Archive for old research material: Archived on July 7 2005

Questions which got me interested in writing about the Wikipedia

1. Does the functioning of the Wikipedia offer a substantially different experience to other modes of community interaction and/or establishing communal knowledge?

2. How do the editors of the Wikipedia organise themselves into a functioning community? How do notions of hierarchy relate to the successful functioning of such a community?

3. How do disputes arise within the Wikipedia community, and how are these disputes then resolved?

4. Can the model of the Wikipedia be extended to facilitate the wider social functioning of democracy?

I am aware that, on the 'Wikipedia: what wikipedia is not' page it is stated that Wikipedia is not a democracy. However, I am working from a broader definition of democracy as any project performed by a large number of individuals. If anybdy is interested in discussing this distinction, please email me. Will Lakeman 13:20, 20 May 2005 (UTC)

Clarification of my topic; 21 May 2005

So far, I've been using some ideas put forward by Pierre Levy (collective intelligence) and some of the thinking of Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri (specifically from 'Empire') to work out a concept of a wiki as a social formation, rather than using the term 'democracy' which is so loaded in political discourse. By social formation, I really mean non-traditional social formation, as I think the Wikipedia is quite different due to the dispersal of its contributors across the English-speaking world (and beyond) and the fact that any sense of community must resolve around the shared project of the Wikipedia itself. I'm interested as to whether the Wikipedia can then be seen as a meta-discourse (clunky experssion, corrections welcome) which examines the way knowledge is recorded, accessed and debated in an internet-enabled culture.

So, more questions:

1. Does the language of the Wikipedia affect the discourse which shapes its content? Is the Wikipedia useful for discovering the fault lines in any such consensus?

2. Is there someting unique in the Wikipedia as a record of debate and disagreement that, contrary to the arguments of its detractors, makes it useful and even superior as a reference tool?

3. Should the Wikipedia be correctly termed a 'complementary' rather than 'alternative' resource? (I mean, when discussed in mass media / academia, as it seems that many enlightened contributors already consider this view)

4. Can the Wikipedia be considered a meta-discourse which examines the way knowledge is recorded, accessed and debated in an internet-enabled culture?

5. Is such a meta-discourse an ephemeral, class-specific product of postmodernity, or an essential stage in the evolution of humanity's understanding of its own thought?

I know these questions may sound a bit pretentious, but I think its' just because I haven't got the terms right yet. Please suggest corrections on my talk page.

The current state of my research, as of May 23 2005

Wikipedia as a virtual community

One section of the dissertation should examine the extent to which the Wikipedia can be perceived as a ‘virtual community,’ making use of the models put forward by writers such as Howard Rheingold (Virtual Communities) Sherry Turkle (Life on The Screen) and Nancy K Baym (Various). Although I intend to demonstrate the Wikipedia does have aspects which may lead us to describe it as a community, the models above are not strictly useful as they (more or less) attempt to perceive virtual communities as an analog to real-life communities with stronger social and familial ties. I don’t feel that this is so much a weakness of the theorists, but rather a reflection of the concerns of the time in which they were writing (mostly the 1990s) which saw much anxiety about the fragmentary effects of computer-mediated communication. I plan to argue, making use of Manuel Castells’ Network Society, that virtual and real life communities are both evolving in parallel, with the lack of ties in the virtual community reflecting similar changes in real life.

Less a community than a project; requirements for participation

In this case, I wish to concentrate my analysis to demonstrate that the Wikipedia is in fact a knowledge-project (or even learning-project) which may have as an incidental affect the production and reinforcement of certain community-type values, although the extent to which different types of user may subscribe to these values will require some discussion. To elaborate this idea, I wish to use the concept of collective intelligence put forward by Pierre Levy and elaborated by others. I also plan to relate my discussion of the Wikipedia to the ideals of the open source software movement.

However, I wish to stress that many of the strengths of the Wiki project can also be seen to be its weaknesses, and the fact that its participants are bound together solely by the Wikipedia project can be seen to render it somewhat volatile.

I plan to examine various conditions that are required for successful participation in the Wikipedia, particularly concepts such as authority and hierarchy which, although less present in the Wikipedia than in many non-virtual organisations/communities, can still be seen to exist. I aim to demonstrate, however, that some of the techniques used to achieve consensus within the Wikipedia may offer a useful model for dispute resolution elsewhere.

I plan to make use of Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of cultural capital to explain the social functioning of the Wikipedia, as explained by both its proponents and its detractors.

The wiki as a new model for the transmission and record of human knowledge

Lastly, I wish to write about the extent to which the Wiki system may offer a new model for the understanding, recording and transmission of human knowledge. To elaborate, I think that the greatest strength of the Wikipedia is that it maintains a record of all of the disagreements, edits and alternate versions that produce a given article. In the course of my preliminary research, I have found my most useful material via talk pages and user pages – I have followed these links to complicated arguments about the Wikipedia itself, its procedures and internal workings (both technical and social). The Wikipedia is therefore a new type of media that contains a meta-media (need a better term for this) within itself.

My research has frequently led me to the [meta-wiki], a parallel site which seems to function as a forum for the discussion of many of the issues I have raised above, albeit not in exactly the same terms. I have made great use of the meta-wiki site and have placed a link to this research (which is found on my own Wikipedia user page) there for comment by other users and researchers. So far, I have found their input to be invaluable.

Methodology

Various user comments have lead me to belive that I should include a paragraph detailing the methodology that I am employing as part of my research. Firstly, I should stress that I am attempting to be as transparent as possible regarding my motivations for researching the Wikipedia - I don't think there's any point in obscuring my political sympathies, socio-economic position or any of the factors which produce the particular standpoint from which my opinions originate. I consider my academic work, and indeed any kind of writing, as being inherently concerned with political questions, and do not believe that apolitical writing is either possible or desirable. Obviously, this belief is central to my participation in the Wikipedia, but I think it would be dishonest to claim otherwise.

Whilst I may have my own strongly-held opinions, I appreciate that the views of others with which I disagree are also strongly-held, and produced by circumstances which are outside my own experience. I am not conducting an ethnography, but rather a self-reflexive study of a knowledge-community via my own participation.