Talk:Questions of democracy and social responsibility within Wikipedia

Delete ?

Hi User:Dave Braunschweig. Why do you want to delete this page so quickly ? I did have the time to start my project... Is it usual in en.wikiversity to propose deletion page without talking with his creator ? Best, Lionel Scheepmans ^{✉ Contact} _{(French native speaker)} 19:04, 10 November 2015 (UTC)

It's a proposed deletion rather than a speedy deletion. We often have users stop by, create a page of almost no content, and then never return. The proposed deletion gives users 90 days to return and make improvements. That's a very slow deletion process, and provides a reminder 90 days from now for those of us who do clean-up work. So, is it usual? For a page with nothing more than a sentence on it, absolutely. As the notice indicates, you are free to remove the proposed deletion, and/or make improvements, with or without discussion. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 19:14, 10 November 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for this interesting reply User:Dave Braunschweig. We don't use this template in fr.wikiversity, but it make sense indeed. Have a pleasant day, Lionel Scheepmans ^{✉ Contact} _{(French native speaker)} 19:27, 10 November 2015 (UTC)

page title

I'm a little busy now, but will take a look at this more closely later and offer any suggestions as you requested. I would propose some changes to the language in the title to something like: Wikipedia and democracy, why and how to improve equality among active editors in project and movement governance? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mu301 (talk • contribs)

Or maybe "Wikipedia and democracy, why and how to improve equality among active editors in projects and movement governance?"? ---Atcovi (Talk - Contribs) 20:07, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

Thanks a lot Mu301 and Atcovi, English is your native language, and I have some trouble in my native language too due to orthographical trouble. So... Is "Wikipedia and democracy, why and how to improve equality among active editors in projects and movement governance?" definitely the best formulation ? Lionel Scheepmans ^{✉ Contact} _{(French native speaker)} 01:54, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

You are welcome. There are a couple of ways to do it. I might be tempted to rename the page to "Wikipedia and democracy" and then have a header with the longer subtitle. This just makes the url https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Wikipedia_%26_democracy,_why_and_how_improve_equality_among_actives_editors_in_project_and_movement_governance%3F shorter and easier to share. I'm not sure if the exact wording is the best. I haven't had a chance to read the full essay. I'll take a look over the weekend. --mikeu ^talk 02:12, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

You're welcome, I'm happy to help :) My best approach would be "Wikipedia and democracy, why and how to improve equality among active editors in the projects and movement governance?". Though.. what do you mean by "movement governance"? Don't really understand what you mean by that. Do you mean like a "governance" of Wikipedia? Thanks! ---Atcovi (Talk - Contribs) 02:26, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

Thanks again Mu301 and Atcovi. "movement governance" means governance of wikipedia but also other projects of Wikimedia foundation and the foundation it self. Lionel Scheepmans ^{✉ Contact} _{(French native speaker)} 09:59, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

intro

Here is a suggested re-wording of the first two sentences.

For the past 15 years, the Wikimedia movement has been a success in terms of organizational governance despite many actors with so many points of view coming from completely different cultural backgrounds. Today, the movement has to concern itself with social responsibility and a possible drift toward the iron law of oligarchy.

Note: an 'iron law' is defined as "both indisputable and unavoidable" so the use here recommends that Wikipedia should try to avoid an "inevitable" outcome. Using this phrase sounds like a bit of a contradiction. Is suggests that the recommendations in the article are futile. I might add a sentence stating that you reject the notion that bureaucracy always corrupts and you have a plan to avoid this outcome. --mikeu ^talk 23:00, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

Thank you mikeu and welcome to edit your sugestion. If that not match with my thought, I can always change it or delete it. All the best, Lionel Scheepmans ^{✉ Contact} _{(French native speaker)} 06:37, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

references

A few years ago I collected a list of references that you might be interested in. See User:Mu301/Refs --mikeu ^talk 16:33, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

Cool mikeu ! Could you send me links or a file by email ? Lionel Scheepmans ^{✉ Contact} _{(French native speaker)} 19:28, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

I have started to update User:Mu301/Refs to include links. You might want to watchlist the page as I will be adding to as I find links during the next few days. If you find this useful you can "transclude" the current list in a page as I have done below. (Or just copy the wikicode when I'm finished proofreading it. --mikeu ^talk 17:53, 30 January 2016 (UTC)

Ok thanks, I will see this tomorrow. Lionel Scheepmans ^{✉ Contact} _{(French native speaker)} 19:29, 30 January 2016 (UTC)

Reference list

Wikiversity specific research

• Lawler, Cormac (May 2008). "Action research as a congruent methodology for understanding wikis: the case of Wikiversity". Journal of Interactive Media in Education 2008 (1). doi:10.5334/2008-6. http://jime.open.ac.uk/articles/10.5334/2008-6/. Retrieved 2016-01-30. 

• Lawler, Cormac (9 July 2010). Wikiversity: a project struggling with its own identity (PDF). Wikimania 2010. Gdansk, Poland.

• McAteer, Erica; Thorpe, Mary; Lawler, Cormac (2013). "Participative learning in online contexts: Focusing on 'participation'". In Valerie Farnsworth & Yvette Solomon. Reframing Educational Research: Resisting the 'what works' agenda. Routledge. pp. 61-74. ISBN 1135069662. https://books.google.com/books?id=vs0ye2SNUPwC&lpg=PA61&lr&pg=PA61#v=onepage&q&f=false. Retrieved 30 Jan 2016. 

Wiki general research

• Bryant, Susan L.; Andrea Forte; Amy Bruckman (2005). "Becoming Wikipedian: transformation of participation in a collaborative online encyclopedia". Proceedings of the 2005 international ACM SIGGROUP conference on Supporting group work: 1-10. doi:10.1145/1099203.1099205. 

Quotes specific contributers, but does not give usernames. Instead, quotes are attributed to (Participant 1) or (Participant 2) etc.

• Jesus, Rut; Martin Schwartz; Sune Lehmann (2009). "Bipartite networks of Wikipedia's articles and authors: a meso-level approach". Proceedings of the 5th International Symposium on Wikis and Open Collaboration. doi:10.1145/1641309.1641318. 

References usernames with the note: "The ‘real nicknames’ of the editors are kept due to the public nature of their work; as is clear from the examples, their identity is not at stake, not more than by creating an account in the Wikipedia website." Covers wp articles on topics such as: Evolution/Creationism, Intelligence (IQ tests) and Global Warming,

• Kittur, Aniket; Bongwon Suh; Bryan A. Pendleton; Ed H. Chi (2007). "He says, she says: conflict and coordination in Wikipedia". Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems. doi:10.1145/1240624.1240698. 

Presents aggregate data, no reference to specific contributers. Covers wp articles on the w:Terri Schiavo case and the disputed isle of w:Dokdo.

• Klemp, Nathaniel J.; Andrew T. Forcehimes (2010). "From Town-Halls to Wikis: Exploring Wikipedia's Implications for Deliberative Democracy". Journal of Public Deliberation 6 (2). http://services.bepress.com/jpd/vol6/iss2/art4. 

Cites the real name of the wp editor who modified the w:John Seigenthaler biography. Details of the w:Wikipedia biography controversy described in the paper are sourced to: "Economist. 2006. “The Wiki Principle.” The Economist April 22."

• Rosenzweig, Roy (July 2006). "Can History Be Open Source? Wikipedia and the Future of the Past". The Journal of American History. 

Paragraph on w:John Seigenthaler biography is sourced to "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Seigenthaler_Sr._Wikipedia_biography_controversy (Dec. 27, 2005)" (!) in footnote along with A false Wikipedia 'biography' in USA Today.

• Suh, Suh; Chi, E.H.; Pendleton, B.A.; Kittur, A.; (2007). "Us vs. Them: Understanding Social Dynamics in Wikipedia with Revert Graph Visualizations". IEEE Symposium on Visual Analytics Science and Technology. doi:10.1109/VAST.2007.4389010. 

Refers to specific usernames or IP addresses for anonymous edits. Uses w:Charles Darwin, w:Terri Schiavo case and w:Acid rain as examples.

• Viegas, Fernanda B.; Martin Wattenberg; Jesse Kriss; Frank van Ham (Jan. 2007). "Talk Before You Type: Coordination in Wikipedia". HICSS 2007. 40th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences. doi:10.1109/HICSS.2007.511. 

Quotes specific contributers, but does not give usernames. Instead, quotes are attributed to (Talk page for the article on Yasser Arafat) or (Talk page for the article on George W. Bush) etc.

• Vuong, Ba-Quy; Ee-Peng Lim Nanyang; Aixin Sun; Minh-Tam Le; Hady Wirawan Lauw (2008). "On ranking controversies in wikipedia: models and evaluation". WSDM '08 Proceedings of the international conference on Web search and web data mining. doi:10.1145/1341531.1341556. 

Refers to specific usernames or IP addresses for anonymous edits. Covers wp articles in w:Category:Religious objects

See also

• Learning and learning about learning in Wikiversity

Improving our Social Operating Systems

I am intrigued and encouraged by the success of Wikipedia and wonder what we can learn and apply to Improving our Social Operating Systems. I started a research project on this topic and invite linkages and participation from the community. Thanks! --Lbeaumont (discuss • contribs) 13:11, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

Firmly anchored in reality

It may be helpful to note in the section on Wikipedia's governance that Wikipedia entries are firmly grounded in reality and reality is the final arbiter of disputes. This is a result of policies on reliable references, NPOV, and others. Reality always has a seat at the table and any consensus discussion must consider the firm view point provided by reality. Thanks! --Lbeaumont (discuss • contribs) 13:17, 6 November 2018 (UTC)