleopatra-mannings/f0bq0ts1vunuh8swstjl0hlz">a Superbowl commercial featuring Cleopatra</a>, these do not fully explain the significant number of views. The day-to-day viewership statistics of the Cleopatra article also do not point to any specific event as the cause.</p>
<p>It also doesn’t show the typical rapid decay pattern of public attention. My colleagues and I have found <a href="https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rsos.160460">in our past work</a> that online attention usually has a short half-life of five to eight days, similar to what we see in the case of the Dahmer page.</p>
<h2>Hey Google, tell me about Cleopatra</h2>
<p>Trying to find the reason for the sudden spike in views of the Cleopatra article, I turned to the internet for answers. Soon, someone on Twitter <a href="https://twitter.com/Pyb75/status/1606373228682874890?s=20&t=g0sF2TepIamVK-1Y_vQaFw">provided a clue</a>: the Google Assistant app, which uses voice recognition to allow users to interact with their phones through conversation, may be responsible.</p>
<p>Launched in 2016, the app is now built into at least 1 billion devices and has <a href="https://blog.google/products/assistant/heres-how-google-assistant-became-more-helpful-2018/">more than 500 million monthly users</a>. When you install the app and start using it, it provides examples of the types of requests you can make. </p>
<p>These include commands for your phone’s operating system, such as “Open YouTube,” or requests to initiate a web search, such as “How many ounces in a cup?” The app can also perform a combination of actions, such as “Show Cristiano Ronaldo on Instagram,” which would open the Instagram app and bring up Ronaldo’s profile.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Six screenshots of Google Assistant suggestions." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/503396/original/file-20230106-10576-k7ud43.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/503396/original/file-20230106-10576-k7ud43.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=329&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503396/original/file-20230106-10576-k7ud43.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=329&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503396/original/file-20230106-10576-k7ud43.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=329&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503396/original/file-20230106-10576-k7ud43.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503396/original/file-20230106-10576-k7ud43.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503396/original/file-20230106-10576-k7ud43.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Examples of the Google Assistant’s command suggestions.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>One of the prompts the app provides to demonstrate its capabilities is “Try saying: Show Cleopatra on Wikipedia”. Sure enough, in 2022, approximately more than 50 million people followed this prompt. Before Google Assistant <a href="https://blog.google/products/assistant/bringing-google-assistant-features-all-smart-devices/">became widespread in 2020</a>, the annual views on Cleopatra were around 2.5 million.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A screenshot of the relevant Google assistant prompt, overlayed onto a graph showing Cleopatra Wikipedia views since 2016." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/503399/original/file-20230106-25-750vf8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/503399/original/file-20230106-25-750vf8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=319&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503399/original/file-20230106-25-750vf8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=319&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503399/original/file-20230106-25-750vf8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=319&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503399/original/file-20230106-25-750vf8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503399/original/file-20230106-25-750vf8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503399/original/file-20230106-25-750vf8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Google Assistant prompt that is probably responsible for growing interest in Cleopatra’s Wikipedia page. Before 2020, the views remained low.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Designing collective attention</h2>
<p>The article’s popularity was probably greatly influenced by a prompt provided by the Google Assistant app, a seemingly arbitrary decision made by Google UX designers.</p>
<p>This is more than just an interesting coincidence. Researchers in the fields of social data science and web analytics often use statistics such as Google search volumes and Wikipedia page views to study attention and popularity dynamics. In addition to <a href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0071226">predicting the success of movies</a> at the box office I used such data to <a href="https://epjdatascience.springeropen.com/articles/10.1140/epjds/s13688-016-0083-3">study electoral popularity</a> as well. </p>
<p>While these rather new data sources can be useful and exciting, and great proxies for monitoring human behaviour online, they can lead to misleading analysis. In 2013, Google researchers tried – <a href="https://www.wired.com/2015/10/can-learn-epic-failure-google-flu-trends">and failed</a> – to predict the severity of the flu season by analysing user search data. </p>
<p>It’s important for researchers in computational social science to also consider qualitative methods and in-depth case studies to understand the story behind the data.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A smiling woman holds her smartphone up to her mouth to speak to a digital assistant" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/503387/original/file-20230106-10516-bqlyvc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/503387/original/file-20230106-10516-bqlyvc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503387/original/file-20230106-10516-bqlyvc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503387/original/file-20230106-10516-bqlyvc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503387/original/file-20230106-10516-bqlyvc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503387/original/file-20230106-10516-bqlyvc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503387/original/file-20230106-10516-bqlyvc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">‘Hey Google, show me Cleopatra on Wikipedia.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/smiling-african-woman-holding-phone-speak-1444225898">fizkes / Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>More importantly, the Cleopatra example highlights the impact that seemingly small decisions by designers can have on directing collective attention to certain topics and issues, sometimes with more serious consequences. Google <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-google-interferes-with-its-search-algorithms-and-changes-your-results-11573823753">has been criticised</a> for ranking search results in a way that prioritises its own products. </p>
<p>My previous research has shown how links on Wikipedia can <a href="https://www.science.org/doi/full/10.1126/sciadv.1602368">drive significant traffic</a> to certain articles, and how promoting certain petitions on the front page of a petitioning website can significantly <a href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0196068">alter the distribution of signatures</a> and therefore chances of receiving widespread attention for certain political causes.</p>
<p>This phenomenon shows how a small change or design decision can have large-scale effects when it reaches millions of users through digital technology. In this case, no harm was done and maybe we learned a bit more about Cleopatra and her relationship with Julius Caesar. But the significant power that high-tech and media companies have in shaping and influencing public attention should not be overlooked.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/197350/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Taha Yasseri receives funding from the Irish Research Council. </span></em></p>Small design decisions by big tech companies can play a role in directing our attention.Taha Yasseri, Associate Professor, School of Sociology; Geary Fellow, Geary Institute for Public Policy, University College DublinLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1926022022-11-24T19:05:43Z2022-11-24T19:05:43ZFriday essay: shaping history – why I spent ten years studying one Wikipedia article<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/496330/original/file-20221121-9586-h0rj85.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=6%2C134%2C4083%2C2323&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">An Egyptian woman takes part in a demonstration in Cairo, 25 January, 2011.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Amel Pain/EPA</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In mid-July 2008, I arrived in hot and sticky Alexandria. I had travelled to Egypt to attend Wikimania. As the name suggests, Wikimania is an event for those who share an all-consuming passion for the wiki. But not just any wiki … the most important wiki of all: Wikipedia – the online encyclopedia. </p>
<p>This annual conference for Wikipedians (Wikipedia’s volunteer editors) is a chance to celebrate the project, discuss important issues, and geek out on wiki lore.</p>
<p>I was one of 650 attendees from 45 countries that year. But the conference (held in the Bibliotheca Alexandrina, an attempt to revive the Great Library of Alexandria) had been mired in controversy. There were calls to boycott the event because of Egypt’s censorship and imprisonment of bloggers. In his opening speech, Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales highlighted the case of Abdel Kareem Nabil, a former university student sentenced to four years in prison on charges of insulting Islam and Egypt’s then President Hosni Mubarak, and inciting sectarian strife.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/495572/original/file-20221116-16-5617k3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/495572/original/file-20221116-16-5617k3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/495572/original/file-20221116-16-5617k3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=351&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/495572/original/file-20221116-16-5617k3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=351&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/495572/original/file-20221116-16-5617k3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=351&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/495572/original/file-20221116-16-5617k3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=441&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/495572/original/file-20221116-16-5617k3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=441&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/495572/original/file-20221116-16-5617k3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=441&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales pictured in 2008.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Yonhap/AAP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Although some governments tried to impede free speech, Wales said, this was pointless in the age of the internet, where people could share ideas on platforms like Wikipedia.</p>
<p>“Kareem Amer has become a cause around the world,” he said, showing Nabil’s English Wikipedia page on the screen. “Not the best strategy for keeping his ideas out of the public eye.”</p>
<p>Two and a half years on, in late January 2011, Egyptians took to the streets to demand the end of authoritarian rule. Less than two weeks after protests erupted, Egypt’s autocrat president Mubarak resigned. Some were calling this “the Facebook revolution,” others a “Twitter revolution”. </p>
<p>Sadly it was to be short-lived. In 2013 Egyptian army chief General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi took over in a coup. He still rules today and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/oct/18/greenwashing-police-state-egypt-cop27-masquerade-naomi-klein-climate-crisis">has imprisoned</a> an estimated 60,000 political prisoners, including those advocating democracy and free speech. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/495563/original/file-20221116-11-mv7o0r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/495563/original/file-20221116-11-mv7o0r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/495563/original/file-20221116-11-mv7o0r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=834&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/495563/original/file-20221116-11-mv7o0r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=834&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/495563/original/file-20221116-11-mv7o0r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=834&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/495563/original/file-20221116-11-mv7o0r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1048&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/495563/original/file-20221116-11-mv7o0r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1048&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/495563/original/file-20221116-11-mv7o0r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1048&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Police stand over a woman protesting on January 25, 2011.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Amel Pain/EPA</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But at the end of January 2011, as Mubarak still clung to power, the Israeli Wikipedian Dror Kamir wrote a startling message to a mailing list about Wikipedia’s role in the Egyptian protests.</p>
<p>Kamir pointed out that the first draft of the article about the Egyptian revolution on English Wikipedia had been published at 3:26pm local time, just hours after the first protests began. An Egyptian democracy activist and Wikipedian with the username The Egyptian Liberal had published this article, apparently to influence public opinion. “It almost seems as if the article preceded the actual events,” he wrote.</p>
<p>To Kamir, this demonstrated that Wikipedia “was losing its encyclopedic characteristics”. Wikipedians pride themselves on neutrality. Neutral point of view (or NPOV), is a core content policy. Editors are called to merely summarise reliable sources rather than offering their own original analysis. Policy determines that Wikipedians should follow public opinion rather than lead it. </p>
<p>In <a href="https://anduraru.wordpress.com/2011/06/25/parallel-online-and-real-world-egyptian-revolutions-or-wikipedias-tahrir-square/">a later blog post</a>, Kamir argued Wikipedia had clearly played a significant role in the events of January 2011, but “who is going to remember…?” </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/cop27-shines-light-on-civil-liberties-in-egypt-but-itll-take-work-to-achieve-real-freedom-194407">COP27 shines light on civil liberties in Egypt, but it'll take work to achieve real freedom</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Remembering the history-makers</h2>
<p>In the coming months and years, I tried to do just that: documenting how Wikipedians wrote the story of the Egyptian revolution and whether, in doing so, they influenced the revolution itself.</p>
<p>It has been over a decade since I started studying this <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Egyptian_revolution">single article on English Wikipedia about the 2011 revolution</a>. At the time of writing, it runs to almost 13,000 words and more than 400 citations.</p>
<p>Catalytic events have always been influenced by their mediation. But few had tried to understand Wikipedia’s role in history-making. When they did, they tended to present Wikipedia as hallowed ground where consensus is reached among a myriad alternative views.</p>
<p>The most important thing I have learned over this time is the truly subversive role of Wikipedia. Though the Egyptian revolution sputtered out, what I have gleaned from this example has a bearing on other history-making events playing out on Wikipedia now – from the war in Ukraine to the independence movement of Taiwan.</p>
<p>Wales was right when he gave that prescient speech. Wikipedia tends to be ignored because it is supposedly “neutral”. One of the world’s most popular platforms, maintained by <a href="https://wikimediafoundation.org/">a nonprofit organisation</a>, its mirage of neutrality is sustained by the idea that individuals may be biased but all crowds are wise.</p>
<p>Wikipedia supposedly reflects “common knowledge” and “collective memory”. But there are many different ways of seeing the world. There will always be an inevitable conflict between those tasked with its representation, especially when the risks and rewards are so great. How, then, did editors of the Egyptian article resolve these differences? What kind of history is the result?</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/495573/original/file-20221116-20-8me7a6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A Wikipedia page." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/495573/original/file-20221116-20-8me7a6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/495573/original/file-20221116-20-8me7a6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/495573/original/file-20221116-20-8me7a6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/495573/original/file-20221116-20-8me7a6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/495573/original/file-20221116-20-8me7a6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/495573/original/file-20221116-20-8me7a6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/495573/original/file-20221116-20-8me7a6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Wikipedia supposedly reflects ‘common knowledge’ and ‘collective memory’.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>A typical Wikipedia article is put together by Wikipedians – the volunteer editors who are committed to Wikipedia’s long-term maintenance. Anyone can be a Wikipedian, as long as you abide by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Policies_and_guidelines">the rules of the project</a> (many have a long history with the site). Wikipedians tend to use pseudonyms rather than their real names – there has been no policy requiring them to identify themselves.</p>
<p>As well as Wikipedians, entries are generally open to anyone else to edit. Many Wikipedians volunteer to watch over articles, receiving an alert when changes have been made to assess them.</p>
<p>A <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:What_Wikipedia_is_not#Wikipedia_is_not_a_crystal_ball">key Wikipedia rule</a> is that Wikipedia is not “a crystal ball”. The rule stipulates that Wikipedians should not write about events until their significance is generally known or before the event has concluded.</p>
<p>Soon after the revolution in 2011, I began analysing countless “talk page” discussions where Wikipedia editors discussed the reliability of sources, how to source free images and how to best summarise these events. (These discussions take place in a tab next to the article labelled “talk”.) </p>
<p>Over the next decade, I reviewed hundreds of edits, and interviewed leading editors. These included The Egyptian Liberal, a university student in his twenties, and Ocaasi, a US-based college graduate in his late twenties. Ocaasi, who suffered from anxiety and agoraphobia, told me he was editing Wikipedia obsessively at the time of the protests <a href="https://wikipedia20.mitpress.mit.edu/pub/k3dp712w/release/17">while sitting in his bathtub in a Philadelphia attic</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/495780/original/file-20221117-27-58ojhi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Head shot of a man." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/495780/original/file-20221117-27-58ojhi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/495780/original/file-20221117-27-58ojhi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=611&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/495780/original/file-20221117-27-58ojhi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=611&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/495780/original/file-20221117-27-58ojhi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=611&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/495780/original/file-20221117-27-58ojhi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=768&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/495780/original/file-20221117-27-58ojhi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=768&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/495780/original/file-20221117-27-58ojhi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=768&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ocaasi (Jake Orlowitz).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Rather than rational negotiation and broad consensus, I learned that Wikipedia articles about historic events are often the result of passionate struggle over representing what happened to whom and its consequences.</p>
<p>I learned about the importance of Wikipedians themselves in shaping the narrative into which individual facts were made to fit. Wikipedians shaped the representation of the event not by inserting falsities but rather by framing and selecting facts that supported certain narratives rather than others. </p>
<p>The Wikipedians moved quickly to create a new article on English Wikipedia when crowds first swarmed into Tahrir Square on January 25, 2011, defending it from possible attack from sceptics arguing it was too soon to be covering events. They bolstered the article’s authority by quickly adding citations to source the evidence for the unfolding protests. </p>
<p>This first move was successful in determining that the protests were important enough to warrant their own article early on. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/mubarak-a-man-who-built-on-his-talent-for-self-promotion-while-stifling-opposition-132565">Mubarak: a man who built on his talent for self-promotion while stifling opposition</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Writing the revolution into being</h2>
<p>After the first 24 hours in the life of the article, it had been edited 130 times. Forty two editors had joined The Egyptian Liberal including two longtime Wikipedians, Dragons flight, a physicist educated at UC Berkeley now living in Switzerland and Heroeswithmetaphors, who has made over 18,000 contributions to articles on multiple topics.</p>
<p>Editors settled into a routine – with American editors handing over to those in Egypt and elsewhere when they went to sleep. For Ocaasi, it was a galvanizing moment. “Everything before that on Wikipedia was just playing around and this was not,” he told me. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>It was also when my innocence about Wikipedia ended. It wasn’t just a hobby or escape […] There were hundreds of thousands of people reading the article and I knew that. There was a profound sense of responsibility […] I thought the world mattered so much those days and I thought I could play a part – not in an activist sense but by documenting what was happening. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>As the violent protests continued, experienced editors resisted attempts by newcomers to continuously change the article’s title from “protests” to “revolution”. A move of this significance requires consensus from editors on the talk page.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/495570/original/file-20221116-22-9nhhbn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A demonstration in Cairo." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/495570/original/file-20221116-22-9nhhbn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/495570/original/file-20221116-22-9nhhbn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=382&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/495570/original/file-20221116-22-9nhhbn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=382&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/495570/original/file-20221116-22-9nhhbn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=382&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/495570/original/file-20221116-22-9nhhbn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/495570/original/file-20221116-22-9nhhbn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/495570/original/file-20221116-22-9nhhbn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A tank stands amid crowds as protesters gather on Tahrir Square in Cairo, Egypt, 1 February 2011.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Hannibal Hanschke/EPA</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But within minutes of Mubarak’s resignation at 4pm on February 11, a large crowd of Wikipedia editors again tried to change key facts to reclassify the article to “revolution.” In the hour after Mubarak resigned, the number of readers accessing the page tripled from about 4,000 to 12,500. It was being edited every two minutes in the following hours, as three experienced Wikipedians struggled to hold back the flood of editors attempting to make significant changes before consensus had been reached about the title. </p>
<p>While this was happening, a discussion began on the talk page, with editors asked to weigh in on whether the title of the article should be changed. But an editor, Tariqabjotu, made the change just two hours after Mubarak’s resignation – long before the discussion had run its course. </p>
<p>At this time also, the article on the Tunisian protests, which had unseated long-time President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali the month before, was still merely named as an uprising. Six hours after Mubarek’s resignation, another editor, Knowledgekid87, moved from editing the Egyptian article to the Tunisian one, changing its name to “Tunisian revolution”. This reinforced the Egyptian title change.</p>
<p>On February 11 alone, 125,000 readers accessed the Egyptian article. The number of editors working on it more than tripled from 25 to 84. Many were new editors from the United States, UK, Canada, the Netherlands, Portugal and Singapore, overwhelming those who had been editing it consistently from the beginning.</p>
<p>Other editors in the crowd repeatedly changed the date of the events in the infobox (the small fact box on the right hand side of a Wikipedia article) from “25 January – ongoing” to “25 January – 11 February”. They did this to cement the idea that the protests were over and revolution had been achieved. </p>
<p>In my interviews with Ocaasi, he reflected on how editors surrendered to the momentousness of the occasion. Any effort to resist changes to the article’s title would have been swimming against a tide of editors, one of whom declared that Wikipedia shouldn’t “deny history.” </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/495569/original/file-20221116-20-yjn9z8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C17%2C4000%2C2580&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A crowd in Cairo" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/495569/original/file-20221116-20-yjn9z8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C17%2C4000%2C2580&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/495569/original/file-20221116-20-yjn9z8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=391&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/495569/original/file-20221116-20-yjn9z8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=391&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/495569/original/file-20221116-20-yjn9z8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=391&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/495569/original/file-20221116-20-yjn9z8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=491&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/495569/original/file-20221116-20-yjn9z8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=491&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/495569/original/file-20221116-20-yjn9z8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=491&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Tens of thousands of Egyptians pray and celebrate the fall of the regime of former President Hosni Mubarak on February 18 2011.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ben Curtis/AP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The crowd centred their activity on the infobox and the page name. These elements are the most important parts of a Wikipedia article because they present summarised facts that appear authoritative and stable. These facts have always been prioritised by Google and other search engines’ algorithms, which often place Wikipedia at the top of search results. But the infobox came to matter even more the year after the Egyptian revolution. </p>
<p>In 2012, Google <a href="https://www.blog.google/products/search/introducing-knowledge-graph-things-not/">announced</a> a major new project that would build a massive database of facts built from “public” information sources such as Wikipedia and the CIA World Factbook. </p>
<p>Google’s algorithms selectively extract facts from Wikipedia’s infoboxes, divorcing them from the context in which they originated. Sources and citations are often removed. The facts appear more stable than they are on Wikipedia, where they are flanked by breaking news warnings and “citation needed” tags. Wikipedians have no control over Google’s process. </p>
<p>Over a decade after the 2011 Egyptian revolution, Wikipedia is still the authority for facts about the event. If you ask Google, Bing or Yahoo what happened in Egypt in 2011, they will present facts extracted from the English Wikipedia article. </p>
<p>But Google and other platforms extract them automatically and without understanding or debate. The result is a representation of capitalist logic embedded in the machines that have been programmed not to serve public meaning-making but rather to feed revenue sources. </p>
<p>For the past few years, Google’s knowledge panel about the revolution has contained the words, “Deaths section below” after facts about numbers killed during the revolution. This is material lifted from Wikipedia but not linked to further information – so it becomes a meaningless phrase. It shows how Wikipedians have lost control over some of the information they carefully provide. Yet many more people will view this material now in a search engine rather than on Wikipedia. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/egypt-hopes-for-democratic-future-die-as-al-sisi-marches-country-towards-dictatorship-with-parliaments-blessing-113491">Egypt: hopes for democratic future die as al-Sisi marches country towards dictatorship – with parliament's blessing</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>A struggle for power</h2>
<p>Popular accounts like <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wisdom_of_Crowds">The Wisdom of Crowds</a> and <a href="https://www.wired.com/2008/06/pb-theory/">the End of Theory</a> present both crowds and algorithms as sources of truth and neutrality. By such accounts, crowds supposedly smooth out one anothers’ biases or ignorance and Big Data enables accuracy because of our access to huge datasets. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/495574/original/file-20221116-16-rnqjwn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/495574/original/file-20221116-16-rnqjwn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/495574/original/file-20221116-16-rnqjwn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=899&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/495574/original/file-20221116-16-rnqjwn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=899&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/495574/original/file-20221116-16-rnqjwn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=899&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/495574/original/file-20221116-16-rnqjwn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/495574/original/file-20221116-16-rnqjwn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/495574/original/file-20221116-16-rnqjwn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But I discovered a passion and feverish anticipation of revolution in Egypt from the very first entry on it, just hours after the protests began on January 25. Rather than rational consensus among dispassionate observers, Wikipedia mirrored the passion, emotion and violence of Tahrir Square. </p>
<p>Did Wikipedia shape the political events at the time, as suggested by Kamir? Ultimately, the story of this Wikipedia entry reiterates how young people (the leading Wikipedia editors) were able to win the information war in Egypt but not transform the government. Most of the article’s editors were people in favour of the revolution.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, Wikipedia articles about political events are important battlegrounds for interest groups vying for control over the historical record. Their impact lives on, courtesy of search engines’ algorithms and the global reach of the site itself. And such struggles for power are no doubt happening, elsewhere, in other Wikipedia articles today.</p>
<p><em>Writing the Revolution: Wikipedia and the Survival of Facts in the Digital Age is published by <a href="https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262046299/writing-the-revolution/">MIT Press</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/192602/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Heather Ford receives funding from the Australian Research Council.</span></em></p>How are Wikipedia pages about contentious events put together? Heather Ford discovered a hotbed of passion, a rotating pack of editors and a struggle for power behind its mirage of neutrality.Heather Ford, Associate Professor, University of Technology SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1833282022-10-04T12:24:02Z2022-10-04T12:24:02ZMedical guidelines that embrace the humility of uncertainty could help doctors choose treatments with more research evidence behind them<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/487393/original/file-20220929-13-rdzy69.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C2121%2C1412&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Clinical guidelines can change when new research provides contradictory findings.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/female-doctor-leading-medical-team-discussion-in-royalty-free-image/1211642642">Thomas Barwick/DigitalVision via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Clinical guidelines greatly influence how doctors care for their patients. By providing recommendations on how to diagnose and treat particular situations, guidelines can help standardize the care patients receive. For instance, when a patient is suffering from an infection, a physician can consult the relevant guidelines to confirm that antibiotics are the appropriate treatment. Regulators, insurance payers and lawyers can also use guidelines to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1186/s13012-015-0369-z">manage a doctor’s performance</a>, or as evidence in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1001/virtualmentor.2011.13.1.hlaw1-1101">malpractice cases</a>. Often, guidelines compel doctors to provide care in specific ways.</p>
<p><a href="https://medicine.umich.edu/dept/orthopaedic-surgery/jaimo-ahn-md-phd">We</a> <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=vMbPdAMAAAAJ&hl=en">are</a> <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=duyhV8AAAAAJ&hl=en">physicians</a> who share a common frustration with guidelines based on weak or no evidence. We wanted to create a new approach to medical guidelines built around the <a href="https://doi.org/10.7326/M21-3034">humility of uncertainty</a>, in which care recommendations are only made when data is available to support the care. In the absence of such data, guidelines could instead present the pros and cons of various care options.</p>
<p>We got together an international team of physicians and pharmacists to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2022.11321">create a guideline on creating guidelines</a>. We call this new type of guideline a WikiGuideline, not affiliated with Wikipedia but similarly opening collaboration to all people. The idea was to enable any qualified practitioner to have a voice in guideline construction, rather than limiting authorship to academics who are politically active in specialty societies in wealthy countries.</p>
<h2>Why a new guideline for medical guidelines?</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111%2Fj.1468-0009.2007.00505.x">clinical guidelines movement</a> first began to gain steam in the 1960s. Guideline committees, usually composed of subspecialty experts from academic medical centers, would base care criteria on randomized clinical trials, considered the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(15)60742-5">gold standard</a> of empirical evidence.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, many committees have since started providing answers to clinical questions even <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/ofid/ofab033">without data</a> <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cardfail.2016.07.433">from high-quality</a> clinical trials. Instead, they have based recommendations primarily on anecdotal experiences or low-quality data.</p>
<p>Medical guidelines made with insufficient data can lead to <a href="https://doi.org/10.7326/M21-3034">patient harm</a>. </p>
<p>For example, guidelines once instructed doctors to prescribe hormone replacement therapy to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(19)31709-X">all post-menopausal women</a> to prevent breast cancer. However, a subsequent large randomized controlled trial showed that giving hormone replacement therapy actually increased the risk of breast cancer. While guidelines have <a href="https://www.uptodate.com/contents/menopausal-hormone-therapy-and-the-risk-of-breast-cancer">since been updated</a> to narrow down who would benefit from hormone replacement therapy, prior practices have likely resulted in breast cancer for many patients.</p>
<p>Other poorly made guidelines have also seen similar results. </p>
<p>A guideline that instructed doctors to use higher doses of an antibiotic called <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/ki.2010.35">vancomycin for bacterial infections</a> was later shown to not be more effective and also increase the risk of kidney failure. Likewise, a guideline that promoted aggressive, rapid administration of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1164/rccm.201908-1581ST">antibiotics to patients who may have pneumonia</a> was found to not improve outcomes and cause side effects for patients who did not actually end up diagnosed with pneumonia.</p>
<p>Another guideline promoted the use of medications called <a href="https://doi.org/10.1001/jamainternmed.2013.11349">beta blockers</a> for certain types of surgeries before researchers learned that they increased the risk of heart attacks during and after the procedures. Similarly, a guideline promoting the use of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJMoa052521">intensive insulin therapy in the ICU</a> was later shown to cause blood sugar levels to drop to dangerously low levels.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/MmjVo0wYzsQ?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">While guidelines provide recommendations, doctors will still need to use their subjective clinical judgment for each case.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>A WikiGuideline for bone infection</h2>
<p>To create a new form of medical guideline that takes the strength of available evidence for a particular practice into account, we gathered 60 other physicians and pharmacists from eight countries on Twitter to draft the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2022.11321">first WikiGuideline</a>. Bone infections were voted as the conditions most in need of new guidelines.</p>
<p>We all voted on seven questions about bone infection diagnosis and management to include in the guideline, then broke into teams to generate answers. Each volunteer searched the medical literature and drafted answers to a clinical question based on the data. These answers were repeatedly revised in open dialogue with the group.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/487392/original/file-20220929-14-reep1y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Health care providers sitting at conference table" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/487392/original/file-20220929-14-reep1y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/487392/original/file-20220929-14-reep1y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/487392/original/file-20220929-14-reep1y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/487392/original/file-20220929-14-reep1y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/487392/original/file-20220929-14-reep1y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/487392/original/file-20220929-14-reep1y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/487392/original/file-20220929-14-reep1y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Opening guideline committees to nonacademic or specialty society health care providers could bring new perspectives to guideline creation.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/mature-male-doctor-leading-medical-team-meeting-royalty-free-image/529400761">Thomas Barwick/Stone via Getty Images</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>These efforts ultimately generated a document with more than 500 references and provided clarity to how providers currently manage bone infections. Of the seven questions we posed, only two had sufficient high-quality data to make a “clear recommendation” on how providers should treat bone infection. The remaining five questions were answered with reviews that provided pros and cons of various care options.</p>
<p>The recommendations WikiGuidelines arrived at differ from current bone infection guidelines by professional group for medical specialists. For example, WikiGuidelines makes a clear recommendation to use oral antibiotics for bone infections based on numerous randomized controlled trials. Current standard guidelines, however, recommend giving intravenous antibiotics, despite the evidence that giving treatment orally is not only <a href="https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJMoa1710926">just as effective</a> as giving it intravenously, but is also safer and results in fewer side effects.</p>
<h2>Next steps</h2>
<p>Providers benefit from careful review of a clinical case. When there isn’t enough data to make a clear recommendation, laying out what data is available can help inform their clinical judgment. </p>
<p>We believe that more inclusive guideline committees that open participation to qualified practitioners instead of just those within specialty societies could help make for better medical guidelines. The <a href="https://www.wikiguidelines.com">WikiGuidelines Group</a> now has over 110 members from over 14 countries, many of which are lower- and lower-middle-income countries. We are currently working on a guideline for managing heart valve infections.</p>
<p>It is our hope that future guidelines can avoid the errors of the past by incorporating the humility of uncertainty into the process, acknowledging when the evidence is unclear and only issuing clear recommendations when high quality data can support them.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/183328/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>I have participated in multiple aspects of clinical practice guideline creation on multiple occasions.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Brad Spellberg and Robert Centor do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>How doctors care for their patients is highly influenced by clinical guidelines. Recommendations based on anecdotal experience or poor data can harm patients.Brad Spellberg, Chief Medical Officer at the Los Angeles County + University of Southern California Medical Center, Adjunct Professor of Medicine, University of Southern CaliforniaJaimo Ahn, Gehring Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery, University of MichiganRobert Centor, Professor Emeritus of Medicine, University of Alabama at BirminghamLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1688342021-11-04T19:10:35Z2021-11-04T19:10:35ZStudents are told not to use Wikipedia for research. But it’s a trustworthy source<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/429888/original/file-20211103-25-n3j4f1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/istanbul-turkey-march-27-2018-screenshot-1055520989">Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>At the start of each university year, we ask first-year students a question: how many have been told by their secondary teachers not to use Wikipedia? Without fail, nearly every hand shoots up. Wikipedia offers free and reliable information instantly. So why do teachers almost universally distrust it? </p>
<p>Wikipedia has community-enforced policies on neutrality, reliability and notability. This means <a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/92/Instructor_Basics_How_to_Use_Wikipedia_as_a_Teaching_Tool.pdf">all information</a> “must be presented accurately and without bias”; sources must come from a third party; and a Wikipedia article is notable and should be created if there has been “third-party coverage of the topic in reliable sources”.</p>
<p>Wikipedia is free, non-profit, and <a href="https://wikimediafoundation.org/wikipedia20/">has been operating for over two decades</a>, making it an internet success story. At a time when it’s increasingly difficult to separate truth from falsehood, Wikipedia is an accessible tool for fact-checking and fighting misinformation. </p>
<h2>Why is Wikipedia so reliable?</h2>
<p>Many teachers point out that anyone can edit a Wikipedia page, not just experts on the subject. But this doesn’t make Wikipedia’s information unreliable. It’s virtually impossible, for instance, for conspiracies to remain published on Wikipedia.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/on-the-job-with-a-wikipedian-in-residence-118494">On the job with a ‘Wikipedian in residence’</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>For popular articles, Wikipedia’s <a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/92/Instructor_Basics_How_to_Use_Wikipedia_as_a_Teaching_Tool.pdf">online community of volunteers, administrators and bots</a> ensure edits are based on reliable citations. Popular articles are reviewed thousands of times. Some media experts, such as Amy Bruckman, a professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology’s computing centre, argue that because of this painstaking process, a highly-edited article on Wikipedia <a href="https://au.pcmag.com/social-media/87504/wikipedia-the-most-reliable-source-on-the-internet">might be the most reliable source of information ever created</a>. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1454764093576040451"}"></div></p>
<p>Traditional academic articles – the most common source of scientific evidence – <a href="https://theconversation.com/shifting-toward-open-peer-review-156043">are typically only peer-reviewed by up to three people</a> and then never edited again. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-is-peer-review-27797">Explainer: what is peer review?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Less frequently edited articles on Wikipedia might be less reliable than popular ones. But it’s easy to find out how an article has been created and modified on Wikipedia. All modifications to an article are archived in its “<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Bird&action=history">history</a>” page. Disputes between editors about the article’s content are documented in its “<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Bird">talk</a>” page. </p>
<p>To use Wikipedia effectively, school students need to be taught to find and analyse these pages of an article, so they can quickly assess the article’s reliability.</p>
<h2>Is information on Wikipedia too shallow?</h2>
<p>Many teachers also argue the information on Wikipedia is too basic, particularly for tertiary students. This argument supposes all fact-checking must involve deep engagement. But this is <a href="https://hapgood.us/2017/03/04/how-news-literacy-gets-the-web-wrong/">not best practice</a> for conducting initial investigation into a subject online. Deep research needs to come later, once the validity of the source has been established.</p>
<p>Still, some teachers are horrified by the idea students need to be taught to assess information quickly and superficially. If you look up the general capabilities in the Australian Curriculum, you will find “<a href="https://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/f-10-curriculum/general-capabilities/critical-and-creative-thinking/">critical and creative thinking</a>” encourages deep, broad reflection. Educators who conflate “critical” and “media” literacy may be inclined to believe analysis of online material must be slow and thorough.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/430128/original/file-20211104-13-1ajc79d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Primary school student writing on notepad with laptop open." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/430128/original/file-20211104-13-1ajc79d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/430128/original/file-20211104-13-1ajc79d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=385&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/430128/original/file-20211104-13-1ajc79d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=385&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/430128/original/file-20211104-13-1ajc79d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=385&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/430128/original/file-20211104-13-1ajc79d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=483&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/430128/original/file-20211104-13-1ajc79d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=483&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/430128/original/file-20211104-13-1ajc79d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=483&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Students should be taught to use Wikipedia’s ‘talk’ and ‘history’ pages.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/kid-self-isolation-using-computor-his-1707140332">Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Yet the reality is we live in an “<a href="https://firstmonday.org/article/view/519/440">attention economy</a>” where everyone and everything on the internet is <a href="https://www.edsurge.com/news/2018-12-19-recalibrating-our-approach-to-misinformation">vying for our attention</a>. Our time is precious, so engaging deeply with spurious online content, and potentially falling down misinformation rabbit holes, wastes a most valuable commodity – our attention. </p>
<h2>Wikipedia can be a tool for better media literacy</h2>
<p>Research suggests Australian children are not getting sufficient instruction in spotting fake news. <a href="https://theconversation.com/we-live-in-an-age-of-fake-news-but-australian-children-are-not-learning-enough-about-media-literacy-141371">Only one in five young Australians</a> in 2020 reported having a lesson during the past year that helped them decide whether news stories could be trusted.</p>
<p>Our students clearly <a href="https://www.utas.edu.au/social-change/publications/insights/insight-five-media-literacy-in-australian-schools">need more media literacy education</a>, and Wikipedia can be a good media literacy instrument. One way is to use it is with “<a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3048994">lateral reading</a>”. This means when faced with an unfamiliar online claim, students should leave the web page they’re on and open a new browser tab. They can then investigate what trusted sources say about the claim. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/we-live-in-an-age-of-fake-news-but-australian-children-are-not-learning-enough-about-media-literacy-141371">We live in an age of 'fake news'. But Australian children are not learning enough about media literacy</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Wikipedia is the perfect classroom resource for this purpose, even for primary-aged students. When first encountering unfamiliar information, students can be encouraged to go to the relevant Wikipedia page to check reliability. If the unknown information isn’t verifiable, they can discard it and move on. </p>
<p>More experienced fact-checkers can also <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/opinion-fake-news-web-literacy-propaganda-fact-checkers_n_5c1812f5e4b0432554c332e3">beeline to the authoritative references</a> at the bottom of each Wikipedia article. </p>
<p>In the future, we hope first-year university students enter our classrooms already understanding the value of Wikipedia. This will mean a widespread cultural shift has taken place in Australian primary and secondary schools. In a time of climate change and pandemics, everyone needs to be able to separate fact from fiction. Wikipedia can be part of the remedy.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/168834/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rachel Cunneen has received grants from the ACT Education Directorate; The University of Canberra and the US Embassy (Aust). </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mathieu O'Neil has received grants from the ACT Education Directorate; The University of Canberra and the US Embassy (Aust). He is affiliated with the Digital Commons Policy Council. </span></em></p>At a time when it’s increasingly difficult to separate truth from falsehood, Wikipedia is an accessible tool for fact-checking and fighting misinformation.Rachel Cunneen, Senior Lecturer in English and Literacy Education, Student Success and LANTITE coordinator, University of CanberraMathieu O'Neil, Associate Professor of Communication, News and Media Research Centre, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1667902021-09-07T12:52:47Z2021-09-07T12:52:47ZThe women who appear in Dante’s ‘Divine Comedy’ are finally getting their due, 700 years later<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/418945/original/file-20210901-15-1g689r5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=454%2C4%2C2394%2C1678&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">In a 14th-century illustration, Dante reaches out to Sapia, whose eyes have been sewn shut.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/objects/10974934-30a5-4495-857e-255760e5c5ff/surfaces/cbf145d8-20b4-424f-900c-39029e2e7421/">Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>When Dante Alighieri died 700 years ago, on Sept. 14, 1321, he had just put his final flourishes on the “<a href="https://digitaldante.columbia.edu/dante/divine-comedy/">Divine Comedy</a>,” a monumental poem that would inspire readers for centuries. </p>
<p>The “Divine Comedy” follows the journey of a pilgrim across the three realms of the Christian afterlife – hell, purgatory and paradise. There, he encounters a variety of characters, many of whom are based on real people Dante had met or heard of during his life.</p>
<p>One of them is a woman named Sapia Salvani. Sapia meets Dante and his first guide, Virgil, on the second terrace of purgatory. She tells the two how her fate in the afterlife was sealed – how she stood at the window of her family’s castle and, with troops gathering in the distance, prayed for her own city, Siena, to fall. Despite their advantage, the Sienese were slaughtered – including Sapia’s nephew, whose head was paraded around Siena on a pike. </p>
<p>Sapia, however, felt triumphant. According to Dante and medieval theologians, she had fallen prey to one of the seven capital vices, “<a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/envy/">invidia</a>,” or envy.</p>
<p>The portrayal of Sapia in the “Divine Comedy” is imbued with political implications, many of which boil down to the fact that Dante blamed the violence of his time on those who turned against their communities out of arrogance and greed. </p>
<p>But the real Sapia was even more interesting than Dante would have you believe. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sapia_Salvani">Documentary sources</a> reveal that she was a committed philanthropist: With her husband, she founded a hospice for the poor on the Via Francigena, a pilgrimage route to Rome. Five years after witnessing the fall of Siena, she donated all her assets to this hospice. </p>
<p>Sapia is one among many characters from the “Divine Comedy” that deserve to be known beyond – and not just because of – what Dante decided to say about them in his poem. <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=zL8_2JQAAAAJ&hl=en">With my students at Wellesley College</a>, I’m reviving the real stories behind the characters of Dante’s masterpiece and making them available to everyone on Wikipedia. And it was especially important for us to start with his female characters.</p>
<h2>Why women?</h2>
<p>Among the 600 characters appearing in the “Divine Comedy,” women are the least likely to appear in the historical record. Medieval authors tended to write <a href="https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230360020_6">biased accounts of women’s lives, motives and aspirations</a> – if not ignore them altogether. As a result, the “Divine Comedy” is often the only accessible source of information on these women. </p>
<p>At the same time, Dante’s treatment of women isn’t free from misogyny. Scholars such as <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/24003857">Victoria Kirkham</a>, <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt130jppk">Marianne Shapiro</a> and <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/2887423">Teodolinda Barolini</a> have shown that Dante relished turning women into metaphors, from pious maidens to villainesses capable of bringing dynasties to their knees.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Side profile of a man." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/418970/original/file-20210901-25-199d3ns.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/418970/original/file-20210901-25-199d3ns.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418970/original/file-20210901-25-199d3ns.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418970/original/file-20210901-25-199d3ns.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418970/original/file-20210901-25-199d3ns.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418970/original/file-20210901-25-199d3ns.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418970/original/file-20210901-25-199d3ns.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A recreation of Dante Alighieri’s death mask at the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence, Italy.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/photo-taken-on-february-23-2021-at-the-palazzo-vecchio-in-news-photo/1231657931">Vincenzo Pinto/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>For this reason, fuller pictures of Dante’s women have been elusive. As a researcher, you’re lucky if you can come across a contemporary who supported or built upon Dante’s tangled reinvention, or documents in which the woman in question is mentioned as mother, wife or daughter.</p>
<h2>Putting together the pieces on Wikipedia</h2>
<p>The more my students asked me about the women in the poem, the more I wondered: What if we found a way to tell everyone their stories? So I approached <a href="https://wikiedu.org/">Wiki Education</a>, a nonprofit that fosters the collaboration between higher education and Wikipedia, to see if they would partner with me and my students. They agreed.</p>
<p>The recipe behind Wikipedia’s two decades of success is its stunning simplicity: an open encyclopedia written and maintained by a worldwide community of volunteers who draft, edit and monitor its free content. </p>
<p>Wikipedia’s status as a crowdsourced work is one of its greatest strengths, but it’s also its greatest weakness <a href="https://theconversation.com/wikipedia-at-20-why-it-often-overlooks-stories-of-women-in-history-92555">in that it reflects the world’s systemic flaws</a>: The vast majority of Wikipedia contributors <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_Insights/2018_Report/Contributors">identify as male</a>.</p>
<p>In 2014, <a href="https://arxiv.org/pdf/1502.02341v1.pdf">only 15.5% of Wikipedia’s biographies in English</a> were about women. By 2021, that number <a href="https://humaniki.wmcloud.org/search">had risen to 18.1%</a>, but that was after <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_Red">more than six years of sustained efforts</a> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_MedievalWiki">aimed at bolstering</a> the representation of women on Wikipedia by creating new entries and referencing scholarship authored by women.</p>
<h2>Knowledge as advocacy</h2>
<p>For my students, researching and composing Wikipedia entries on Dante’s characters doubled as advocacy. </p>
<p>Writing for Wikipedia is different from writing an essay. You must be unbiased, avoid personal flourishes and always back your statements with external references. Rather than producing an argument, you offer readers the tools to build an argument of their own. </p>
<p>And yet the very act of writing an entry about a person does advance a specific argument: that their life is worth being the focus of attention, rather than an easily forgettable name in the backdrop of a grand narrative. This choice is a radical one. It’s an affirmation that someone possesses historical value beyond the fact that they provided a spark of inspiration to an author.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/418740/original/file-20210831-27-6w2y1y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Drawing of a woman floating before a surprised man." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/418740/original/file-20210831-27-6w2y1y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/418740/original/file-20210831-27-6w2y1y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=710&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418740/original/file-20210831-27-6w2y1y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=710&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418740/original/file-20210831-27-6w2y1y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=710&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418740/original/file-20210831-27-6w2y1y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=893&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418740/original/file-20210831-27-6w2y1y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=893&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418740/original/file-20210831-27-6w2y1y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=893&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Beatrice Portinari guiding Dante through paradise in a drawing by Sandro Botticelli.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/dante-and-beatrice-1492-1495-illustration-to-the-divine-news-photo/1155875053">The Print Collector/Heritage Images via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Pursuing this goal was not without challenges; it could be difficult to maintain an unbiased tone while telling stories of violence and abuse. </p>
<p>That was the case with <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghisolabella_Caccianemico">Ghisolabella Caccianemico</a>, a young woman from Bologna sold into sexual slavery by her brother, Venèdico, who hoped to form an alliance with a neighboring marquis. Dante told his readers a “filthy tale” that would make them indignant. In it, Ghisolabella is a silent victim surrounded by men. </p>
<p>However, we turned Ghisolabella into the subject of her story, threading the fine line between giving a starkly objective account of the violence she suffered and preserving her dignity. </p>
<p>“Ghisolabella’s extramarital relation[s] with the marquis, though against her will, was ruinous to her status,” <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghisolabella_Caccianemico">wrote my student</a>, citing early 20th-century scholars who canvassed the archives of Bologna for evidence on Ghisolabella. </p>
<p>“Dante’s inclusion of Ghisolabella,” she added, “eternalizes Venèdico’s sin.”</p>
<h2>Turning the tables on Dante</h2>
<p>Researching these women also turned into an opportunity to upend Dante’s personal views.</p>
<p>Take <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beatrice_d%27Este_(1268%E2%80%931334)">Beatrice d’Este</a>, a noblewoman Dante criticizes for marrying again after her first husband died. Dante was outraged by widows who dared to remarry instead of remaining forever faithful to their late spouses. Not everyone, however, agreed with his defamation of Beatrice. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/418968/original/file-20210901-17-1d20neb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Side profile of woman with blonde hair." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/418968/original/file-20210901-17-1d20neb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/418968/original/file-20210901-17-1d20neb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=574&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418968/original/file-20210901-17-1d20neb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=574&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418968/original/file-20210901-17-1d20neb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=574&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418968/original/file-20210901-17-1d20neb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=721&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418968/original/file-20210901-17-1d20neb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=721&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418968/original/file-20210901-17-1d20neb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=721&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Beatrice d'Este.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Beatrice_d%27Este_lady_of_Milan.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>To tell Beatrice’s story, my student just needed to look into the right places – namely, an exceptional article by Deborah W. Parker, <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/40166472">who put Dante’s treatment of Beatrice into context</a>.</p>
<p>Parker explains how Beatrice was likely pressured into her second marriage and tried to negotiate her place in a world that subjected her to slander. By having the family crests of her two husbands carved side by side on her tomb, she made a pregnant statement about her identity and allegiances.</p>
<p>[<em>You’re smart and curious about the world. So are The Conversation’s authors and editors.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=youresmart">You can read us daily by subscribing to our newsletter</a>.]</p>
<p>Thanks to our work, in addition to Ghisolabella and Beatrice d’Este, there are now over a dozen biographies of these women on Wikipedia: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alagia_Fieschi">Alagia Fieschi</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cianghella_della_Tosa">Cianghella della Tosa</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constance,_Queen_of_Sicily">Constance of Sicily</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cunizza_da_Romano">Cunizza da Romano</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaia_da_Camino">Gaia da Camino</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giovanna_da_Montefeltro">Giovanna da Montefeltro</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gualdrada_Berti">Gualdrada Berti</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joanna_of_Gallura">Joanna of Gallura</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matelda">Matelda</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nella_Donati">Nella Donati</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pia_de%27_Tolomei">Pia de’ Tolomei</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piccarda_Donati">Piccarda Donati</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sapia_Salvani">Sapia Salvani</a>. They join <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beatrice_Portinari">Beatrice Portinari</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francesca_da_Rimini">Francesca da Rimini</a>, the only two historical women from the “Divine Comedy” who had acceptable entries on Wikipedia prior to our work.</p>
<p>As feminist theorist Sara Ahmed writes in “<a href="https://www.dukeupress.edu/living-a-feminist-life">Living a Feminist Life</a>,” “citations can be feminist bricks: they are the materials through which, from which, we create our dwellings.” </p>
<p>One brick at a time – one page, revision or added reference at a time – Wikipedians can broaden our understanding of the past, centering women’s stories in a world that has long edited them out.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/166790/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Laura Ingallinella does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>One citation at a time, a professor and her students are crafting a more complete picture of Dante’s women.Laura Ingallinella, Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in Italian Studies and English, Wellesley CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1184942019-07-10T18:45:15Z2019-07-10T18:45:15ZOn the job with a ‘Wikipedian in residence’<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/282943/original/file-20190706-51292-1656hfv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Philadelphia WikiSalon May</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Philadelphia_WikiSalon_May_11,_2019_8061.jpg">Avery Jensen at Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>While on a fellowship at Philadelphia’s Science History Institute, I worked for the first time with a “Wikipedian in residence”, Mary Mark Ockerbloom. I am assisting her with the monthly WikiSalons organized at the institute, and we are both imagining ways of improving Wikipedia on topics that are of concern to the institute’s research fellows.</em></p>
<p><em>Faithful to the spirit of Creative Commons, this interview draws upon an <a href="https://www.sciencehistory.org/distillations/wikispeaks-what-it-means-to-be-a-wikipedian-in-residence">interview that previously appeared in “Distillations”</a>, the Science History Institute’s magazine and podcast, kindly released under a <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/">CC-BY-SA-3.0 license</a>.</em></p>
<hr>
<p><strong>Q: What do you do as Wikipedian in residence (WiR) at the Institute?</strong></p>
<p><strong>A:</strong> I write new Wikipedia articles on the history of science and improve existing ones, and I release images that are public domain or for which the Institute owns the copyright. I also do outreach in the broader Philadelphia and Wikipedia communities. When I first started working here, a number of people were concerned about releasing images under a creative commons license for general use, but over time, people have become more accepting and even enthusiastic about the idea. The digital initiatives team did a lot of work as they developed our new digital archive, with the result it has become accepted policy of the Institute to release materials from their digitized archive under a CC-BY-SA 3.0 license where possible.</p>
<p><strong>Q: How did you get interested in this kind of work?</strong></p>
<p><strong>A:</strong> In the early 2000s I created a website called <a href="http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/">A Celebration of Women Writers</a> to combat the lack of information about women authors online. Readers wrote to me suggesting writers and works to add, and I often recommended that they create Wikipedia pages about them. Eventually I began to edit Wikipedia myself. In 2006, when I created my first article, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harriet_A._Roche">Harriet A. Roche</a>, there were fewer Wikipedia guidelines. As first written, that article would never have passed the new article requirements that are in place today. It had no sourcing and no standardized formatting. Thankfully the people who reviewed it made helpful changes. I’ve gone back and improved it several times since then. It’s a good example both of how an article can develop and how Wikipedia’s standards have developed.</p>
<p><strong>Q: How has the field changed over the years?</strong></p>
<p><strong>A:</strong> As more people have added content to the site, Wikipedia has created more rules to filter out poor-quality content. Wikipedia uses a system of checks and balances to try to stop inaccurate, unimportant, biased, and promotional content from being put on the site. One of the things that worries me is the potential for misinformation and bias to go undetected. Wikipedia relies on the assumption that people with a range of opinions and expertise will work on articles and that they will collaborate and resolve their differences of opinion. The hope is that the resulting article will be balanced and complete, but that can only happen if people with varying perspectives engage productively with the information in the article and with each other.</p>
<p>Wikipedia tracks all changes and contributors and that transparency makes it easier to see what’s happening. Wikipedia is a great platform for teaching people skills of fact-checking and digital literacy that can be applied everywhere, not just on Wikipedia. People need to think critically about the materials that they read and ask themselves, “Who said this? What is the original source of this information? Does the source really say what it is claimed to say? Are there possible biases in what’s written or Is relevant information not being addressed? Is the information both accurate and up-to-date?”</p>
<p><strong>Q: What types of institutions have hired Wikipedians in residence?</strong></p>
<p><strong>A:</strong> Each Wikipedian in residence position is unique, a collaboration between the host institution and the Wikipedian involved. That said, my impression is that there have been more WiR positions in Europe than in the United States, and that European WiR have tended to focus on the release of public domain images, rather than on editing content. That may reflect perceived mission, types of collections, and copyright issues. A collection of older artworks may focus on image release. Institutions with an interest in science may see improving written content as important to their mission.</p>
<p>There’s ongoing discussion in the Wikipedia communities about the role of WiR. One question is whether a WiR should edit content at all. Many WiR don’t edit as part of their job. Those who do are likely to work for organizations interested in STEM [science, technology, engineering and mathematics] as well as GLAM [galleries, libraries, archives and museums]. The recently created Wikimedians in Residence Exchange Network (WREN) is a Wikimedia user group to support collaboration among WiR and advocacy as a group.</p>
<p><strong>Q: There is a recurring debate about the issue of “paid editing” within the community. How do the Wikipedians in residence handle the issue? Do they receive negative feedback from some Wikipedians?</strong></p>
<p><strong>A:</strong> There is a very legitimate concern on Wikipedia that someone who is being paid to edit will edit in a biased way. The term <em>paid editing</em> is often used but <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Conflict_of_interest"><em>conflict-of-interest editing</em></a> is more accurate. It applies to editors who attempt to manipulate the information on Wikipedia to introduce bias and advance the interests of a specific person or institution. A <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Congressional_staff_edits_to_Wikipedia">congressional staffer</a> might remove criticism of members of congress, or a <a href="https://slate.com/technology/2019/06/north-fake-wikipedia-image.html">PR firm</a> might promote the products of its clients, or a <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/wikipedia-rocked-by-rogue-editors-blackmail-scam-targeting-small-businesses-and-celebrities-10481993.html">scammer</a> might try to extort money by offering to “protect” articles that might otherwise be deleted. In all these cases, an editor is putting the interests of someone who will benefit from the presence of biased information ahead of the interests of Wikipedia and its readers who benefit from unbiased information. This is a violation of Wikipedia’s terms of use.</p>
<p>A Wikipedian in residence can be paid and still edit in a way that provides unbiased, accurate information. The mission of Wikipedia and the mission of cultural institutions like the Science History Institute are not at odds. Both see the provision of good information as important. The test that I use in deciding what to edit as a WiR is the same one I use for personal editing: is there a potential conflict of interest? If I’m not the person I’m writing about; I’m not paid by the person or institution I’m writing about, and I didn’t write the source that I’m citing, there’s no conflict.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/118494/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alexandre Hocquet is a member of Wikimedia France</span></em></p>While most Wikipedia editors are volunteers, some are employed by Wikipedia. The Science History Institute’s Mary Mark Ockerbloom offers insight into the “Wikipedian in residence” program.Alexandre Hocquet, Professeur des Universités en Histoire des Sciences, Visiting fellow at the Science History Institute, Université de LorraineLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1118482019-02-14T20:22:59Z2019-02-14T20:22:59ZNo, Wikipedia didn’t get Oscar-winning actress Olivia Colman’s birthdate wrong<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/258982/original/file-20190214-1733-ju7xx2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=38%2C0%2C4318%2C2740&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Olivia Colman in _The Favorite_.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">20th Century Fox</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Who hasn’t heard about <a href="https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?cat=34&q=%2Fm%2F061d58">actress Olivia Colman</a> in recent weeks? Not only did she win a Golden Globe for her role in <em>The Favourite</em>, she took home the much-coveted <a href="https://theconversation.com/oscars-2019-olivia-colman-wins-best-actress-but-yet-again-hollywood-shows-it-thinks-film-making-is-a-man-thing-109534">best-actress Oscar</a>. </p>
<p>During her numerous interviews, one of the many anecdotes that Colman tells <a href="http://www.david-tennant.co.uk/2019/01/david-tennant-does-podcast-with-olivia.html">concerns Wikipedia</a>. In the “free encyclopedia that anyone can edit”, Colman apparently discovered that her birthdate was incorrect – the article unkindly made her eight years older than she actually was. When telling the story she reports that she sent “them” an e-mail to request a correction, that their response said she had to provide a birth certificate to prove it. While this initially provoked her outrage, it also gave the British actress a juicy anecdote that ridicules Wikipedia – just the kind of anecdote loved by media such as <a href="https://news.sky.com/story/olivia-colman-reveals-battle-with-wikipedia-over-her-age-11619990">Sky News</a>, <a href="https://www.mirror.co.uk/3am/celebrity-news/olivia-colman-says-part-aa-13915400"><em>The Daily Mirror</em></a>, <a href="https://www.standard.co.uk/showbiz/celebrity-news/olivia-colman-reveals-wikipedia-battle-to-change-birthday-after-she-was-aged-by-eight-years-a4050726.html"><em>The Evening Standard</em></a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5eBT6OSr1TI"><em>The Daily Mail</em></a>, <a href="https://www.harpersbazaar.com/uk/celebrities/news/a26057928/olivia-colman-reveals-struggle-wikipedia-age/"><em>Harper’s Bazaar</em></a> and even <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/news/olivia-colman-wikipedia-age-the-favourite-oscars-2019-best-actress-david-tennant-podcast-a8749821.html"><em>The Independent</em></a>.</p>
<h2>Full archives</h2>
<p>Yet it’s easy to trace the dynamics of any Wikipedia article from the day it was created until the present: <em>all</em> successive versions of every article are archived and accessible via the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Olivia_Colman&action=history">“view history” tab</a> at the top right. In the case of the “Olivia Colman” article in English, among thousands of successive versions, one can verify that the first time that the (correct) birthdate of the British actress was inserted <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?diff=48554622&oldid=48444597&title=Olivia_Colman&type=revision&diffmode=source">was in 2006</a> and that it remained unchanged until 2019.</p>
<p>How Olivia Colman saw in Wikipedia an error ageing her by eight years remains a mystery. Once she started to tell her story in interviews, however, things changed fast – by January 28, her birthdate had been modified <a href="https://xtools.wmflabs.org/articleinfo/en.wikipedia.org/Olivia_Colman#month-counts">dozens of times</a> in a few hours, rewarding her with a flurry of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Olivia_Colman&diff=prev&oldid=880618268&diffmode=source">extravagant ages</a>. To stop the avalanche of vandalism that this kind of buzzing inevitably provokes, Wikipedia administrators then made the page <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Olivia_Colman&type=revision&diff=880618281&oldid=880618268&diffmode=source">semi-protected</a>.</p>
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<p>Interestingly, <em>The Independent</em> shows two screenshots of the Wikipedia article with the right and then wrong birthdate. They mention that the incorrect birthdate is in fact from a screenshot taken <em>after</em> the announcement, but not that the whole story was proven entirely wrong: In the “view history” section of Colman’s article, not one has the incorrect birthdate <em>before</em> the story came out. Yet it would have been very easy for <em>The Independent</em>‘s writers to verify this.</p>
<p>Wikipedians actually did the work of fact-checking within the sources and the archives, and the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Olivia_Colman#Birth_Date_Controversy">report of their findings</a> is itself archived and accessible in the article’s “discussion” page. It was even mentioned as a brief in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2019-01-31/In_the_media">The Signpost</a>, the Wikipedian magazine. (This sparked the idea for this article, for which the author is indebted to them.)</p>
<h2>The ideal villain</h2>
<p>What is then the explanation for this fuss? It is not impossible that Olivia Colman confused Wikipedia and another site. For example, in 2011 the actress Joan Collins <a href="https://twitter.com/Joancollinsdbe/status/112473160372334592">tweeted</a> that Wikipedia had mistakenly stated that she had an affair with a certain Arthur Lowe. After <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Joan_Collins/Archive_1#Arthur_Lowe">checking the facts</a>, Wikipedians found that Collins was in fact referring to an <a href="http://www.nndb.com/people/802/000022736/">obscure site</a> that had nothing to do with Wikipedia (and information she denied is <a href="http://www.nndb.com/people/802/000022736/">still there</a> eight years later, by the way). Is there a biographic fact mentioned on the web that’s incorrect? Then surely it’s Wikipedia!</p>
<p>It happens that in the media world (and also in academia), Wikipedia is the “usual suspect”. One has to be wary of the Internet, especially in times of fake news, and it’s certainly true that in Wikipedia, anyone can write anything. As such, it is regularly <a href="https://theconversation.com/wikipedia-pour-une-critique-pertinente-69110">accused</a> of not being reliable, compared to the legitimate sources of information that are professional journalism and academy.</p>
<p>Wikipedia has been one of the most visited sites for 18 years, since its inception. Yet the inner workings of the online encyclopedia are so little known to the general public that such baseless assertions are considered credible. It is all the more surprising because Wikipedia carries archiving and transparency principles within its rules and practices. Those principles, which can be traced back to the free software movement that <a href="https://www.press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/W/bo19085555.html">inspired Wikipedia</a>, are underpinned by the traceability that is one of its foundations.</p>
<p>Some advice for Olivia Colman: rather than “sending an e-mail to Wikipedia”, she can edit Wikipedia herself, like everyone else. And if someone tells her “she has to show a birth certificate”, then she should be interested in what Wikipedia actually requires: not primary sources like birth certificates, but <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2NVH21MEe0">secondary ones</a> – publicly available sources in which her birthdate is mentioned.</p>
<h2>A challenge for actresses</h2>
<p>This anecdote reveals something else about Wikipedia’s image in the media. The encyclopedia has (literally) bad press among well-known people, whether they are actors, journalists, academics or politicians. It is safe to say that this is connected to the fact that the idea they have about the reliability of Wikipedia is largely influenced by what they see in the article that is of concern to them: <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/09/fashion/Wikipedia-Judith-Newman.html">their own page</a>. It is often unpleasant to <em>not</em> master a page that speaks about oneself. In the case of movie actresses, the stakes are high. The Wikimedia Foundation often receives requests for information removal, or even unfounded threats of legal action. The major part of them come from representatives of actresses seeking to remove from the encyclopedia the (true) birthdate of their clients. Olivia Colman took advantage of this anecdote to bravely assert her age to the general public, and this makes her an exception in Hollywood.</p>
<p>One could interpret this remark as misogynous and mocking the coquetry of women: It is quite the opposite. These women are indeed working in a ruthless industry. This industry is very well known for its <a href="https://www.stylist.co.uk/people/olivia-colman-ageism-feminism-the-favourite-golden-globes-red-carpet-sexism-celebrity-news/244604">ageism</a>, and this affects actresses far more than actors. What is revealed here is rather the extraordinary pressure of this industry on its female employees. In this sense, the anecdote Olivia Colman tells that, if it does not do justice to Wikipedia, it has the virtue of pointing the issue of discrimination against women in the Western entertainment industry. Happy birthday, Olivia!</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/111848/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alexandre Hocquet ne travaille pas, ne conseille pas, ne possède pas de parts, ne reçoit pas de fonds d'une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n'a déclaré aucune autre affiliation que son organisme de recherche.</span></em></p>Olivia Colman has a funny story to tell on Wikipedia about the age displayed in her biography in the online encyclopedia. The opportunity for a Wikipedia fact-checking.Alexandre Hocquet, Professeur des Universités en Histoire des Sciences, Université de LorraineLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1106462019-02-05T15:33:40Z2019-02-05T15:33:40ZEnvisioning real utopias from within the capitalist present – Erik Olin Wright remembered<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/257081/original/file-20190204-193217-pq2xip.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Erik Olin Wright, 1947-2019.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/rosalux/6943851642/in/photolist-bzB4b3-bzB4jw-bNvGSe">Rosa Luxemburg-Stiftung</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>It is not uncommon for advocates of a socialist alternative to capitalism to hear others say “it’s a nice idea but it does not work in practice”, or that the Soviet experience proved, once and for all, that capitalism is the best socio-economic model we can get. </p>
<p>Erik Olin Wright, who <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/erik-olin-wright-inspired-the-left-to-embrace-real-utopianism/">died</a> on January 23 2019, begged to differ. Wright devoted his career as a sociology professor at the <a href="https://www.ssc.wisc.edu/soc/faculty/show-person.php?person_id=54">University of Wisconsin-Madison</a> to breathing new life into the study of alternatives to capitalism. He did so with a consistent concern, namely to harness social scientific reasoning to construct a better socio-economic system.</p>
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<p>And yet, by the end of his life, Wright had reached a level of international acclaim that few Marxist theorists ever achieve. With the global financial crisis prompting a widespread search for alternatives to capitalism, and ideas he championed such as the <a href="https://www.ssc.wisc.edu/%7Ewright/Basic%20Income%20as%20a%20Socialist%20Project.pdf">universal basic income</a> moving into the mainstream, Wright was a key figure behind <a href="https://www.newstatesman.com/2019/01/what-we-can-learn-erik-olin-wright-godfather-universal-basic-income">the resurgent left</a> on both sides of the Atlantic. His ideas are more relevant now than ever.</p>
<p>In 2010, Wright poured his <a href="https://www.dissentmagazine.org/blog/remembering-erik-olin-wright?fbclid=IwAR2r2BGUgQr6MApLsRi8oqIJdlP5Ge7lybL0pQVD9HbqkU9ydcMMhQ3Z_dk">decades of research</a> into one of his major works entitled <a href="https://www.versobooks.com/books/463-envisioning-real-utopias">Envisioning Real Utopias</a>. In this immensely lucid, accessible and important book, Wright made his most comprehensive attempt at formulating a set of ideas and strategies that could liberate humanity from its current social, economic and political restrictions – what we might term an “emancipatory” social science. He constructed it around three main axes: a diagnosis of capitalism, a look at some alternatives to capitalism and a theory of transformation. Here, Wright wished to show the reader why a socialist alternative is not only desirable but also something achievable. </p>
<p>While there are different possible pathways towards the socialist transformation of society, Wright told us, we are best off conceptualising alternatives to the status quo on the basis of the “anti-capitalist potential” of things that actually exist. These “real utopias”, as he called them, include such organisations as workers’ cooperatives and even Wikipedia. They are “real” simply by virtue of existing. And they are “utopian” because the values upon which they rest, along with the practices they uphold, provide insights into an emancipatory alternative that has the potential to be brought into existence.</p>
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<span class="caption">Wright: Wikipedia ‘a profoundly egalitarian, anti-capitalist way of producing and sharing knowledge’.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">pixinoo/Shutterstock</span></span>
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<p>But Envisioning Real Utopias is more than a book. It is, as I see it, akin to a manual for thinking about the practice of socialism. For Wright did not limit himself to demonstrating why capitalism ought to, and indeed can be, superseded by something better. He also highlighted how three core socialist values – equality, cooperation and freedom – can co-exist in practice. As such, he provided the reader with a guide for not merely thinking about emancipation but, also and crucially, for realising it. </p>
<p>Its realisation, Wright thought, would depend on the formation of institutions that can guarantee “social empowerment” or, to put it differently, individuals’ capacity to exert control, collectively, over the ownership and use of economic resources and activities. In a workers’ cooperative, for example, workers are effectively empowered by owning an equal share of the organisation and having an equal voice in decision making. </p>
<p>In the case of Wikipedia, one finds highly collaborative practices between a core of paid employees and volunteers. Decisions, such as what to include in different encyclopedic entries, are the result of a deliberative process between editors (which any member of the public can choose to become), without the need for a body specifically devoted to editorial control. </p>
<p>Wright acknowledged the fact that “social empowerment” could take several forms but insisted that, the higher its degree, the more an economy and society would be regarded as socialist. </p>
<p>His analytical framework can therefore be used to assess the degree of social empowerment that particular organisations have the potential to realise. This is in fact what Wright set out to do with worker cooperatives and Wikipedia. Despite their currently limited capacity to radically change things within a capitalist economy, both provide insights into the kind of institutions capable of guiding society towards greater empowerment. </p>
<p>It is worth remembering here that capitalism began its journey within the margins of the feudal economy – and what Wright provided us with are the analytical resources to understand how socialism could potentially emerge from within the margins of the capitalist economy.</p>
<p>Those reading the book will also be in a position to appreciate something that characterised many of Wright’s works, namely the capacity to combine a passionate stance with intellectual rigour. He was indeed critical of capitalism and passionate about emancipation, but also firmly devoted to the task of formulating a robust critical social science. Whether Wright studied <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/2654939#metadata_info_tab_contents">inequality</a>, the basic income, or alternatives to capitalism, he would do so with admirable assiduity, clarity and precision.</p>
<p>The greatest achievement of Envisioning Real Utopias is, as I understand it, its invaluable role in demonstrating that despite the reigning cynicism about the possibility for change, one need not seek refuge in a utopia in the clouds. Wright’s book is a stark reminder that elements of a vision for the future are often, if not always, found in the present. In his poignant and inspiring <a href="https://www.caringbridge.org/visit/erikolinwright/journal">blog</a> documenting the days before his death, Wright told us he did not fear death. He has now left us, but his work lives on – a work that inspires us not to fear capitalism’s death and to remain hopeful about socialism’s existence.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/110646/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Charles Masquelier does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The late sociologist looked at existing ‘utopias’ that could herald a world after capitalism.Charles Masquelier, Lecturer in Sociology, University of ExeterLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/961572018-05-08T20:19:15Z2018-05-08T20:19:15ZOnline news trolls not as bad as we think<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/217795/original/file-20180504-166910-lbovv4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Many people are turned away by abusive language on online news sites but new research reveals that only 15 per cent of comments are "nasty."</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Toxicity online seems pervasive. We encounter and hear about all manner of obscene language, insults and slurs. Some of it even comes from U.S. President Donald Trump. Much of his <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/01/28/upshot/donald-trump-twitter-insults.html">long list of attacks against people, places and things</a> has been unfurled online. </p>
<p>Mhairi Black, a British MP, <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5472527/Mhairi-Black-MP-use-C-word-Parliament.html">speaking of the online abuse she receives on a daily basis</a>, says it is anything but entertaining: “I struggle to see any joke in being systematically called a dyke, a rug muncher, a slut, a whore, a scruffy bint.” Her speech made headlines in the United Kingdom because it was the first time anyone had used the c-word in the House of Commons.</p>
<p>The work that we do within my <a href="http://www.sfu.ca/discourse-lab/research.html">research group</a> looks at a large dataset of comments posted in response to online articles in the <em>Globe and Mail</em>, the main English daily in Canada. We discovered that, although there is certainly some trolling, there are also a significant amount of constructive comments in news articles. </p>
<p>The comments on the <em>Globe and Mail</em> site are typically related to the article, provide evidence to support an opinion and are specific. In general, we found them to be “nice” and not “nasty” comments. And more than just nice, they promote meaningful conversations, stay on topic and engage with other readers.</p>
<p>In fact, our research has shown that only about 10-15 per cent of online news comments are toxic, containing offensive language, insults or attacks. No matter how small or large the percentage, news organizations and online platforms are continuously engaged in efforts to minimize the toxicity level of comments posted on their sites.</p>
<p>This is important, because many people are turned away by abusive language online, even if it is only a small fraction of all content. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Mhairi Black, British MP, discusses the online trolls she encounters daily.</span></figcaption>
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<p>In a recent <em>New York Times</em> readers’ survey, some said they believe reading the comments is valuable because doing so <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/25/opinion/you-never-see-that-point-of-view-in-mainstream-press.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=opinion-c-col-right-region&region=opinion-c-col-right-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-right-region">exposes you to views that are different from your own</a>. </p>
<p>We do not know if anyone will change their point of view as a result of reading the comments, but perhaps they will understand that other points of view can be valid. Some are working to introduce the idea that we all benefit when <a href="https://heterodoxacademy.org/zachary-wood-senate-testimony-on-free-speech/">perspectives are challenged</a> and commenters are forced to rigorously interrogate and defend their views. </p>
<p>Being exposed to only certain points of view leads to a <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/23808985.1991.11678790">“spiral of silence”</a> — a situation where individuals are afraid to voice what they consider a minority opinion, which then reinforces that opinion as marginal. </p>
<h2>Promoting meaningful conversations</h2>
<p>Most news sites prominently display community guidelines, and sometimes ask readers to confirm that they will abide by them before posting. Until it discontinued reader input late last year (input which <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/inside-the-globe/article-dear-reader-the-globes-comments-are-back-with-some-big-changes/">has recently been reinstated</a>), the <em>Globe and Mail</em> <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/help/community-guidelines/article4229672/%5d/">asked readers to review other comments</a> and assess them for civility. </p>
<p>The <em>New York Times</em> selects “NYT Picks,” posts that their <a href="https://help.nytimes.com/hc/en-us/articles/115014792387-Comments">moderators find particularly insightful</a> or that display a range of viewpoints. Some organizations have decided to ban comments altogether, finding that they contain <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/letters/archive/2018/02/we-want-to-hear-from-you/552170/">too much offensive material</a>, or that the work of <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/sun-newspapers-to-close-comments-on-most-online-stories/article26535866/">moderating them is too onerous</a>.</p>
<p>The Canadian Broadcasting Corp. <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/newsblogs/community/editorsblog/2015/11/uncivil-dialogue-commenting-and-stories-about-indigenous-people.html">does not allow feedback</a> on stories about Indigenous issues, because they “draw a disproportionate number of comments that cross the line and violate our guidelines.” The <em>Tyee</em> has <a href="https://thetyee.ca/News/2018/02/15/A-Few-Words-Commenting/">appealed to its readers</a> to help them “stay out of the muck.” </p>
<p>It does seem that every news organization, and online content providers in general, are grappling with how much user-generated content to allow and how to moderate it. Even Twitter is asking academics to help them foster <a href="https://blog.twitter.com/official/en_us/topics/company/2018/twitter-health-metrics-proposal-submission.html">healthier conversations</a>.</p>
<h2>Can anyone become a troll?</h2>
<p>Previous research also shows that toxicity is widely distributed across the population of online users. For example, a <a href="https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?doid=3038912.3052591">study of Wikipedia talk pages</a> found that only about 20 per cent of abusive comments are written by established trolls. The other 80 per cent are one-offs, people having a bad day. So, yes, even you or I can become a troll. </p>
<p>This poses a particular challenge, as most efforts are directed at banning specific individuals from platforms. While that is necessary, and partly effective because of <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1207/S15327957PSPR0504_2?journalCode=psra">a “contagion effect”</a>, that is, the idea that negative ideas are more influential than positive ones, it is more important to educate all users of a platform. </p>
<p>In other words, banning the few bad apples will not be enough to stop the flow of toxicity.</p>
<p>It may feel like you encounter nasty and toxic language frequently. And, indeed, in some forums (for instance, some subreddits) that is the case. But, as our research reveals, most news comments are relevant to the article, provide evidence to support the views expressed and contribute to the conversation. </p>
<p>We are now developing algorithms that will automatically identify constructive comments, so that we can promote them, and identify toxic ones, so that we can filter them out. One possibility would be to promote good comments by displaying them more prominently, over rants and personal attacks.</p>
<p>This research can also be used to help commenters as they write. Imagine if you could run your comment through an algorithm that will tell you whether it is constructive or not. <a href="https://www.perspectiveapi.com/">Such systems already exist</a> to stamp out toxicity, although <a href="https://qz.com/918640/alphabets-hate-fighting-ai-doesnt-understand-hate-yet/">they don’t always work well</a>. </p>
<p>Our algorithm will tell you whether you are contributing to the conversation. Then we may have more of the meaningful and less of the nasty.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/96157/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Maite Taboada receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, The Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, and NVIDA Corporation.</span></em></p>Are online trolls as bad as we think? New research reveals that most online news comments contribute positively to the conversation.Maite Taboada, Professor of Linguistics, Simon Fraser UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/929342018-04-12T19:53:33Z2018-04-12T19:53:33ZWhat Wikipedia can teach us about blockchain technology<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/214437/original/file-20180412-577-1plbbms.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Wikipedia depends on the collaborative effort of volunteer writers to add information, bypassing trusted authorities. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/paris-france-october-19-2017-wikipedia-746561143?src=_jz0usd7lK8L-M1pBiV7qg-1-55">Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Almost a decade after the introduction of Bitcoin, there is a lot of hype about the blockchain technology on which cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin are based. Some claim the technology will revolutionise commerce; others are more critical in their predictions. </p>
<p>But the technology behind blockchain remains a mystery to many people.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-accountants-of-the-future-will-need-to-speak-blockchain-and-cryptocurrency-if-they-want-your-money-91189">Why accountants of the future will need to speak blockchain and cryptocurrency if they want your money</a>
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<p>A blockchain is a decentralised, distributed and open public ledger made up of a sequence of “blocks” that are “chained” via a cryptographic hash.</p>
<p>If that still sounds like gibberish to you, there is a popular application that shares the philosophy of the blockchain technology that can help you understand how it works: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page">Wikipedia</a>. </p>
<h2>A decentralised, open public ledger</h2>
<p>Wikipedia is a free online encyclopedia that depends on the collaborative effort of decentralised volunteer writers called “Wikipedians” who add to this constantly increasing repository of information. </p>
<p>Despite being based on a central database, Wikipedia is decentralised in the sense that the ability to add information is completely open and public. This freedom to add information to the database, or ledger, and the freedom to access the full history of all previous changes, is similar to a blockchain. </p>
<p>While traditional encyclopedias rely on scholars to provide information, Wikipedia gives this role to the public, bypassing trusted authorities. </p>
<p>Similarly, Bitcoin gives the role of the intermediary to the public, bypassing traditional central intermediaries such as banks.</p>
<h2>Other common features</h2>
<h3>Consensus</h3>
<p>Wikipedians contribute information with the aim of improving the quality of the existing information. If an edit on Wikipedia is not accepted by other contributors it will be changed until a consensus is reached.</p>
<p>If no consensus can be reached, the “edit war” is settled by an appointed authority. </p>
<p>The consensus in Bitcoin follows the greatest amount of work expended by the Bitcoin network consisting of “miners”, and is represented by the longest blockchain.</p>
<p>Miners verify transactions and expend resources to complete the “proof-of-work”. Once the work is complete the network will show their acceptance by linking new blocks to the existing one.</p>
<h3>Transparency</h3>
<p>Contributions made by Wikipedians are transparent, similar to the open and publicly accessible transaction history of any user’s Bitcoin wallet stored on the blockchain. </p>
<p>The time-stamped history of all edits made to the Wikipedia page is visible through the “View History”. Just as each Bitcoin can be traced to its inception, all prior versions and iterations of a Wikipedia entry are publicly available and show the path towards the current consensus. </p>
<p>The dynamic evolution of content within Wikipedia is a major difference from traditional encyclopedias, which offer a more centralised and more static repository of information. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-it-would-be-in-everybodys-interests-to-regulate-cryptocurrencies-91168">Why it would be in everybody's interests to regulate cryptocurrencies</a>
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<h3>Trust and incentive</h3>
<p>Both Wikipedians and bitcoin miners replace the necessity for trusted central authorities.</p>
<p>Interestingly, the incentive to contribute to the network differs. Wikipedians are not financially rewarded, whereas Bitcoin miners receive Bitcoin for their contributions to the blockchain. </p>
<p>If a miner included an invalid transaction in their block, then the cost to complete the proof-of-work would go unrewarded as honest miners would not link new blocks to the chain. </p>
<p>Although the opportunity to vandalise and provide inaccurate information on Wikipedia exists, the transparency of edits makes it straightforward for honest writers to identify and rectify changes.</p>
<p>This discourages devious attempts to discredit the information on Wikipedia since any attempt will be recorded as a time-stamped, unalterable chain of edits. A long chain of edits represents the amount of work Wikipedians have put into developing the topic. Longer chains can signal a higher quality of information.</p>
<h2>Points of difference</h2>
<p>A feature that Wikipedia does not share with the classical blockchain is encryption. Because ownership and anonymity is an important feature on the Bitcoin blockchain, encryption of information is needed so that coins cannot be stolen or duplicated. </p>
<p>On Wikipedia there is no ownership of information, making encryption redundant.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/bitcoin-rich-kids-in-puerto-rico-crypto-utopia-or-crypto-colonialism-91527">Bitcoin rich kids in Puerto Rico: crypto utopia or crypto-colonialism?</a>
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<p>Another key difference is synchronised, simultaneous distribution. Wikipedia is not distributed because the participants of the network do not update and store the information on their computers. If they did, it would be very costly and thus very inefficient – a major drawback of distributed systems. </p>
<p>Decentralisation is also inefficient as it generally takes longer to reach a consensus. But the final outcome may be better compared to a centralised system. </p>
<p>In other words, Wikipedia may be less efficient than a traditional encyclopedia but the final edition may be much better.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/92934/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The technology behind blockchain remains a mystery to many, but the it shares many common features with the popular online encyclopedia with which most web users are very familiar.Dirk Baur, Professor of Finance, The University of Western AustraliaDaniel Cahill, Associate lecturer, The University of Western AustraliaZhangxin (Frank) Liu, Senior Lecturer of Finance, The University of Western AustraliaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/925552018-03-16T10:25:34Z2018-03-16T10:25:34ZWikipedia at 20: Why it often overlooks stories of women in history<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/210278/original/file-20180314-113462-hhoyez.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Less than a third of biographical entries on Wikipedia are about women. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">aradaphotography/shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Movements like #MeToo have drawn increased attention to the systemic discrimination facing women in a range of professional fields, from Hollywood and journalism to banking and government. </p>
<p>Discrimination is also a problem on user-driven sites like Wikipedia. Wikipedia’s 20th birthday is on Jan. 15, 2021 and today it is the <a href="https://www.alexa.com/topsites">thirteenth most popular website worldwide</a>. In December 2020, the online encyclopedia had <a href="https://stats.wikimedia.org/#/all-projects">over 22 billion page views</a>.</p>
<p>The volume of traffic on Wikipedia’s site – coupled with its integration into search results and digital assistants like Alexa and Siri – makes Wikipedia the predominant source of information on the web. YouTube even started including <a href="https://gizmodo.com/wikipedia-had-no-idea-youtube-was-going-to-use-it-to-fa-1823772883">Wikipedia links below videos</a> on highly contested topics. But studies show that Wikipedia underrepresents content on women.</p>
<p>We are a <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=tbm8pkUAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">historian</a> and <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=YUl_JOoAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">librarian</a> at the Rochester Institute of Technology, and we’re taking steps to empower our students and our global community to address issues of gender bias on Wikipedia.</p>
<h2>Signs of bias</h2>
<p>Driven by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedians">a cohort of over 33 million volunteer editors</a>, Wikipedia’s content can change in almost real time. That makes it a prime resource for current events, popular culture, sports and other evolving topics. </p>
<p>But relying on volunteers leads to systemic biases – both in content creation and improvement. A 2013 study estimated that women only accounted for <a href="https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0065782">16.1 percent of Wikipedia’s total editor base</a>. Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales believes <a href="http://www.thejournal.ie/wikipedia-founder-gender-imbalance-3668767-Oct2017">that number has not changed</a> much since then, despite several organized efforts. </p>
<p>If women don’t actively edit Wikipedia at the same rate as men, topics of interest to women are at risk of receiving disproportionately low coverage. One study found that Wikipedia’s coverage of women was <a href="http://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/777">more comprehensive than Encyclopedia Britannica online</a>, but entries on women still constituted less than 30 percent of biographical coverage. Entries on women also <a href="https://ojs.aaai.org/index.php/ICWSM/article/view/14628">more frequently link to entries on men than vice-versa</a> and are more likely to include information on romantic relationships and family roles.</p>
<p>What’s more, Wikipedia’s policies state that all content must be <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Core_content_policies">“attributable to a reliable, published source.”</a> Since women throughout history have been less represented in published literature than men, it can be challenging to find reliable published sources on women. </p>
<p>An obituary in a paper of record is often a criterion for inclusion as a biographical entry in Wikipedia. So it should be no surprise that women are underrepresented as subjects in this vast online encyclopedia. As The New York Times itself noted, its obituaries since 1851 <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/obituaries/overlooked.html">“have been dominated by white men”</a> – an oversight the paper now hopes to address through its “Overlooked” series.</p>
<p>Categorization can also be an issue. In 2013, a <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/28/opinion/sunday/wikipedias-sexism-toward-female-novelists.html">New York Times op-ed</a> revealed that some editors had moved women’s entries from gender-neutral categories (e.g., “American novelists”) to gender-focused subcategories (e.g., “American women novelists”). </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/210282/original/file-20180314-113449-1sl4olz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/210282/original/file-20180314-113449-1sl4olz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/210282/original/file-20180314-113449-1sl4olz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/210282/original/file-20180314-113449-1sl4olz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/210282/original/file-20180314-113449-1sl4olz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/210282/original/file-20180314-113449-1sl4olz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/210282/original/file-20180314-113449-1sl4olz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/210282/original/file-20180314-113449-1sl4olz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Next great American woman novelist?</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Roman Kosolapov/shutterstock.com</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Wikipedia is not the only online resource that suffers from such biases. The user-contributed online mapping service <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s10708-013-9492-z">OpenStreetMap is also more heavily edited by men</a>. On GitHub, an online development platform, women’s contributions have a higher acceptance rate than men, but a study showed that the rate drops noticeably when the contributor <a href="https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj-cs.111">could be identified as a woman through their username or profile image</a>. </p>
<p>Gender bias is also an ongoing issue in content development and search algorithms. Google Translate has been shown to <a href="http://genderedinnovations.stanford.edu/case-studies/nlp.html">overuse masculine pronouns</a> and, for a time, LinkedIn <a href="https://www.seattletimes.com/business/microsoft/how-linkedins-search-engine-may-reflect-a-bias/">recommended men’s names</a> in search results when users searched for a woman.</p>
<h2>What can be done?</h2>
<p>The solution to systemic biases that plague the web remains unclear. But libraries, museums, individual editors and the Wikimedia Foundation itself continue to make efforts to improve gender representation on sites such as Wikipedia. </p>
<p>Organized edit-a-thons can create a community around editing and developing underrepresented content. Edit-a-thons aim to increase the number of active female editors on Wikipedia, while empowering participants to edit entries on women during the event and into the future. </p>
<p>Our university library at the Rochester Institute of Technology hosts an annual <a href="https://infoguides.rit.edu/WomenWikiRIT/">Women on Wikipedia Edit-a-thon</a> in celebration of Women’s History Month. The goal is to improve the content on at least 100 women in one afternoon.</p>
<p>For the past six years, students in our school’s American Women’s and Gender History course have worked to create new or substantially edit existing Wikipedia entries about women. One student created an entry on deaf-blind pioneer <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geraldine_Lawhorn">Geraldine Lawhorn</a>, while another added roughly 1,500 words to jazz artist <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blanche_Calloway">Blanche Calloway’s</a> entry. </p>
<p>This class was supported by <a href="https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Education">the Wikimedia Education Program</a>, which encourages educators and students to contribute to Wikipedia in academic settings. </p>
<p>Through this assignment, students can immediately see how their efforts contribute to the larger conversation around women’s history topics. One student said that it was <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2017/02/22/515244025/what-students-can-learn-by-writing-for-wikipedia">“the most meaningful assignment she had” as an undergraduate</a>. </p>
<p>Other efforts to address gender bias on Wikipedia include <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IdeaLab/Inspire">Wikipedia’s Inspire Campaign</a>; organized editing communities such as <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_Red">Women in Red</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Teahouse">Wikipedia’s Teahouse</a>; and <a href="https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1322971">the National Science Foundation’s Collaborative Research grant</a>.</p>
<p>Wikipedia’s dependence on volunteer editors has resulted in several systemic issues, but it also offers an opportunity for self-correction. Organized efforts help to give voice to women previously ignored by other resources.</p>
<p><em>This is an updated version of an article originally published in 2018.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/92555/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Wikipedia’s coverage on women is less comprehensive, and its volunteer editor base is mostly male. What can be done to change the numbers?Tamar Carroll, Associate Professor of History, Rochester Institute of TechnologyLara Nicosia, Liberal Arts Librarian, Rochester Institute of TechnologyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/914302018-02-09T10:14:34Z2018-02-09T10:14:34ZRobots, kittens and Netflix: Turkish curbs on the media reach ludicrous levels<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/205664/original/file-20180209-51703-o5pcdd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EvrenKalinbacak/Shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Regulation and censorship mechanisms have recently reached absurd levels in Turkey. Two stark recent examples illustrate the banality of the recent creeping controls. </p>
<p>On February 6, a robot was reformatted in Ankara because it warned the Turkish Transport, Maritime and Communications Minister Ahmet Arslan to speak more slowly during his speech. Upon interruption, Arslan, jokingly, said: “Dear friends, it is clear someone should get the robot under control, do what is necessary.”</p>
<p>Ironically, the well-functioning robot was instantly controlled at an event that aimed to celebrate the internet and technology; it was muted for the rest of the day.</p>
<p>And on January 31, Ali Erbaş, the head of Turkey’s Directorate of Religious Affairs (Diyanet) slammed the controversial TV celebrity and creationist Adnan Oktar. Oktar’s TV shows, which are broadcast on his own A9 TV channel, as well as Daily Motion and YouTube, feature controversial religious references. He famously calls his female devotees on the shows his “kittens”. Erbaş denigrated the “perversity” of Oktar’s TV shows and recommended that “the authorised institution should do something about it”.</p>
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<h2>‘Just for monitoring’</h2>
<p>Against this backdrop, perhaps it is no surprise that new laws concerning internet and television regulation <a href="https://tr.sputniknews.com/turkiye/201802051032119770-dijital-servislere-rtuk-denetimi-geliyor/">are now being issued</a>. The aim is to grant extensive powers to the Radio and Television Supreme Council (RTÜK). </p>
<p>According to the <a href="http://www.diken.com.tr/buyuk-sansur-kapida-goruntulu-ve-sesli-internet-yayinlari-rtuke-tabi-olacak/">draft decree</a>, no internet platforms, including global streaming services such as Netflix, Spotify and YouTube, as well as the national internet TV stations such as BluTV or Puhu will be able to broadcast without relevant licenses from the RTÜK. These global and local platforms have bestowed great amounts of freedom for media consumers in Turkey so they can get round the TV shows on mainstream media. Deputy Prime Minister Bekir Bozdağ commented: “The upcoming decree is not for limiting the freedom of expression, it is just for monitoring.”</p>
<p>In fact, television has been “monitored” in Turkey since the establishment of the RTÜK by the Radio and Television Law in April 1994, initially designed to regulate private broadcasting and to enable the compliance of broadcasts with the “legal” framework. The RTÜK has since issued penalties to broadcasters and has even suspended TV and radio channels. </p>
<p>But all of the RTÜK’s previous activities concentrated on the circulation of offline content. The new decree, however, aims to give sweeping powers to the RTÜK over the online domain. This signals a new beginning for digital surveillance in Turkey. And according to the 2017 world press freedom index, Turkey is already doing pretty badly, ranking <a href="https://rsf.org/en/ranking">155th</a> out of the 180 countries listed. </p>
<h2>Internet menaces</h2>
<p>In the aftermath of the failed coup of July 2016, AKP, the current government of Turkey, has consolidated its efforts in collecting personal data and regulating digital platforms. The government declared a State of Emergency for three months immediately following the attempted coup and <a href="http://www.euronews.com/2018/01/09/turkey-extends-state-of-emergency-for-a-sixth-time">has renewed it since</a>. This enables the AKP to legislate using decree laws, that don’t require parliament to grant approval. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has constantly warned society of the menace of social media, particularly Twitter and Facebook. And mainstream newspapers and television channels (which mainly consist of the allies and family members of the AKP in power positions) act as a propaganda device for the government, portraying internet regulation as a way of coping with “external” threats to “Turkishness”, family values, national security and political stability. </p>
<p>In 2017, the government blocked <a href="http://www.dw.com/en/turkey-blocks-wikipedia-expanding-censorship/a-38637455">all access to Wikipedia</a>, banned <a href="http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/no-dating-shows-on-turkeys-tvs-this-season-top-media-watchdog-official-says-117046">dating shows</a>, and shut down <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/sep/30/turkey-closes-20-tv-and-radio-stations-post-coup-clampdown">over 20</a> television and radio shows. Meanwhile, in just the last couple of weeks, <a href="https://ahvalnews.com/afrin/afrin-day-17-afrin-locals-mobilise-defend-hometown-against-turkey">449 people</a> were taken into custody for writing social media posts that criticised the government’s recent military operations in Afrin Canton in the north of Syria, a region that Kurdish forces captured from Islamic State. </p>
<p>This current witch hunt, combined with the influence of the new decrees, could potentially lead to unprecedented amounts of self-censorship, reducing people’s freedom or willingness to express their political views on social media. </p>
<h2>Absurdity breeds creativity</h2>
<p>But we should not despair. I hope that these new infringements on freedom of speech will lead to new waves of cultural and digital activism by tech-savvy generations. Continuous censorship and regulation is a potential catalyst for creative dissidence. Filmmakers in Turkey have already found creative ways to cope with censorship in recent years, for instance by using black screens stating “these parts cannot be shown because of the censorship by the Culture and Tourism Ministry”. </p>
<p>In a recent interview, for example, Kurdish director Kazım Öz told me how he has coped with censorship by not stepping back and explicitly exposing it in his last film <a href="http://povfilm.se/12/current-state-of-filmmaking-in-turkey/">Zer</a> (2017). Öz used a dark screen in place of the censored images. Showing the name of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism on all these dark scenes, Öz explicitly displayed the absurdity of these regulations. </p>
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<p>Citizens of Turkey have long bypassed existing internet regulations by using VPN (Virtual Private Network) and other methods to get round the blockage of certain websites. The latest draft decree certainly points to a further step towards a dystopian future for Turkish freedom of expression and human rights, but it could also instigate new imaginings for the future of social and digital change.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/91430/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ozge Ozduzen does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>New, extreme levels of censorship in Turkey could lead to waves of digital activism by tech-savvy generations.Ozge Ozduzen, Visiting Research Fellow at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Lund UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/892592017-12-19T14:02:21Z2017-12-19T14:02:21ZThe internet is giving a voice to those on the margins – losing net neutrality will take it away<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/199726/original/file-20171218-27554-130e9tj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://pixabay.com/en/learn-media-internet-medium-977543/">kalhh</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>It’s easy to argue that the internet as it exists now is not “neutral”, with some companies and websites creating tech empires and online monopolies. But the decision of US telecoms watchdog, the Federal Communications Commission, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/14/technology/net-neutrality-repeal-vote.html">to remove regulations that overtly guarantee net neutrality</a> – the basic principle that all information on the internet should be treated equally and should be equally accessible – will certainly not improve matters.</p>
<p>By removing the <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-uk-doesnt-need-net-neutrality-regulations-yet-38204">net neutrality regulations passed in the US in 2015</a>, the balance is tipped in favour of those companies who are able to pay internet service providers and telecoms companies to prioritise the transfer of their data. This is not just a hypothetical position experts theorise might happen: it is already happening in countries such as <a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2017/12/what_the_internet_is_like_in_countries_without_net_neutrality.html">Guatemala</a> where net neutrality norms have been undermined, with internet access provided in tiers that offer different speed of access for a different monthly fee.</p>
<p>The economic implications of this and what it means for smaller or innovative companies in a competitive marketplace are clear. But there are other <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/dec/18/net-neutrality-marginalised-america-open-internet-fcc">hidden victims</a> of a failure to protect net neutrality and deter the monopolisation of the internet. To find them, we must make a short detour into media theory.</p>
<h2>The knowledge gap</h2>
<p>In 1970 Philip Tichenor, George Donohue, and Clarice Olien proposed the influential <a href="https://academic.oup.com/poq/article/34/2/159/1843590">Knowledge Gap Hypothesis</a>, which in essence suggests that as the amount of mass media grows, consumers from a higher socio-economic background tend to acquire this information at a faster rate than those from a lower socio-economic background, and so benefit more from it. They suggested this happens for various reasons, including often being the target of this media, and having easier access to it. This means that, despite the apparently egalitarian potential of access to information enjoyed by people from across the socio-economic spectrum, in fact access to knowledge alone may not address socio-economic disparities – and may even exacerbate them further.</p>
<p>Five years later the same authors <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/009365027500200101">refined these ideas</a>, suggesting ways to reduce this potential knowledge gap: media focused on events and issues that directly affect local communities, for example, or media that addressed forms of social conflict, and that dealt with shared issues and concerns.</p>
<p>Other factors have since helped close the knowledge gap – most notably access to the internet, described as a “<a href="https://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/27892/title/Outreach-Going-Wrong-/">tool for creating a more informed citizenry</a>” by US academics Elizabeth Corley and Dietram Scheufele, and the rise of social media. At the same time, disparity of internet access based on income is quickly shrinking: <a href="http://www.pewinternet.org/fact-sheet/internet-broadband/">recent data</a> shows internet use among those earning under US$30,000 a year increased from 54% in 2008 to 79% in 2016, catching up those earning over US$75,000, who have stayed at a steady 95-97% over the same period. </p>
<p>In many ways, the internet fulfils the aim of reducing the knowledge gap by creating an environment through which communities can come together to <a href="http://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/2287">discuss shared interests</a>. It doesn’t just provide access to news and information, but offers a means to take part in <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1083-6101.2012.01574.x/full">shaping the narratives</a> and pushing for <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1461444814567988">direct action</a>. The internet has provided the means to <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02681102.2015.1011598">allow communities to develop</a>, and use social media to reflect their needs and concerns. </p>
<h2>Not all knowledge is useful</h2>
<p>But, as has become clear recently, other factors affect the degree to which the general public is well informed. The rise of “fake news”, disinformation, and fringe beliefs such as flat-Eartherism, now distributed with ease through social media, has left the public potentially more confused than ever. The Pew Research Center reports that <a href="http://www.journalism.org/2016/12/15/many-americans-believe-fake-news-is-sowing-confusion/">64% of Americans</a> are confused even to the basic facts of current events, which suggests that although internet access is a useful tool, we cannot assume that the information received is always correct, neutral, or beneficial. As was the case with much of the fake news spread during the 2016 US presidential election of Donald Trump, this disinformation can often be <a href="https://medium.com/marketing-and-entrepreneurship/facebook-ads-fake-news-and-the-shockingly-low-cost-of-influencing-an-election-data-ca7a086fa01c">targeted at those from a specific socioeconomic background</a>.</p>
<p>Given this, it’s questionable whether the internet has indeed reduced knowledge gaps, or if it has opened new divides in how and what we understand in a post-truth world. Nonetheless, any attack on net neutrality is likely to further restrict who has access to what information, and at what cost. The social impact of this could easily drive a wedge into and reopen any remaining knowledge gap, undoing some of the benefits achieved so far.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/199739/original/file-20171218-27585-1dmm3h0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/199739/original/file-20171218-27585-1dmm3h0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/199739/original/file-20171218-27585-1dmm3h0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/199739/original/file-20171218-27585-1dmm3h0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/199739/original/file-20171218-27585-1dmm3h0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/199739/original/file-20171218-27585-1dmm3h0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/199739/original/file-20171218-27585-1dmm3h0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Who has access, and who doesn’t?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/marcelograciolli/2807100863">marcelograciolli</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
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<h2>Which voices are amplified online?</h2>
<p>The internet has, to an extent, amplified voices from diverse socio-economic backgrounds, and it’s vital that rolling back net neutrality doesn’t erode what inroads these less-heard voices have made against the socio-cultural norm. Knowledge on the internet is already problematic. For example, much of Wikipedia is written by <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/10/90-of-wikipedias-editors-are-male-heres-what-theyre-doing-about-it/280882/">white males</a> from the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/oct/05/internet-white-western-google-wikipedia-skewed">global north</a>, despite being seen as a repository of “the world’s knowledge”.</p>
<p>Spaces for a greater range of voices to take a role in shaping the knowledge available online must be created – not reduce access to only those who can afford it on platforms that pay for quicker access. A tiered internet that is tied to the ability to pay will likely further minimise the diversity of voices online.</p>
<p>There is every chance, looking at the examples of countries that have already removed net neutrality, that websites given faster and easier access will be sites from tech giants such as Facebook and Twitter – companies that have the commercial clout to achieve preferential arrangements with internet providers and telecoms firms, but which often do not reflect or protect disenfranchised communities. Facebook, for example, has nominally added more than two options for gender classification, yet <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1461444815621527">research</a> suggests the platform still classifies all users by a gender binary. Similarly, Twitter’s continued failure to effectively deal with abuse including, but not limited to, <a href="https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2998337">racism and misogyny</a> means the site, by design, does not afford the same voice, freedom, or protection to all users. </p>
<p>These popular platforms have a long history of ignoring, mistreating or misrepresenting at-risk communities. Given that they already account for a huge proportion of internet use, it is likely that with the removal of net neutrality, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/dec/18/net-neutrality-marginalised-america-open-internet-fcc">mistreated communities will continue to be marginalised</a>. Similarly, if we slow down, target and punish local blogs and sites aimed at local news and specific communities we potentially undo the conditions through which the internet has lessened knowledge gaps.</p>
<p>There is a long way to go in order to ensure the internet is a space where people from diverse backgrounds are able to access and contribute to knowledge. But removing net neutrality is a step backwards, and will only serve to further silence disenfranchised communities, and reverse the positive steps so far taken to close the knowledge gap.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/89259/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Harry T Dyer does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>If access to information online becomes more difficult, then it will be the communities on the fringes that lose out.Harry T Dyer, Lecturer in Education, University of East AngliaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/840002017-09-18T10:55:16Z2017-09-18T10:55:16ZMonkey selfie case finally settled – but there are many similar animal rights battles to come<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/185878/original/file-20170913-27628-ade1pj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Untitled design</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ondrej Prosicky / Shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The furore that erupted when David Slater, a British wildlife photographer, released a “selfie” taken by a macaque monkey in 2015 has only just reached <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/sep/12/monkey-selfie-warring-parties-reach-settlement-over-court-case">legal resolution</a>. The animal rights group, PETA (“People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals”), which had filed on behalf of the macaque, allegedly named “Naruto”, withdrew its suit against Slater when he agreed to give 25% of any royalties from the selfie to animal welfare charities.</p>
<p>This case marks a high-profile opening salvo in a struggle that will be increasingly fought among animal rights activists, protectors of human intellectual property and defenders of the free market. The case has been generally reported as being about whether a macaque that took a selfie (and gained worldwide notoriety courtesy of Wikipedia) is entitled to copyright. While this account is fine as far it goes, the case also hints at the profound challenges that digital and animal cultures pose to the law’s recognition of human uniqueness.</p>
<p>The story begins with Wikipedia, whose “open source” and “open access” approach to knowledge production makes it the ultimate free market in cyberspace. Basically <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Policies_and_guidelines">anything is fair game</a> for inclusion on its pages if it is not prohibited either by its own editors, who are largely crowdsourced, or some explicit legal ruling.</p>
<p>When Wikipedia’s editors decided to feature the macaque selfie, Slater claimed that it was in violation of his copyright. The selfie had been taken while his camera was active but unattended in Indonesia, where he was on assignment photographing the rare monkeys. Wikipedia replied by saying that if anyone owned the copyright, it was the macaque who actually took the selfie. At that point, PETA got involved, suing Slater on behalf of the macaque for copyright infringement.</p>
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<h2>Monkey copyright</h2>
<p>The court had no problem dismissing the case, simply by arguing that copyright law was not designed to include animals as copyright-holders. But it also said that the law may be amended to include them in the future. In doing so, it tiptoed around the issue that PETA was keen on raising, namely, whether the monkey was morally entitled to whatever royalties might otherwise accrue to Slater as the copyright-holder. This helps to explain the out-of-court settlement, which left Slater the formal victor in the case. But that was really all that he was left with. Slater had been earning minuscule royalties from the selfie and even <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jul/12/monkey-selfie-macaque-copyright-court-david-slater">approached bankruptcy</a> as PETA’s case against him dragged on.</p>
<p>The most striking feature of the case is not the very idea that a monkey might hold copyright, but that the internet’s relatively unregulated market environment provided the opportunity to broach the issue. The placement of a photo in virtual as opposed to physical reality radically loosens our intuitions about ownership. This became clear in the recent flurry of cases around the multiple postings of nude celebrity selfies in social media. Defendants claimed loss of control over their image in a world where image control is everything. In a more profound sense, something similar is happening to the image of the human being itself in the monkey selfie case.</p>
<p>The monkey selfie case managed to level the playing field between the human and the animal because the distinction between producer and consumer is largely erased in cyberspace. Unless the law intervenes, an online object can be reframed and reappropriated as the user wishes. And among these reframings and reappropriations are accounts of what makes the object what it is. In the end, only the explicit disqualification of animals from copyright law ended up saving Slater, even though <a href="https://www.csmonitor.com/Technology/Tech-Culture/2014/0822/US-government-Monkey-selfies-ineligible-for-copyright">some legal experts admitted</a> that Naruto may have behaved toward the camera in a way that would make a comparably situated human eligible for copyright.</p>
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<h2>Marx and a macaque</h2>
<p>Faced with Slater’s original claim to copyright infringement, Wikipedia interestingly gave little weight to the core of Slater’s argument, which was that had he not gone to Indonesia, photographed the macaques and even set up the camera so that they might use it, the selfie would never have been taken. (Of course, Slater was also the one who allowed the photos to go online in the first place.) </p>
<p>Instead Wikipedia focused on the particular monkey’s skill in arranging the camera so as to take the striking selfie. To the ears of animal rights activists, Wikipedia made Slater sound like an employer who claims ownership over his employees’ labour because he took the effort to set up the business for which they work. When only humans are involved, it’s called exploitation. Why not extend the same concept to the macaques?</p>
<p>Whatever may have motivated Wikipedia to pursue this framing of the situation, it certainly resonates with the history of extending human rights. Thanks to Karl Marx, we understand exploitation as a form of injustice that comes when workers are denied the full fruits of their labour. Wikipedia opened the door to revisit Marx, and PETA charged through it. The original capitalist rejoinder was that the employer is the one who takes the initial risk, invests the capital and sets up the environment which makes the work possible and so the workers, who might otherwise not be employed, should be satisfied with a steady wage, not a share of the profits. One hears echoes of Slater’s defence here, including his claim that his photography was part of an effort to save the macaques from extinction.</p>
<p>But bound up in this dispute is a disagreement about whether all producers are also creators. Historically, in the human sphere, Marx ultimately won this argument, largely by appealing to a conception of the human that is both universal and exceptional: all (but only) humans are both producers and creators. Like today’s copyright law, Marx recognised a clear species barrier between humans and other animals when it comes to creativity. </p>
<p>Cyberspace’s blurring of the producer/consumer distinction may be opening the door to reimagining “creator” more generally, as the source of whatever makes an object valuable to its user. In that case, the law may need to be adjusted to provide legal protection to “creative” animals in the same spirit as it historically provided protection to “creative” workers.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/84000/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Steve Fuller does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Digital and animal cultures pose a profound challenge to the law’s recognition of human uniqueness.Steve Fuller, Auguste Comte Chair in Social Epistemology, University of WarwickLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/774312017-05-16T11:44:54Z2017-05-16T11:44:54ZFake news: if you care about being lied to you’ll be more careful about the way you use social media<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/169501/original/file-20170516-11920-3co8kf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jakraphong Photography via Shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Fake news has become <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/fake-news-33438">big news</a> over the past few months. And that’s mainly due to the election of Donald Trump, who is famously given to accusing his critics of making up stories about him, but who is himself arguably the biggest purveyor of misinformation ever to occupy the White House. </p>
<p>The fake news juggernaut rolls on, mainly on social media, polarising opinion and sowing division in its wake. Facing a barrage of criticism from both politicians and the “traditional” media, some of the biggest internet companies have come up with their own plans to address the problem. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"862999243560288256"}"></div></p>
<p>Google has <a href="https://blog.google/products/search/fact-check-now-available-google-search-and-news-around-world/">expanded its “fact check” system</a>, which “identifies articles that include information fact checked by news publishers and fact-checking organisations”, putting a tag on them to confirm this. Facebook has placed ads in major newspapers, purged “tens of thousands of fake accounts” and <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/facebook-fake-news-feature-uk-election-2017-a7720506.html">built an algorithm to “automatically spot fake news”</a>.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, Wikipedia has launched its own counter to fake news, <a href="https://www.wikitribune.com">WikiTribune</a>, with bold claims: “The news is broken and we can fix it.” Like Wikipedia itself, WikiTribune works by crowdsourcing – building a community of journalists and volunteers, in a similar manner to Wikipedia’s volunteer editors.</p>
<p>The two different approaches exemplify the ways that Google and Facebook differ from Wikipedia – and reflect two very different philosophies about the internet. Google and Facebook use the idea that computers (and the algorithms through which they function) are neutral and unbiased, an idea that allows them (to a certain extent) to avoid taking much responsibility for the content that they link to or hold. Wikipedia enlists the support of “good” people, who it believes can be unbiased and “neutral” (the “neutral point of view” is <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Five_pillars">one of the “Five Pillars” that underpin Wikipedia</a>).</p>
<p>But neither of these is really true. There is increasing evidence that, rather than eliminating or counterbalancing prejudices, <a href="https://www.technologyreview.com/s/601775/why-we-should-expect-algorithms-to-be-biased/">algorithms can embed, exacerbate and exaggerate them</a>. Wikipedia’s “neutral point of view” is not only theoretically questionable, but has been demonstrated empirically not to be true – <a href="https://arxiv.org/pdf/1501.06307v2.pdf">for example in relation to sexism</a> (it’s well known that the vast majority of Wikipedia editors are men and that this is reflected in the way gender is often portrayed on Wikipedia).</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/169503/original/file-20170516-11929-uux1lk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/169503/original/file-20170516-11929-uux1lk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/169503/original/file-20170516-11929-uux1lk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/169503/original/file-20170516-11929-uux1lk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/169503/original/file-20170516-11929-uux1lk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/169503/original/file-20170516-11929-uux1lk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/169503/original/file-20170516-11929-uux1lk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Wikipedia boss Jimmy Wales: trusting people’s objectivity.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">3777190317 via Shutterstock.com</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Facebook experienced both problems in one episode in August 2016. When it was revealed that Facebook’s trending news module, rather than being purely algorithmic as many had believed, was “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/aug/29/facebook-fires-trending-topics-team-algorithm">curated and tweaked</a>” by humans, there was outrage, particularly from US conservatives, who accused Facebook of applying a liberal bias. </p>
<p>Facebook reacted by firing its editorial team with the aim of producing a more neutral, algorithmic system. The result was close to farcical as false and sometimes ridiculous stories were promoted by the algorithm. Which was worse? Biased human involvement or the algorithms? Both have significant problems – and these problems are both theoretical and practical.</p>
<p>To add to this mess is another dimension. Obviously “fake” news, false stories, deliberately created to misinform, are only part of the problem. Another is a more familiar tactic for the “traditional” media: using verifiable facts to create a fanciful narrative. The creation of many anti-immigration narratives – that “health tourism” and “benefit tourism” are significant problems, for example – use real information taken out of context and with statistics manipulated to produce a story that is essentially false. </p>
<p>In the US, the negative reports about Hillary Clinton’s emails were based on a real investigation, but the stories that developed around them and the narrative into which they were woven was something quite different.</p>
<h2>No easy fix</h2>
<p>The first thing that we need to be clear about is that there is no easy solution to this. Claims like that of WikiTribune that they will “fix” the problem are far from the truth. To find a way forward we need to dig a little deeper. Part of the problem is the growing public dissatisfaction with the mainstream media – and the media itself has to take some of the blame for that. If these outlets are not seen to hold politicians and others properly to account – but instead appear to help them weave false narratives and get away with lies and manipulations, it is hard for people to trust them. That in turn leaves space for fake news to fill, even if that then perpetuates the problem.</p>
<p>The fake narratives are also, however, a clue to the first part of the way forward: better “conventional” journalism. Around the Brexit referendum and the US presidential election, significant parts of the media failed to sufficiently hold politicians to account, to expose lies and manipulations. This needs to change – and the general election campaign currently underway in the UK is a big test of whether it can.</p>
<p>The second even more important – and harder – part of the solution is to reduce the dependence on Facebook in particular for news. This works both ways: journalists and newspapers should resist using Facebook as a platform, and people need to be weaned away from using Facebook as a way to find out news. No amount of tweaking of algorithms or purging of fake accounts can counter the fact that platforms such as Facebook are tailor made for the sharing of information – and misinformation. And the purveyors of fake news are experts at gaming algorithms, so whatever Facebook does, they will find a way around it. The only real solution is to stop playing the game. </p>
<p>That’s easier said than done – these social media platforms have become so much a part of so many people’s lives. The fact that we are becoming more aware of the problem with fake news is at least a start – but little more than that. It is not a problem that is going away any time soon.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/77431/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Paul Bernal received funding for his PhD research from the Arts and Humanities Research Council. He is on the Advisory Council of the Open Rights Group.</span></em></p>Social media is a huge channel for false information. News organisations need to wean themselves off it.Paul Bernal, Lecturer in Information Technology, Intellectual Property and Media Law, University of East AngliaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/758832017-04-28T09:45:39Z2017-04-28T09:45:39ZThe internet is enabling scientists to understand how ‘collective memory’ works<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/166853/original/file-20170426-2838-fr5n83.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Our memory of the twin towers attack has been strengthened by events that happened much later.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Michael Foran/Flickr</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The internet has brought change to almost everything in our lives. In particular, the ways we acquire knowledge have significantly changed, partly due to online knowledge repositories such as Wikipedia. In fact, it has even changed the way science is being done. Social scientists increasingly are using online data to study our individual or collective behaviour on a scale and with an accuracy normally only seen in the natural sciences.</p>
<p>Sure, we are still far from having large experimental social science data sets similar to the ones produced in CERN, but at least we have digital observational data like that collected and analysed in observational astrophysics. Millions of people use online tools on a daily basis – for instance Wikipedia is read about 500,000 times per day.</p>
<p>One of the key topics in understanding social behaviour is what scientists call “<a href="http://www.history.ucsb.edu/faculty/marcuse/classes/201/articles/95AssmannCollMemNGC.pdf">collective memory</a>”: how members of a social group will remember an event in the past collectively. Even though collective memory is a fundamental concept in sociology, there have been very few empirical studies on the subject, mostly because of a lack of data. Traditionally, scientists who research how the public recalls past events had to spend a lot of time and effort collecting data through interviews and surveys. </p>
<h2>Plane crashes</h2>
<p>In a recent study, <a href="http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/3/4/e1602368">published in Science Advances</a>, our team consisting of a sociologist, a computer engineer and two physicists made use of data from Wikipedia, through its publicly available daily statistics of page views of all the articles in the encyclopedia, to study collective memory. </p>
<p>We specifically looked at aircraft incidents in the whole history of aviation (as long as Wikipedia covers). This was because such events are well documented, but also because, unfortunately, there has been a rather large number of such crashes – making the statistical analysis robust.</p>
<p>We divided the events into recent (2008-2016) and past (anything before 2008). Examples of the recent flights are <a href="https://theconversation.com/new-research-points-to-the-crash-site-of-missing-plane-mh370-63019">Malaysia Airlines flight 370</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-was-malaysia-airlines-flight-mh17-flying-over-ukraine-29372">Malaysia Airlines flight 17</a>, <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2790768/f-dead-pilot-shouted-air-france-jet-plunged-atlantic-final-moments-doomed-flight-447-two-sleeping-pilots-revealed.html">Air France flight 447</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/germanwings-flight-4u9525-a-victim-of-the-deadlock-between-safety-and-security-demands-39386">Germanwings flight 9525</a>. Past crashes include <a href="http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/queens/plane-crash-queens-sparks-memories-9-11-2001-article-1.936696">American Airlines Flight 587 </a> and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2013/10/16/the-forgotten-story-of-iran-air-flight-655/?utm_term=.7d2777744d17">Iran Air flight 655</a>.</p>
<p>We then used statistical methods to measure increased page views for articles on past events a week after a recent event had happened. We called this increase the “attention flow”. We were interested to know if the increase in the attention to the past event has any relationship with the similarity between or the timings of the recent and the past events. We also wanted to know if we can predict the amount of flow of attention to each past event when a new event occurs. </p>
<p>We found that when the <a href="https://theconversation.com/germanwings-crash-the-ins-and-outs-of-the-two-person-rule-39453">Germanwings flight</a> crashed in 2015, people acquired information from Wikipedia about the <a href="http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/queens/plane-crash-queens-sparks-memories-9-11-2001-article-1.936696">crash of an American Airlines flight</a> outside New York City in November 2001. In fact, there was a three-fold increase in views on this page in the week after the Germanwings crash.</p>
<p>This seemed to be a pattern. We consistently observed a significant increase in the views of past events as a result of the recent events. On average, past events were viewed 1.4 times more than recent events in the week after they happened. This suggests that the memory of an event can become larger with time – receiving more attention than it originally got. We then tried to model this pattern – taking into account factors such as the impact of the recent and past events, the similarity between the events, and whether there was a hyperlink connecting the two articles directly to each other on Wikipedia.</p>
<h2>What shapes our memory</h2>
<p>For instance, in the case of the Germanwings and American Airlines flights, both incidents were related to the role of the pilot, which could be an important coupling factor. The American Airlines plane crashed due to pilot error while the Germanwings pilot intentionally crashed the aircraft. It became more interesting when we observed that there were no hyperlinks connecting these two articles on Wikipedia. Indeed, our general results were robust even when we removed all the pairs that were directly connected to one another by hyperlinks.</p>
<p>The most important factor in memory-triggering patterns was the original impact of the past event, which was measured by its average daily page views before the more recent event occurred. That means that some past events are intrinsically more memorable and our memory of them is more easily triggered. Examples of such events are the crashes related to the <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-the-pain-of-9-11-still-stays-with-a-generation-64725">9/11 terrorist attacks</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/167048/original/file-20170427-15084-fhaxt1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/167048/original/file-20170427-15084-fhaxt1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=280&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/167048/original/file-20170427-15084-fhaxt1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=280&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/167048/original/file-20170427-15084-fhaxt1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=280&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/167048/original/file-20170427-15084-fhaxt1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=352&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/167048/original/file-20170427-15084-fhaxt1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=352&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/167048/original/file-20170427-15084-fhaxt1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=352&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Three recent flights (2015) and their effects on the page views of past events. The recent events cause an increase in views of some of the past events.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Time separation between the two events also plays an important role. The closer in time the two events are, the stronger the coupling between them. And when the time separation exceeds 45 years, it becomes very unlikely that the recent event triggers any memory of the past event.</p>
<p>The similarity between the two events turned out to be another important factor. This is illustrated by the memory of Iran Air flight 655, which was shot down by a US navy guided missile in 1988. This was actually not something that people remembered well at all. However, it suddenly got a lot of attention when the Malaysia Airlines 17 flight was hit by a missile over Ukraine in 2014. The Iran Air accident got on average about 500 daily views before the Malaysia Airlines event, but this increased to 120,000 views per day right afterwards </p>
<p>It’s important to note that we don’t really understand the underlying mechanisms behind these observations. The role of the media, individual memory or the structure and categorisation of articles on Wikipedia can all can play a part and will be subject to future research. </p>
<p>More traditional theories suggest that the media <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15295036.2011.647042?src=recsys&journalCode=rcsm20">plays the central role in shaping our collective memory</a>. However, a big question to ask now is whether the transition to online media and in particular social media will change this mechanism. These days, we often receive news through our Facebook friends, so can this explain why events that have not been in the news for years suddenly become so visible? </p>
<p>Knowing the answers to these questions and understanding how collective memory is being shaped not only is interesting from a scientific perspective, but also could have applications in journalism, media development, policy making, and even advertisement.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>Interested in learning more about memory? Listen to our podcast episode <a href="https://theconversation.com/anthill-12-dont-remember-this-76430">Don’t remember this</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/75883/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Taha Yasseri receives funding from the European Commission and Google. </span></em></p>Current events can boost our collective memory of past events in predictable ways, finds study.Taha Yasseri, Research Fellow in Computational Social Science, Oxford Internet Institute, University of OxfordLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/766602017-04-25T19:03:57Z2017-04-25T19:03:57ZJimmy Wales is betting crowd-sourced news can restore our trust in the media — he might be right<p>For more than 15 years, Jimmy Wales has been the poster boy for the promise and the power of crowd-sourcing. When he launched Wikipedia in 2001, virtually everyone scoffed at the idea of a free and open-sourced online encyclopaedia with articles written by amateurs. Today it is the world’s <a href="http://www.alexa.com/topsites">fifth most visited website</a>, a go-to destination when almost anyone wants to learn about almost anything.</p>
<p>Having redefined and restructured one historical repository of trusted information, the encyclopedia, Wales is now taking on another, the newspaper. <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-39695767">His new initiative</a>, called <a href="https://www.wikitribune.com">Wikitribune</a>, will combine the work of paid professional journalists with volunteer contributors. It’s an effort to counter the rise of “<a href="https://theconversation.com/fake-news-why-people-believe-it-and-what-can-be-done-to-counter-it-70013">fake news</a>” and other forms of misinformation by exposing it to the scrutiny of the entire world. </p>
<p>The model is similar, though not identical, to that of Wikipedia, with which Wikitribune is not formally affiliated. The news site will be free of advertising and free to read, with funding provided by donors and by “supporters”.</p>
<p>These monthly subscribers will have the ability to shape the site’s agenda, for instance by steering journalists towards coverage of particular issues, although the editorial process will block attempts to artificially boost pet projects or perspectives. The public will be able to modify and update articles, but updates will not be published until they have been approved by a Wikitribune journalist or another trusted source.</p>
<p>In other words: crowd-funded, crowd-sourced and crowd-fact checked. </p>
<p>Will it work? The success of Wikipedia suggests it might. Wikipedia now includes nearly 5.4m English-language entries, totalling 42m-plus pages. It also publishes in 294 other languages, including a great many that most of us have never heard of, and claims 68m users worldwide. </p>
<p>Yes, all that information is <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:About">from its own website</a>. But I believe it.</p>
<p>And that’s the point. Wikipedia has earned the trust of millions of global users by listening to its critics and <a href="https://transparency.wikimedia.org">transparently making a good faith effort to address their concerns</a>. Information that is found to be flawed is removed, and various other changes through the years have strengthened the reliability of its content without gutting the central concept: real people have interesting and valuable contributions to make to the storehouse of what the rest of us know. </p>
<p>As Wales admits: “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/apr/25/wikipedia-founder-jimmy-wales-to-fight-fake-news-with-new-wikitribune-site">It’s noisy and not a perfect place</a>.” But Wikipedia’s openness has proved to be its strength. It’s not so much about the general wisdom of the crowd as about the particular wisdom of the millions of individuals who make up that crowd.</p>
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<p>Will Wikitribune prove financially sustainable? Again, it might. The election of Donald Trump was, at least for some segments of society, a wake-up call that high quality news is valuable enough to actually pay for. Leading print publications such as The New York Times and The Guardian among others, as well as investigative sites such as ProPublica, have seen a <a href="http://www.niemanlab.org/2016/11/after-trumps-election-news-organizations-see-a-bump-in-subscriptions-and-donations/">sharp increase in subscriptions</a>.</p>
<p>Although no one has yet had clear success with crowd-funded news, initiatives such as pay-per-view news aggregator <a href="https://launch.blendle.com">Blendle</a> and member-funded <a href="https://thecorrespondent.com">de Correspondent</a> (both Dutch in origin but testing the US market) continue to innovate. Someone is going to get there. And it might well be Wales. He has the experience, the connections, the vision and the passion.</p>
<h2>Will it help?</h2>
<p>Finally, the most important question is whether Wikitribune will change anything. Again, it just might. The <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-is-populism-popular-a-psychologist-explains-61319">surge in populist</a> politics in Europe and the US has had shocking effects but isn’t inherently startling. The anger and frustration of people who feel they are being ignored, misled or outright trammelled by powerful institutions in society – including the media – was palpable well before the Brexit referendum, the 2016 US election or the rise of Marine Le Pen in France. And around the world, trust in the media is <a href="http://www.edelman.com/global-results/">at a historic low</a>.</p>
<p>Wikitribune proposes to counter that sense of alienation not just by making people feel the news is relevant to them but also by inviting them to directly and personally engage with its production. If you feel a news account is inaccurate, propose a correction. If you feel it is biased, provide the countervailing evidence.</p>
<p>If you are wrong, no harm done. Your contribution will be vetted and rejected, and at least one bit of fake news will not blight our collective understanding of the world. But if you are right, then you have helped not just yourself but the rest of us, as well. Because in the end, we all share responsibility for the health of our networked society.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/76660/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jane B Singer has in the past contributed to Wikipedia fund-raising drives. </span></em></p>Wikipedia has earned our trust. Now its founder proposes an innovative assault on fake news with Wikitribune.Jane B. Singer, Professor of Journalism Innovation, City, University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/697062016-12-06T02:25:57Z2016-12-06T02:25:57ZHow can we learn to reject fake news in the digital world?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/148740/original/image-20161205-8020-1d8gwmw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">How can we make sense of information in today's connected world?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/download/confirm/256473613?src=&id=256473613&size=huge_jpg">Mobile phone image via www.shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The <a href="https://theconversation.com/advertising-is-driving-social-media-fuelled-fake-news-and-it-is-here-to-stay-68458">circulation of fake news</a> through social media <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2016/11/18/this-is-how-the-internets-fake-news-writers-make-money/?tid=a_inl">in the 2016 presidential election</a> has raised several concerns about <a href="https://theconversation.com/facebooks-problem-is-more-complicated-than-fake-news-68886">online information</a>.</p>
<p>Of course, there is nothing new about fake news as such – the satirical site “The Onion” has long done this. Fake news satire is part of “Saturday Night Live”‘s Weekend Update and “The Daily Show.” </p>
<p>In these cases, the framework of humor is clear and explicit. That, however, is not the case in social media, which has emerged as a real news source. Pew Research Center reports that Facebook is <a href="http://www.pewinternet.org/2016/11/11/social-media-update-2016/">“the most popular social media platform”</a> and that “a majority of U.S. adults – 62 percent – <a href="http://www.journalism.org/2016/05/26/news-use-across-social-media-platforms-2016/">get news on social media</a>.” When people read fake news on social media, they may be tricked into thinking they are reading real news.</p>
<p>Both Google and Facebook have promised to <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/15/technology/google-will-ban-websites-that-host-fake-news-from-using-its-ad-service.html">take measures</a> to address the concerns of fake news masquerading as real news. A team of college students has already developed a browser plug-in called FiB to <a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/bluesky/technology/ct-fake-news-college-students-fix-wp-bsi-20161120-story.html">help readers identify on Facebook</a> what is fake and what is real. </p>
<p>But these steps don’t go far enough to address fake news. </p>
<p>The question then is: Can we better prepare ourselves to challenge and reject fabrications that may easily circulate as untruthful texts and images in the online world?</p>
<p>As scholars of library and information science, we argue that in today’s complex world, traditional literacy, with its emphasis on reading and writing, and information literacy – the ability to search and retrieve information – are not enough. </p>
<p>What we need today is metaliteracy – an ability to make sense of the vast amounts of information in the connected world of social media.</p>
<h2>Why digital literacy is not enough</h2>
<p>Students today are consumers of the latest technology gadgets and social media platforms. However, they don’t always have a deep understanding of the information transmitted through these devices, or how to be creators of online content. </p>
<p>Researchers at Stanford University recently found that “when it comes to evaluating information that flows through social media channels,” today’s “digital natives,” despite being immersed in these environments, <a href="https://sheg.stanford.edu/upload/V3LessonPlans/Executive%20Summary%2011.21.16.pdf">“are easily duped”</a> by misinformation. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/148745/original/image-20161205-8023-mcmjci.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/148745/original/image-20161205-8023-mcmjci.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=388&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/148745/original/image-20161205-8023-mcmjci.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=388&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/148745/original/image-20161205-8023-mcmjci.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=388&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/148745/original/image-20161205-8023-mcmjci.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=487&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/148745/original/image-20161205-8023-mcmjci.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=487&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/148745/original/image-20161205-8023-mcmjci.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=487&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Digital literacy may not be enough.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/download/confirm/210974194?src=sgnRfbLDMMN1bGb9aaKM0Q-1-1&id=210974194&size=huge_jpg">Digital devices image via www.shutterstock.com</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>They said they “were taken aback by students’ lack of preparation” and argued that educators and policymakers must “demonstrate the link between <a href="http://connect.ala.org/node/181197">digital literacy</a> and citizenship.” </p>
<p>The truth is that we live in a world where information lacks traditional editorial mechanisms of filter. It also comes in various styles and forms – it could range from digital images to multimedia to blogs and wikis. The veracity of all this information is not easily understood. </p>
<p>This problem has been around for a while. In 2005, for example, a false story about a political figure, John Seigenthaler Sr., was posted by an anonymous author on Wikipedia, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/04/weekinreview/snared-in-the-web-of-a-wikipedia-liar.html">implicating him in the assassinations</a> of President John F. Kennedy and Bobby Kennedy. Seigenthaler <a href="http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/2005-11-29-wikipedia-edit_x.htm">challenged this fake entry</a> and it was eventually corrected. Several other hoaxes have <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:List_of_hoaxes_on_Wikipedia">circulated on Wikipedia</a> over the years, showing how easy it is to post false information online.</p>
<p>Indeed, in 2007, FactCheck.org, a website that monitors the accuracy of what is said by major U.S. political players, urged readers to ask <a href="https://www.factcheck.org/2007/12/not-pelosis-windfall-tax/">critical questions</a> in response to a false story that had been placed about House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi. At the time, people were being misled into believing that Pelosi was proposing a tax on retirement funds and others to help illegal immigrants and minorities.</p>
<p>In 2016, FactCheck.org published <a href="http://www.factcheck.org/2016/11/how-to-spot-fake-news/">a set of practical steps</a> to <a href="http://www.factcheck.org/2016/11/how-to-spot-fake-news/">encourage closer reading</a> and critical thinking.</p>
<p>As we see it, metaliteracy is a way to achieve these goals.</p>
<h2>So, what is metaliteracy?</h2>
<p>Digital literacy supports the effective use of digital technologies, while metaliteracy emphasizes how we think about things. Metaliterate individuals learn to reflect on how they process information based on their feelings or beliefs.</p>
<p>To do that, first and foremost, metaliterates learn to question sources of information. For example, metaliterate individuals learn to carefully differentiate among multiple sites, both formal (such as The New York Times or Associated Press) and informal (a blog post or tweet). </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/148714/original/image-20161205-8016-uo7x2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/148714/original/image-20161205-8016-uo7x2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=325&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/148714/original/image-20161205-8016-uo7x2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=325&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/148714/original/image-20161205-8016-uo7x2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=325&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/148714/original/image-20161205-8016-uo7x2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/148714/original/image-20161205-8016-uo7x2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/148714/original/image-20161205-8016-uo7x2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Metaliterates learn to question the sources of information.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/62693815@N03/6280036507/in/photolist-ayWQ4v-hTiNjv-fJiTTo-ayDEMD-k2EJXd-3yCizh-7DSX3q-ayHg8x-4Xuud3-qwLcCC-dki4iG-q6UuCd-ayGkko-y8XfoL-F4bK8-pfPNwX-hTtYVi-nJ29pU-enSuZy-unvPko-xQnaS-d2kVuo-4XaGib-hTvHsn-iyEc2R-8oHs4W-oCWNtg-2Vrakq-dwyPFS-4A9eBb-ayGksm-ikaRV-5W1aoU-9nSE1b-48vQEC-aUskV-hBXz-ccWpgA-nwpEPB-cwfo47-q8M1Fy-7AUALs-ayZtq9-hTPi8f-74hykm-4LXJMZ-cVDr-oeLuqj-r24Tnj-F4aWj">Jon S</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>They question the validity of information from any of these sources and do not privilege one over the other. Information presented on a formal TV news source, such as CNN or Fox News, for instance, <a href="http://money.cnn.com/2016/11/03/media/baseless-fox-news-indictment-report/">may be just as inaccurate</a> as someone’s blog post. This involves understanding all sources of information.</p>
<p>Second, metaliterates learn to observe their feelings when reading a news item.</p>
<p>We are less inclined to delve further when something affirms our beliefs. On the other hand, we are more inclined to fact check or examine the source of the news when we don’t agree with it. Thinking about our own thinking reminds us that we need to move beyond how we feel, and engage our cognitive faculties in doing a critical assessment.</p>
<p>Metaliterates pause to think whether they believe something because it affirms their ideas. </p>
<h2>Metaliteracy challenges assumptions</h2>
<p>Metaliteracy helps us understand the context from which the news is arising, noting whether the information emanates from research or editorial commentary, distinguishing the value of formal and informal news sources and evaluating comments left by others.</p>
<p>By reflecting on the way we are thinking about a news story, for instance, we will be more apt to challenge our assumptions, ask good questions about what we are reading and actively seek additional information. </p>
<p>Consider the recent example of how fake news was put out through a single tweet and believed by thousands of readers online. Eric Tucker, a 35-year-old cofounder of a marketing company in Austin, Texas, tweeted that anti-Trump protesters <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/20/business/media/how-fake-news-spreads.html">were professionally organized</a> and bused to Trump rallies. Despite having only 40 Twitter followers, this one individual managed to <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/20/business/media/how-fake-news-spreads.html">start a conspiracy theory</a>. Thousands of people believed and forwarded the tweet.</p>
<p>This example shows how easy it is to transmit information online to a wide audience, even if it is not accurate. The combination of word and image in this case was powerful and supported what many people already believed to be true. But it also showed a failure to ask critical questions within an online community with shared ideas or to challenge one’s own beliefs with careful reflection. </p>
<p>In other words, just because information is shared widely on social media, that does not mean it is true.</p>
<h2>Developing deeper understanding</h2>
<p>Another emphasis of metaliteracy is understanding how information is packaged and delivered.</p>
<p>Packaging can be examined on a number of fronts. One is the medium used – is it text, photograph, video, cartoon, illustration or artwork? The other is how it is used – is the medium designed to appeal to our feelings? Does professional-looking design provide a level of credibility to the unsuspecting viewer?</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/148713/original/image-20161205-8016-renqe5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/148713/original/image-20161205-8016-renqe5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/148713/original/image-20161205-8016-renqe5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/148713/original/image-20161205-8016-renqe5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/148713/original/image-20161205-8016-renqe5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/148713/original/image-20161205-8016-renqe5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/148713/original/image-20161205-8016-renqe5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Metaliterates learn how to discriminate between fake and real news.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/download/confirm/226460671?src=Wyqx7OtDz9_LIzrueh4bbQ-1-4&id=226460671&size=huge_jpg">Hand image via www.shutterstock.com</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Social media makes it easy to produce and distribute all kinds of digital content. We can all be <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2016/12/02/the-16-most-instagrammed-places-of-2016/?hpid=hp_hp-cards_hp-card-technology%3Ahomepage%2Fcard&utm_term=.2bd3463750df">photographers</a> or <a href="http://digitalstorytelling.coe.uh.edu/page.cfm?id=27">digital storytellers</a> using online tools for producing and packaging well-designed materials. This can be empowering.</p>
<p>But the same material can be used to create intentionally false messages with appealing design features. Metaliterates learn to distinguish between formal and informal sources of information that may have very different or nonexistent editorial checks and balances. </p>
<p>They learn to examine the packaging of content. They learn to recognize whether the seemingly professional design may be a façade for a bias or misinformation. <a href="http://realnewsrightnow.com/">Realnewsrightnow</a>, for example, is a slickly designed site with attention-grabbing but often <a href="http://fakenewswatch.com/realnewsrightnow-com">false headlines</a>. The <a href="http://realnewsrightnow.com/about/">About page</a> of the website might raise questions, but only if a reader’s mindset is evaluative. </p>
<h2>Becoming a responsible citizen</h2>
<p>Because social media is interactive and collaborative, the metaliterate learner must know how to contribute responsibly as well.</p>
<p>Metaliterate individuals recognize there are ethical considerations involved when sharing information, such as the information must be accurate. But there is more. Metaliteracy asks that individuals understand on a mental and emotional level the potential impact of one’s participation. </p>
<p>So, metaliterate individuals don’t just post random thoughts that are not based in truth. They learn that in a public space they have a responsibility to be fair and accurate. </p>
<p>So how can we become metaliterate? </p>
<p>Schools need to urge students to ponder these questions. Students need to be made aware of these issues early on so that they learn how not to develop uncritical assumptions and actions as they use technology. </p>
<p>They need to understand that whether they are posting a tweet, blog, Facebook post or writing a response to others online, they need to think carefully about what they are saying. </p>
<p>While social media offers much promise for providing everyone with a voice, there is a disturbing downside to this revolution. It has enabled sharing of misinformation and false news stories that radically alter representations of reality.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/69706/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Thomas P Mackey and colleagues received funding from SUNY Innovative Instruction Technology Grants to support the development of a Coursera Metaliteracy MOOC and metaliteracy digital badging.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Trudi Jacobson and colleagues received funding from SUNY Innovative Instruction Technology Grants to support the development of a Coursera Metaliteracy MOOC and metaliteracy digital badging.</span></em></p>Researchers have found that today’s students, despite being ‘digital natives,’ have a hard time distinguishing what is real and what is fake online. Metaliteracy might provide the answers.Thomas P. Mackey, Vice Provost for Academic Programs, SUNY Empire State CollegeTrudi Jacobson, Distinguished Librarian, University at Albany, State University of New YorkLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/667692016-10-18T06:45:58Z2016-10-18T06:45:58ZWikipedia is already the world’s ‘Dr Google’ – it’s time for doctors and researchers to make it better<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/142101/original/image-20161018-12440-1f759xc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Research shows that Wikipedia is one of the most read sources of medical information by the general public across the world.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/67272961@N03/6123892769/">jfcherry/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Health professionals have a duty to improve the accuracy of medical entries in Wikipedia, according to a letter published today in <a href="http://www.thelancet.com/journals/langlo/article/PIIS2214-109X(16)30254-6/fulltext">Lancet Global Health</a>, because it’s the first port of call for people all over the world seeking medical information.</p>
<p>In our correspondence, a group of international colleagues and I call on medical journals to do more to help experts make Wikipedia more accurate, and for the medical community to make improving its content a top priority. </p>
<h2>Use around the world</h2>
<p>Ranked the <a href="http://www.alexa.com/topsites">fifth most-visited website</a> in the world, Wikipedia is one of the <a href="http://jamia.oxfordjournals.org/content/16/4/471.full">most-read sources of medical information</a> by the general public. It’s also frequently the first port of call for <a href="http://www.jmir.org/2015/3/e62/?trendmd-shared=1">doctors</a>, <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.3109/0142159X.2012.737064?scroll=top&needAccess=true">medical students</a>, <a href="http://heinonline.org/hol-cgi-bin/get_pdf.cgi?handle=hein.journals/yjolt12&section=3">lawmakers</a>, and <a href="http://www.pewinternet.org/2013/02/28/how-teachers-are-using-technology-at-home-and-in-their-classrooms/">educators</a>.</p>
<p>Access is provided free of charge on mobile phones in many countries, under the <a href="https://blog.wikimedia.org/c/wikipedia-zero/">Wikipedia Zero scheme</a>. In developing nations, this has helped the site become the main source of information on medical topics. During the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/27/business/media/wikipedia-is-emerging-as-trusted-internet-source-for-information-on-ebola-.html?_r=0">2014 Ebola outbreak</a>, for instance, page views of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ebola_virus_disease">Ebola virus disease</a> peaked at more than <a href="http://www.wikipediatrends.com/Ebola_virus_disease.html">2.5 million per day</a>.</p>
<p>Earlier this year, the site launched the free <a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.kiwix.kiwixcustomwikimed&hl=en">Medical Wikipedia Offline app</a> in seven languages. The Android app has had nearly 100,000 downloads in its first few months of release. It’s particularly useful in low and middle-income countries, where internet access is typically slow and expensive.</p>
<p>All this makes Wikipedia’s accuracy vital because every medical entry on the collaborative online encyclopedia has the potential for immediate <a href="http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/87/4/08-056713/en/">real-world health consequences</a>.</p>
<h2>A question of priorities</h2>
<p>Given its model of allowing anyone to edit entries, Wikipedia is already <a href="http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v438/n7070/full/438900a.html">surprisingly accurate</a>, famously rivalling Encyclopedia Britannica. But even as the online encyclopedia matures, the accuracy of its medical content remains inconsistent.</p>
<p>The platform has historically <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/education/2011/mar/29/wikipedia-survey-academic-contributions">struggled to attract expert contributions</a> from researchers. Improving Wikipedia entries tends to be low on the list of priorities for doctors and other health professionals. </p>
<p>Finding time to write unpaid content in an unfamiliar format can easily lose out to more immediate career concerns. Doctors consistently work <a href="http://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/1475198">long hours</a> with patients, and researchers tend to be busy applying for grants and <a href="http://jmi.sagepub.com/content/14/4/321.short">publishing in academic journals</a>. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stillbirth">entry on stillbirth</a> illustrates well why Wikipedia needs to attract more expert contributors. Every day, there are <a href="http://www.who.int/reproductivehealth/topics/maternal_perinatal/stillbirth/en/">7,000 stillbirths worldwide</a>, but before my colleagues and I updated the Wikipedia page, it was was missing crucial information.</p>
<p>It didn’t mention key causes, such as malaria, and common complications, such as depression. Having the full picture of a medical condition is extremely <a href="https://www.jmir.org/2003/3/e17/?trendmd-shared=1">important for effective health care</a>. And it’s vital for patients as well. Knowing that depression is a normal side effect of stillbirth, for instance, can help women <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1365-2524.2008.00814.x/full">cope with the emotional fallout</a>. </p>
<p>Similarly, <a href="http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0106930">accurate information on medication</a> affects what doctors prescribe, what patients request, and what students learn.</p>
<p>Such important topics quite simply demand accuracy.</p>
<h2>Possible solutions</h2>
<p>While spotting the shortfall is easy, solving it will require the concerted efforts of multiple communities with unique strengths.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/142102/original/image-20161018-12440-13bev85.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/142102/original/image-20161018-12440-13bev85.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142102/original/image-20161018-12440-13bev85.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142102/original/image-20161018-12440-13bev85.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142102/original/image-20161018-12440-13bev85.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142102/original/image-20161018-12440-13bev85.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142102/original/image-20161018-12440-13bev85.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Wikipedia has historically struggled to attract expert contributions from time-poor researchers and doctors.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/youraccount/7839794684/">Garnet/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Doctors and researchers can provide expert knowledge about complex topics; medical journals can leverage their infrastructure for robust peer review and indexing; Wikipedians can provide their experience in encyclopedic writing and technical expertise; and medical schools can encourage student involvement. </p>
<p>Simultaneously publishing peer-reviewed work in academic journals and in Wikipedia could benefit all participants. This would include both putting existing entries through academic peer review, and converting suitable journal articles into Wikipedia entries. Official recognition of authors’ efforts through their citeable publications by scholarly journals is an important reward for time-pressed contributors.</p>
<p>Peer review would ensure the quality of content, and for journals wanting to <a href="http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(16)31771-8/fulltext">have an impact on public health</a>, Wikipedia is the among the best outreach tools available.</p>
<p>Several scholarly journals have been exploring academic peer review of Wikipedia entries and more look to soon join them. Examples of joint-publishing include the Wikipedia articles for Dengue fever and the cerebellum, which have been reviewed and published by the medical journals <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4242787">Open Medicine</a> and the <a href="https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/WikiJournal_of_Medicine/The_Cerebellum">WikiJournal of Medicine</a> respectively.</p>
<p>PLOS Computational Biology similarly <a href="http://collections.plos.org/topic-pages">joint-publishes review articles</a> in its journal and in Wikipedia for maximum impact. And, the journal RNA Biology requires researchers describing a <a href="http://www.nature.com/news/2008/081216/full/news.2008.1312.html">new RNA family</a> to also write a Wikipedia entry for it.</p>
<h2>Embedding the new approach</h2>
<p>Progress has been slow, but several independent ventures show how the attitudes of major players in the biomedical ecosystem are beginning to shift further, and take Wikipedia more seriously.</p>
<p>Cochrane, which creates medical guidelines after reviewing research data, now finds <a href="http://www.cochranelibrary.com/editorial/10.1002/14651858.ED000069">Wikipedian partners for its Review Groups</a> to help disseminate their information through Wikipedia.</p>
<p>Medical schools are also <a href="http://journals.lww.com/academicmedicine/Abstract/publishahead/Why_Medical_Schools_Should_Embrace_Wikipedia__.98408.aspx">getting involved</a> in improving Wikipedia entries. Medical students at University of California, San Francisco, can <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/30/business/media/editing-wikipedia-pages-for-med-school-credit.html?_r=0">gain course credit</a> for supervised editing of Wikipedia articles in need of attention.</p>
<p>These and similar schemes can hopefully normalise Wikipedia editing within future medical community. And patients will ultimately be the winners. When it comes to health content, the deadline is now.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/66769/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Thomas Shafee is an active Wikipedian and is on the WikiJournal of Medicine editorial board. </span></em></p>Medical entries on Wikipedia are widely consulted across the world. Doctors and medical researchers need to make efforts to ensure the content on the online collaborative encyclopedia is accurate.Thomas Shafee, Research Fellow in Biochemistry and Evolution, La Trobe UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/648982016-09-12T12:28:35Z2016-09-12T12:28:35ZOur world is not a pure market economy, and economics can’t explain it<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/137205/original/image-20160909-13345-13woyr2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=1%2C0%2C1022%2C683&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Present and correct.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/atfruth/5287662490/in/photolist-94fDQE-qe83rX-sfkx7-Gb5jms-FNfDe3-CoJ2Gu-dBzPno-94xLdn-bh69NH-bkisXU-5KKN2U-bh68Jk-bh6aLc-eKSVd2-65XXRG-5KMaRm-4DD3xy-7vhfo-8LEGUY-iFWGoS-92cJ6n-b2sRyF-bKQxo-FhV8R1-G7vM6i-FhV8UY-Gdn7QV-G5cP6Q-Fi6NDv-Fi6NEn-G7vMca-Fi6Nzn-bh67N2-i7JYh7-576Vks-47tYv-5MUcRR-7rqQLZ-aUwGoK-ty6wX-u7R3Q-94tVXc-6o9GPy-7qiHdU-7sUQXb-93Dy7q-wZanj-bjx1bk-946zNq-93ZePb">Aaron Fruth/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>We tend to take it for granted that our economy is a <a href="http://www.investopedia.com/terms/m/marketeconomy.asp">market economy</a>. Mainstream economics is particularly committed to that idea. Indeed its core concepts depend on it: supply and demand curves and equilibrium prices make no real sense outside the context of markets. But today in large parts of the most dynamic sector of our economy, the market is either absent or only one part of the story.</p>
<p>Of course the digital economy includes companies such as Apple and Amazon selling products in markets, but it also includes very different models. The web is the realm of the gift. The vast majority of the pages we download are free – and sites such as Wikipedia are sophisticated examples of the gift economy in action.</p>
<p>Even some of the most successful commercial companies, such as Google and Facebook, depend on business models that hybridise gift practices and the market. The commodities they sell depend utterly on the gifts that they give. </p>
<p>To make sense of these gift and hybrid forms of economy, my research in the book <a href="http://www.cambridge.org/gb/academic/subjects/sociology/social-theory/profit-and-gift-digital-economy?format=PB&isbn=9781316509388">Profit and Gift in the Digital Economy</a> develops the idea that we should think of the economy as an interacting mix of market and non-market practices. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/137206/original/image-20160909-13345-1h32xcj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/137206/original/image-20160909-13345-1h32xcj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/137206/original/image-20160909-13345-1h32xcj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137206/original/image-20160909-13345-1h32xcj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137206/original/image-20160909-13345-1h32xcj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137206/original/image-20160909-13345-1h32xcj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137206/original/image-20160909-13345-1h32xcj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137206/original/image-20160909-13345-1h32xcj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Market forces.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/dordrecht-holland/15503556441/in/photolist-pBZMcg-jnKqiC-oWHSxK-qJ5VbP-fiPZVo-F4A1VG-oi8CCD-ogecyn-eMhmDz-cjeFaW-7mBr7x-pXf5tX-aYCoqZ-ngxnw6-4fFumS-gez1Yp-fP3Qnz-hShtN8-gs7W3C-9deuWz-pRvpKx-gVo2Mi-itDpE7-ahqdeH-oRQmeF-cLzvUC-JBzoN8-nXuFBB-jqWMEz-pxuuim-hxamQR-peT1hP-dLaYn8-pAefWf-oonBpc-UVxmF-fJfHjE-PgQNn-hJAcYh-Fecteb-avpofg-kR71wX-cWBcwU-cJCw4G-9Vfin-bzP8Fr-vVLVh-oMzzaW-rigahh-e67GQ6">Paul van de Velde/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The gift economy in action</h2>
<p>Wikipedia – the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Wikipedia">largest and most widely used encyclopedia</a> the world has ever seen – is the iconic case of the digital gift economy. It dominates its sector, and has more or less completed the extinction of the paid-for encyclopedia that began when Microsoft gave away Encarta to PC buyers.</p>
<p>Wikipedia rests on three gift practices: it gives us access to its content for nothing, that content is created by volunteers who edit it for nothing, and its running costs are funded by voluntary donations. </p>
<p>And when work is voluntary, the old rules no longer apply. <a href="http://www.forbes.com/forbes/welcome/?toURL=http://www.forbes.com/sites/georgeanders/2014/06/30/how-wikipedia-really-works-an-insiders-wry-brave-account/&refURL=https://www.google.co.uk/&referrer=https://www.google.co.uk/">Wikipedia’s editors</a> are not told what to do by managers implementing a top-down strategy. They choose their own tasks and do them at their own pace. The quality of their work is not assured by performance appraisals and the threat of redundancy. Instead they debate quality with each other on Wikipedia’s Talk pages, employing norms that have been consensually agreed by the editors themselves.</p>
<p>Conventional economics has no tools with which to analyse phenomena like Wikipedia. <a href="http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/how-much-is-wikipedia-worth-704865/?no-ist">The site offers no revenue, market capitalisation or book value</a> by which to value it. Neither the human motivations nor the co-operative coordination mechanisms fit economic models of utility maximisation and market equilibrium. When we measure our economy, are we really best served by ignoring Wikipedia? </p>
<h2>A hybrid powerhouse</h2>
<p>By contrast, Google looks like a company that traditional economics should be able to explain. The second largest company in the world by market capitalisation, it made <a href="http://www.androidcentral.com/google-releases-q4-and-full-2015-earnings">profits of US$74.5 billion</a> (£56 billion) in 2015, mostly from selling advertising.</p>
<p>That’s a market, isn’t it? It is, but it’s a market that only exists because of the gifts that Google gives to its users. The core case is free web search. When Google gives us search results, it receives information about our interests as a by-product of the search process, and uses that to sell much more effectively targeted advertising than was ever possible in conventional media.</p>
<p>Here we have two deeply interdependent practices: a market practice of selling advertising that can only exist because of a gift practice of providing free web search. Freesheet newspapers offer a similar model, but Google is on a different scale. However well demand and supply curves can explain the outcomes in the advertising market, they tell us nothing about how Google acquires those advertising opportunities in the first place.</p>
<p>To explain hybrid economic models like this one, we need an approach that sees both gift and market practices as significant and can analyse the ways in which they are combined.</p>
<h2>Economics and the gift economy</h2>
<p>Although I’ve highlighted the digital gift economy here, the gift economy is much older and much larger than that – it has just been less tangibly coupled with the market economy that we see on the business news. To take only the largest case, people have been producing and transferring economic benefits within the household since households began, without selling them to each other. When a parent cooks for their family that is just as productive as a chef cooking for customers in a restaurant, but no cash changes hands in payment.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13545709610001707756">One study of the Australian economy</a>, for example, found that when monetised – when household work is given a dollar value equivalent to that in the market economy – the household sector alone is as large as the market sector. Nor is the “old” gift economy confined to gifts to friends and family – charitable giving, volunteering and blood donation are all familiar forms of gifts to strangers. </p>
<p>Economics tends to overlook the gift economy, wherever it appears, not only because tools used by economics, such as revenue or profit calculations, market share and stock prices can only make sense of markets, but also because it has no way to value products that are not sold. We are all accustomed to valuing things in terms of prices achieved in the market, but there are no such prices in the gift sector. </p>
<p>That doesn’t mean its products aren’t valuable, but rather that we have absorbed a thoroughly dysfunctional notion of value that goes along with thinking of the economy in purely market terms. We can become so focused on the monetary side of the economy that we don’t see the absurdity of promoting its growth at the expense of the things we do for each other that don’t come with a price tag attached. If we are to make sense of both today’s economy and future possibilities, we need to start analysing our world as a complex of both market and non-market social practices, and start valuing its products in terms of human benefits instead of price.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/64898/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dave Elder-Vass does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Economics struggles to explain the explosion of gift models at the heart of our online economy.Dave Elder-Vass, Reader in Sociology, Loughborough UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/597082016-05-24T12:04:59Z2016-05-24T12:04:59ZWhy getting medical information from Wikipedia isn’t always a bad idea<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/123554/original/image-20160523-11000-6mwr04.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">More medical experts should contribute to Wikipedia to ensure its health pages are accurate.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Gary Cameron/Reuters</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Wikipedia’s detractors will tell you that the site is inaccurate, incomplete and unreliable. Many universities <a href="http://isites.harvard.edu/icb/icb.do?keyword=k70847&pageid=icb.page346376">won’t allow</a> students to use Wikipedia as a reference in essays or assignments. So it may come as a surprise to learn that it’s the <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25739399">most commonly used</a> source for obtaining medical information online – even among medical students and doctors.</p>
<p>In fact, research has found that Wikipedia is <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25739399">more popular</a> for this kind of information than reputable bodies’ websites – including those belonging to the World Health Organisation and the US’s Centres for Disease Control. In some settings, researchers <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25739399">have discovered</a>, more than 90% of medical students and 50% of doctors turn to Wikipedia at some point.</p>
<p>But the academic medical community largely views Wikipedia <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26443650">with suspicion</a>. This appears to be because the site doesn’t adhere to traditional peer-review mechanisms. There’s also no reward for a busy academic or medical practitioner who takes the time to improve existing Wikipedia pages and ensure that medical information is accurate. Some traditional journals and medical schools are starting to take Wikipedia more seriously, but we wanted to take things a step further by marrying Wikipedia and a traditional journal model. That’s how the <a href="https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Wikiversity_Journal_of_Medicine">Wikiversity Journal of Medicine</a> was born.</p>
<h2>Attitudes starting to shift</h2>
<p>Most journals are expensive, hard to access and considered quite elite. They also <a href="http://www.straitstimes.com/opinion/prof-no-one-is-reading-you">aren’t read</a> by very many people beyond academia and research houses. Research has suggested that medical journals need to increase their <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3221335/">social impact</a> by actively promoting knowledge sharing on sites like Wikipedia. This offers scope for people all over the world and from a variety of language groups to get more reliable information about health and medicine.</p>
<p>Some journals have heeded this call. <a href="http://journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol/">PLOS’s Computational Biology</a>, for instance, requires any author it publishes to also write a <a href="http://journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol/article?id=10.1371/journal.pcbi.1002446">Wikipedia page</a> on the topic. The journal article is static, referenced and unchanging. The Wikipedia page is changeable and invites contributions. Another journal, RNA Biology, <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/news.2008.1312">requires</a> the same approach. </p>
<p>There have also been <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4242788/">experiments</a> that have seen a Wikipedia article put through traditional medical journal quality control processes. It is then formally published in the journal and the original Wikipedia article is updated.</p>
<p>A few medical schools are embracing this new approach, too. The University of California San Francisco has <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/30/business/media/editing-wikipedia-pages-for-med-school-credit.html?_r=0">introduced a course</a> into its curriculum that teaches medical students how to contribute to Wikipedia.</p>
<p>These are all laudable efforts that point to a growing <a href="https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1506/1506.07608.pdf">open-access</a> movement in the world of <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1161/CIRCOUTCOMES.115.002415">scholarly communication</a>. </p>
<h2>Challenges and successes</h2>
<p>The Wikiversity Journal of Medicine, which was launched in 2014, is hosted directly by the <a href="https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Home">Wikimedia Foundation</a>, the same organisation that hosts Wikipedia. It uses the same <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki">software</a>, MediaWiki, which makes editing and processing very easy.</p>
<p>The whole service is free to authors and readers; as with Wikipedia our operating costs are covered by donations from around the world. The Wikiversity Journal of Medicine follows standard international best-practice guidelines for medical journals, drawing from such reputable bodies as the <a href="http://www.icmje.org/icmje-recommendations.pdf">International Committee of Medical Journal Editors</a>. </p>
<p>Submission and acceptance follow the traditional medical journal processes, including peer-review by experts on the topic that’s being written about. One important difference is that authors have the option of submitting their article directly onto the journal’s site. This option was designed to enhance transparency and has been taken up by some authors. Others have been more hesitant, as other journals may consider a paper that’s on Wikiversity to be already publicly available and may reject it as a result.</p>
<p>The editorial board includes people from three continents: Africa, North America and Europe. Among them are the editor-in-chief, Sweden’s Dr Mikael Häggström. He’s made extensive <a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiversity/en/7/7b/Medical_gallery_of_Mikael_H%C3%A4ggstr%C3%B6m_2014.pdf">image contributions</a> to Wikipedia – for example, the site’s <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ebola_virus_disease">Ebola</a> page features <a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4a/Symptoms_of_ebola.png">his images</a>.</p>
<p>Dr James Heilman is another board member. He’s arguably the world’s leading expert on <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=James+Heilman">Wikipedia and medicine</a>.</p>
<p>So far the journal has published 16 articles about diverse medical topics. We believe that the journal’s association with Wikipedia has created the false notion that anyone can edit an accepted journal manuscript. There are two versions of each published article. One is a PDF that cannot be edited and stands as the version of record. The second is a wiki and can be edited by anyone. The board monitors these edits. </p>
<p>The journal’s model has potential, though. A US physics professor, Guy Vandegrift, has established <a href="https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Second_Journal_of_Science">a second</a> wiki-based journal. This, along with the broader debate around open access to medical information, suggests that the Wikiversity Journal of Medicine provides a feasible, scalable and sustainable model. Of course, it should not be the only source of information – in the same way that no single article in any format should ever be one’s only source. We hope that even if medical experts and researchers don’t contribute to the journal, they will start to take Wikipedia more seriously and, where necessary, to improve it so that people have access to more reliable information.</p>
<p>Such initiatives can, we believe, help to further address the <a href="https://theconversation.com/its-time-to-redraw-the-worlds-very-unequal-knowledge-map-44206">profound inequities</a> in the global knowledge economy that greatly hamper public health.</p>
<p><em>This article was co-authored with Dr Mikael Häggström, a medical doctor in Sweden who is also the editor-in-chief of the Wikiversity Journal of Medicine.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/59708/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gwinyai Masukume is the assistant to the editor-in-chief of the Wikiversity Journal of Medicine and is a Wikipedian.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>James Heilman is affiliated with the Wikiversity Journal of Medicine, Wikipedia, Wiki Project Med Foundation, and the Wikimedia Foundation.</span></em></p>The academic medical community largely views Wikipedia with suspicion. But some traditional journals are starting to take the site more seriously – and some journals work very closely with it.Gwinyai Masukume, Medical Doctor, Epidemiologist and Biostatistician: University College Cork, University of the WitwatersrandJames Heilman, Clinical Associate Professor, Department of Emergency Medicine, University of British ColumbiaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/530602016-01-15T12:11:57Z2016-01-15T12:11:57ZHow Wikipedia’s silent coup ousted our traditional sources of knowledge<p>As <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_15">Wikipedia turns 15</a>, volunteer editors worldwide will be celebrating with themed cakes and edit-a-thons aimed at filling holes in poorly covered topics. It’s remarkable that a user-editable encyclopedia project that allows anyone to edit has got this far, especially as the website is kept afloat through donations and the efforts of thousands of volunteers. But Wikipedia hasn’t just become an important and heavily relied-upon source of facts: it has become an authority on those facts.</p>
<p>Through six years of studying Wikipedia I’ve learned that we are witnessing a largely silent coup, in which traditional sources of authority have been usurped. Rather than discovering what <a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2015/11/why_does_google_say_jerusalem_is_the_capital_of_israel.html">the capital of Israel is</a> by consulting paper copies of Encyclopedia Britannica or geographical reference books, we source our information online. Instead of learning about thermonuclear warfare from university professors, we can now watch a YouTube video about it.</p>
<p>The ability to publish online cheaply has led to an explosion in the number and range of people putting across facts and opinion than was traditionally delivered through largely academic publishers. But rather than this leading to an increase in the diversity of knowledge and the democratisation of expertise, the result has actually been greater consolidation in the number of knowledge sources considered authoritative. Wikipedia, particularly in terms of its alliance with Google and other search engines, now plays a central role. </p>
<h2>From outsider to authority</h2>
<p>Once ridiculed for allowing anyone to edit it, Wikipedia is now the <a href="http://www.alexa.com/topsites">seventh most visited website in the world</a>, and the most popular reference source among them. Wikipedia articles feature at the top of the majority of searches conducted on Google, Bing, and other search engines. In 2012, Google announced the <a href="http://searchengineland.com/google-launches-knowledge-graph-121585">Knowledge Graph</a> which moved Google from providing possible answers to a user’s questions in the search results it offers, to providing an authoritative answer in the form of a fact box with content drawn from Wikipedia articles about people, places and things. </p>
<p>Perhaps the clearest indication of Wikipedia’s new authority is demonstrated by who uses it and regards its content as credible. Whereas governments, corporations and celebrities couldn’t have cared less whether they had a Wikipedia page in 2001, now tales of politicians, celebrities, governments or corporations (or their PR firms) ham-fistedly trying to edit Wikipedia articles on them to remove negative statements or criticism <a href="https://theconversation.com/wikipedia-sockpuppetry-linking-accounts-to-real-people-is-pure-speculation-40670">regularly appear in the news</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/108176/original/image-20160114-2349-1wf1hfx.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/108176/original/image-20160114-2349-1wf1hfx.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/108176/original/image-20160114-2349-1wf1hfx.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/108176/original/image-20160114-2349-1wf1hfx.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/108176/original/image-20160114-2349-1wf1hfx.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/108176/original/image-20160114-2349-1wf1hfx.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/108176/original/image-20160114-2349-1wf1hfx.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/108176/original/image-20160114-2349-1wf1hfx.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Happy 15th birthday Wikipedia!</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Armenian_Wiki_birthday_cake_2014.JPG">Beko</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Wisdom of crowds</h2>
<p>How exactly did Wikipedia become so authoritative? Two complementary explanations stand out from many. First, the rise of the idea that <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=hHUsHOHqVzEC&dq=wisdom+of+crowds&hl=en&sa=X&redir_esc=y">crowds are wise</a> and the logic that <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linus%27s_Law">open systems produce better quality results than closed ones</a>. Second is the decline in the authority accorded to scientific knowledge, and the sense that scientific authorities are no longer always seen as objective or even reliable. As the authority of named experts housed in institutions has waned, Wikipedia, as a site that the majority of users believe is contributed to by unaffiliated and therefore unbiased individuals, has risen triumphant. </p>
<p>The realignment of expertise and authority is not new; changes to whom or what society deems credible sources of information have been a feature of the modern age. Authors in the field of the sociology of knowledge have written for decades about the <a href="http://press.princeton.edu/titles/9440.html">struggles of particular fields of knowledge to gain credibility</a>. Some have been more successful than others. </p>
<p>What makes today’s realignment different is the ways in which sources like Wikipedia are governed and controlled. Instead of the known, visible heads of academic and scientific institutions, sources like Wikipedia are largely controlled by nebulous, often anonymous individuals and collectives. Instead of transparent policies and methods, Wikipedia’s policies are <a href="http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/1357054.1357227">so complex and numerous</a> that they have become obscure, especially to newcomers. Instead of a few visible gatekeepers, the internet’s architecture means that those in control are often widely distributed and difficult to call to account. </p>
<p>Wikipedia is not neutral. Its platform has enabled certain <a href="http://geography.oii.ox.ac.uk/">languages, topics and regions</a> to dominate others. Despite the difficulty of holding our new authorities of knowledge to account, it’s a challenge that’s critical to the future of an equitable and truly global internet. There are new powers in town, so alongside the birthday cake and celebrations there should be some reflection on who will watch Wikipedia and where we go from here.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/53060/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Heather Ford was a member of the Wikimedia Foundation advisory board until 2009. She has received grants for her research on Wikipedia from the Open Society Institute and the University of Oxford's Fell Fund. She has also worked as an occasional volunteer for Wikipedia in the past. </span></em></p>But is it a good thing?Heather Ford, University Academic Fellow, University of LeedsLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.