Talk:The Wikipedia Revolution

Restore

I've restored back to the previous version

• 1. References to internal Wikipedia pages in article space is done through external links and footnotes. The text is agnostic where is resides, it could equally be on wikipedia.org as anywhere else, it does not need to be dependent on residing on wikipedia.org to work. Some could copy and paste this text verbatim onto another website and it will work equally well. Without the external link reference there is no way to find the authors Wikipedia page.
• 2. Restored the footnotes and references.
• 3. Restored the "first book", it is a cited quote.

Green Cardamom (talk) 22:18, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Ok. Here are my responses:

• 1. The source states: "the only narrative account about the online community that created one of the most influential Web sites in the world." This is not quite the same as, "the first book length narrative history of the online encyclopedia Wikipedia" though it is close. Since other books have been written about the Wikipedia, I think the sentence as it stands needs to be tweaked since the word "first" is misleading.
• 2. "Written in a journalistic style" is a little awkward. Can we reword?
• 3. "The book examines the different cultures of foreign language Wikipedia's such as Germany, China and Japan." Germany, France, and Japan are countries, not cultures. We need to reword the sentence to indicate this difference.

-Classicfilms (talk) 02:31, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

• 1.I see what your saying but it doesn't say the first book about Wikipedia, rather the first narrative history book of Wikipedia, which AFAIK is accurate, and significant.
• 2.The author is not a professional historian, he is a trained journalist, the book reads like a magazine article, not a professional history work.It can be reworded, obviously not what I just wrote here, but we need to word it in some way that it is popular journalistic history and not a professional history work.
• 3.The "Wikipedia's cultures". Each language Wikipedia has its own unique culture, as described in the book. For example in the German Wikipedia, the culture there is a preference against stub articles, to leave articles red-link - better to have no article than a stub article, until someone can write a good article on the topic. That's a part of the culture of the German Wikipedia unique from other Wikipedia's.

--Green Cardamom (talk) 12:37, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

I think we're making the same points but in different ways. My concerns are focused on style and form not content.

• 1. Sure, that's fine - but we do have a responsibility to make it clear that this is not the first book written on the WP. So I propose that we quote what is written in the source which will resolve confusion. As it stands, the sentence could imply that it is the only book written on the WP.
• 2. I agree with you - again, my concern was form as "journalistic style" is not the best way to phrase what you are trying to say. I would prefer something like "offering a journalist's account" or "from a journalistic viewpoint" etc.
• 3. I'm not arguing against the fact that for example the Japanese language Wikipedia has a different culture. I was arguing against the way in which the sentence is constructed. Japan is a country, not a culture, in the same way that the United States is a country, not a culture. To make the distinction, we would need to say Japanese culture, American culture and so forth. The sentence simply needs to be reformulated for this reason. There is also one grammatical mistake as it should read "Wikipedias" without the apostrophe. One possible revision which solves these stylistic issues is: "The book also explores the cultural differences found within international sister texts such as the Germanic Wikipedia, the Chinese Wikipedia, and the Japanese Wikipedia." -Classicfilms (talk) 15:11, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

If there are no objections, I will make these stylistic changes tomorrow. -Classicfilms (talk) 15:09, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

• 1. OK.
• 2. How about just call it "popular history".
• 3. That sounds great.

--Green Cardamom (talk) 17:28, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

A criticism section

How about a section about the criticism the book received? Varks Spira (talk) 15:04, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

"Critical reception" would be more neutral; if you have reliable sources that discuss it, then by all means go ahead.  Skomorokh  20:47, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Yes, it is interesting how easy it is to come across reliable sources that are dedicated to books, such as this one! There are many: they are called book reviews. But I am writing a draft article about the Wikipedia administrator (of which you are one, I know) and there seems to be barely any articles that dedicate themselves to the subject of Wikipedia administrator. There are close calls though, but the rules seem to make it easier to write about books than to write about the content within. Varks Spira (talk) 21:22, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Yes, books are discrete entities with publishers pushing them into reviewers' hands; it's less likely for a journalist to wake up one day and exclaim "why, I think I'll write an article about the administrators of a website today!" Good luck on your search,  Skomorokh  21:31, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

True. I'll have to contact Cade Metz, Noam Cohen, and a few of the other journalists I've come across in my searches and ask them to write such an article about the Wikipedia administrator. Varks Spira (talk) 02:57, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

The Essjay controversy was covered in the press and the book. Green Cardamom (talk) 04:45, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

I feel I read Wikipedia

The article feels like I just read Wikipedia's article on itself rather than a book about Wikipedia. Python Drink (talk) 19:10, 8 September 2022 (UTC)