for Digital Culture Production Project at Newcastle Uni. Semester 2, 2010

1. Disclaimer: Logo is the property of Wikipedia. No copyright infringement is intended

2. Digital Culture: Production Project by Angela
Kelsey C3112620

3. The Wiki
Ward Cunningham says that he
coined the word ‘wiki’ on his
return from Hawaii in 1995(np).
Taken from the Hawaiian word for
‘quick’, Cunningham came up
with a means of creating web
pages simply(np). In other words,
for those who lacked the skill to
create one from scratch and
those who wanted to increase the
time efficiency of their creation.

4. Origins of Wikipedia
Wikipedia is perhaps the most well
known and well organised wiki. Roy
Rosenzweig states that the “origins of
Wikipedia began in March of 2000
with the creation of a project called
Nupedia by Jimmy Wales and Larry
Sanger. This was followed by their
creation of GNUpedia as a ‘Free
Universal Encyclopaedia and
Learning Resource.’ (119)”
Disclaimer: Logo is the property of Wikipedia. No copyright infringement is intended

5. Following this, according to Voss,
Wikipedia began as a side project
“to allow collaboration on articles
prior to the review phase. (1)”
Rosenzweig states that “Nupedia
was closed in 2002 when Wikipedia
authors grew to outnumber it. Since
then it has grown to number over a
million articles as of mid 2004 in 185
different languages. (121)” It would
be many more by now.

6. What’s the difference?
Wikipedia in itself is a user-created
encyclopaedia, whereas the wiki
covers a broader and less structured
style. The wiki is, in essence, another
form of webpage that allows for user
participation and creation. While the
wiki may be just as informative as
Wikipedia, the Wiki allows for a
greater amount of speciality and
creativity in its creation. Wikipedia
has a set structure, a set look and
many very specific rules to follow.

7. Wiki creators can make their own rules, just as one would if they were
building their own website.
Wiki’s often focus on a single or a cluster of niche groups or a single
topic and develop a core base of information to educate the public
on that subject, or to serve their own collaborative purposes.
Wikipedia has a greater level of moderation than wikis do. If there is
plagiarism then moderators will ask for citations and supporting
sources. On a wiki it is up to the creators to encourage academic
honesty.

8. Content inclusion
For Wikipedia, information is
gathered and included from many
different sources and cited in text
and in a reference list. Original
research is discouraged as it
increases the likelihood that the
information provided is incorrect.
Referencing primary source texts is
also discouraged as it is a form of
self-promotion and therefore biased
regardless of the reliability of the
information.

9. Audience/creators
Wiki and Wikipedia articles are written for and by
the general public rather than by academics as
with other scholarly articles. Though informative their
credibility of information is not as high because of
the nature of its creation. Kittur & Kraut state that
“Each new editor working on an article in Wikipedia
has the potential to contribute new knowledge with
which to flesh out an article, insight into how the
article should be written and vigilance to discover
errors in fact, grammar or judgment. (39)” These
sites benefit from the knowledge bases of such a
broad audience merely because it is out there and
accessible to virtually anyone.

10. Copyright issues/Intellectual Property
The free sharing of information online can have a negative effect,
regardless of whether they have given credit to the original owners or
creators of that information, or even paid for the right to share. The
increased provision of this information takes away from the need for and
profit of the print industry. People will rarely pay for something they can
get for free.
Creeber & Martin make a statement which may answer this dilemma.
They state that “Perhaps digital culture extends ‘planned obsolescence’
and the notion of constant ‘upgrading’ into habitual patterns of
consumption and self-conceptualization, even in the world of
academic commentary. (109)” The notion of certain technologies
replacing others, of sites like Wikipedia replacing the texts they talk
about could merely be a natural means of progression into the future,
despite its obvious disadvantages.

11. Both Wikipedia and the wiki rely on
other people, moderators or the
general group of authors to check
for mistakes and source errors.
Lamb states that” This ethic is at
the heart of “Soft Security,” which
relies on the community, rather
than technology, to enforce order.
Whereas “hard security” functions
by restricting access or hiding
pages, wikis save copies of
successively edited versions; thus,
work that has been deleted or
defaced can be recovered with a
couple clicks of the mouse. (np)”

12. Negative side of collaborative information
sharing
The bias that comes from being a user
created medium can have its down side.
Objectivity is needed when discussing
factual information so as not to tamper
with the truth, however, humans are
naturally subjective. Ebersbach et al states
that “Whether we like it or not, subjectivity
is prerequisite to objective consciousness.
Those wanting to be objective must have
a point of view and be able to say where
they want to go. Only then can statements
be discussed. (460)”

13. Benefits
There are benefits to having an online publically created encyclopaedia.
One being that it is a free exchange of information, it allows people to
give back and express their own intellectual ability in a public sphere.
Academics and the general public contribute on an equal footing. What
information is provided and how it is delivered is more important that who
provides it. Because of the accessibility the internet provides, people can
contribute to Wikipedia anywhere at any time that they have access.

14. Wiki’s allow a similar level of freedom of
expression. The content in wikis may not be
as widely monitored as Wikipedia (noted by
the observed structural formation and
moderation of Wikipedia), but it does allow
for a more relaxed form of discussion and
explanation of a topic. Pages convey
information on their chosen topic but it does
not have to be explained as precise, and the
structure of the subject’s delivery leaves
much open to the authors’ creative
expression. Images are also more widely
used in wikis than in Wikipedia. This could
possibly be because of the structure of how
Wikipedia is created, as well as the nature of
the form, being an encyclopaedia.

15. Online Collaboration
Kittur & Kraut state that “Despite Wikipedia’s success, we know little
about why it has been so effective. One possibility is that having many
contributors’ results in higher quality and less biased articles. (38)” One
person alone may make a mistake, but many people, or even several
people can correct and reword each other’s errors and provide a
much broader knowledgebase than they would alone. This also has its
pros and cons.

16. Authors may dispute over the
information they contribute. Being that
Wikipedia is also a means of displaying
intellectual intelligence the editing of
another person’s entries may not always
be wholly welcomed. Goldspink states
that “Sanger recognised that in the
beginning, ‘force of personality’ and
‘shaming’ were the only means used to
keep contributors under control. No
formal punishment or banning
happened for six months, regardless of
there being difficult characters from the
start. (654)”

17. Image and Remix Site References
Slide 1 – Wikipedia logo and own text using www.Funny.Pho.to
Slide 2 – Own image using http://www.photofunia.com.look-for.us/
Slide 3 – Own image using http://www.photofunia.com.look-for.us/
Slide 4 – Wikipedia Logo
Slide 5 – Own image using http://www.befunky.com.look-for.us/
Slide 6 – Own image using http://www.befunky.com.look-for.us/
Slide 7 – Screenshot of the Wikipedia Sandbox
Slide 8 – Image from direct link site using http://www.photofunia.com.look-
for.us/
Slide 9 – Image from direct link site using http://blingee.com/
Slide 11 – Image from direct link site using http://www.dumpr.net.look-
for.us/
Slide 12 – Image from direct link site using
http://www.makesweet.com.look-for.us/
Slide 13 – Own image using http://www.photofunia.com.look-for.us/
Slide 14 – Image from direct link site using http://www.dumpr.net.look-
for.us/
Slide 15 – Image from direct link site using
http://www.anymaking.com.look-for.us/
Slide 16 – Image from direct link site using
http://www.anymaking.com.look-for.us/

18. Works Cited /References
Creeber, Glen. Martin, Royston. Digital Cultures: Understanding New
Media. Open University Press. Dec 2008. Web. 23 Oct. 2010
Cunningham, Ward. Correspondence on the Etymology of Wiki. Np.
2005. Web. 24 Oct. 2010. <http://c2.com/doc/etymology.html>
Ebersbach, Anja. Glaser, Markus. Heigl, Richard. Wiki : Web
Collaboration. Springer-Verlag Berlin and Heidelberg GmbH & Co. KG. 1
Jan. 2008. Web. 23 Oct. 2010
Goldspink, Christopher(2010) Normative Behavior in Wikipedia,
Information, Communication & Society, 13: 5, 652 — 673. Web. 23 Oct.
2010.
Kittur, Aniket. Kraut, Robert E. (2008) Harnessing the Wisdom of Crowds in
Wikipedia: Quality through Coordination Proceedings of the 2008 ACM
conference on Computer supported cooperative work. San Diego, CA,
USA Pages: 37-46. Web. 23 Oct. 2010

19. Lamb, Brian. Wide Open Spaces: Wikis, Ready or Not.
http://tccl.rit.albany.edu/knilt/images/c/c1/Lamb(final).doc. Np.
Nd. Web. 28 Oct. 2010.
Rosenzweig, Roy. Can History Be Open Source? Wikipedia and the
Future of the Past.
http://ecpdata.mdsa.net/sources_secondary/rosenzweig-
highres.pdf. np. nd. Web. 28 Oct. 2010.
Voss, Jakob. Measuring Wikipedia. Humboldt-University of Berlin,
Institute for library science. 2 Apr. 2005. Web. 26 Oct. 2010