The Future of Knowledge in the Age of Wikipedia, talks about the history of the world's most popular reference work, how galleries, libraries, archives and museums (GLAM) have come to work with it, and the challenges to Wikipedia's growth. We also describe how Wikipedia solves the "knowledge gap" problem by being the unusual blend of speed, depth and accuracy.
Subjects discussed: Smithsonian, British Museum, National Archives, VOX, Ezra Klein, Wikidata, Histropedia, Wikipedia, mobiles, Jimmy Wales, Ward Cunningham, Larry Sanger.
By: Andrew Lih of American University and author of The Wikipedia Revolution: How a bunch of nobodies created the world's greatest encyclopedia.
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access to the sum of all human knowledge. ANDREW Nobodies
of Bunch a How REVOLUTION WIKIPEDIA THE HOW A BUNCH OF NOBODIES
CREATED THE WORLD’S
GREATEST ENCYCLOPEDIA
U.S. $24.99
“Imagine a world in which every single person
on the planet is given free access to the sum of
all human knowledge. That’s what we’re doing.”
—Jimmy Wales
With more than 2,000,000 individual articles on
everything from Aa! (a Japanese pop group) to
Zzyzx, California, written by an army of volunteer
contributors, Wikipedia is the #8 site on the World
Wide Web. Created (and corrected) by anyone with
access to a computer, this impressive assemblage
of knowledge is growing at an astonishing rate of
more than 30,000,000 words a month. Now for the
first time, a Wikipedia insider tells the story of how
it all happened—from the first glimmer of an idea to
the global phenomenon it’s become.
Andrew Lih has been an administrator (a trusted
user who is granted access to technical features)
at Wikipedia for more than four years, as well as a
regular host of the weekly Wikipedia podcast. In The
Wikipedia Revolution, he details the site’s inception
in 2001, its evolution, and its remarkable growth,
while also explaining its larger cultural repercussions.
Wikipedia is not just a website; it’s a global commu-nity
of contributors who have banded together out of
a shared passion for making knowledge free.
Featuring a Foreword by Wikipedia founder Jimmy
Wales and an Afterword that is itself a Wikipedia
creation.
Wikipedia Revolution
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
navigation, search
This article is about the book. For the different, similar terms related to Wikipedia, see
Wikipedia (terminology).
Wikipedia’s non-encyclopedic visitor introduction, see Wikipedia:About.
Revolution (pronunciation ) is the story of the free,[1] multilingual ency-clopedia
project supported by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation. The website’s name
portmanteau of the words wiki (a technology for creating collaborative websites) and
encyclopedia. Wikipedia’s 10 million articles have been written collaboratively by volun-teers
around the world, and almost all of its articles can be edited by anyone who can
Wikipedia website.[2] Launched in 2001 by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger,[3] it
currently the largest and most popular[1] general reference work on the Internet.[4][5][6]
Wikipedia Revolution traces Wikipedia’s phenomenal success back to its roots, and
the people who have contributed to its stated mission of giving every single person
Created the World’s
Greatest Encyclopedia
ISBN: 978-1-4013-0371-6
ANDREW L IH
the Introduction to The Wikipedia Revolution
Wikipedia founder, Jimmy Wales
now, it’s hard not to use the Internet without experiencing Wikipedia in
searches and surfing. It has become an incredibly useful Internet resource in
languages. Yet when you use Wikipedia, you may not understand the
philosophy behind it.
book tells the story of how Wikipedia began and evolved from a traditional
encyclopedia into the intricate global community that it is today.
15. Wikipedia’s rank
ComScore: Top 5
Alexa: Top 6
!
Consistently outranked only by
Google, Yahoo, Microsoft
Comscore: Nov 2009 Alexa: May 2012
Photo by: victoriapeckham@flickr, Creative Commons
16. Wikipedia articles
Roughly:
4.5 million English articles
31+ million total articles
270+ languages
(April 2014)
by bored-now@flickr, licensed under Creative Commons Attribution NC License
36. Information*Priorities
Speed Depth
Features Encyclopedias
Journalism History
Accuracy
Spot news
Investigative
Scholarly research
Live news
Film
Books
37. Information*Priorities
Speed Depth
Features
Journalism History
Accuracy
Spot news
Investigative
Museums
Encyclopedias
Scholarly research
Live news
Film
Books
38. Information*Priorities
Speed Depth
Features
Journalism History
Accuracy
Spot news
Investigative
Museums
Encyclopedias
Scholarly research
Live news
Film
Books
39. Information*Priorities
Speed Depth
Features
Journalism History
Accuracy
Spot news
Investigative
Museums
Encyclopedias
Scholarly research
Live news
Film
Knowledge Gap
Books
40. Core policies
Knowledge Gap
• Neutral point of view (NPOV)
• Verifiability (V)
• Reliable sources (RS)
• Conflict of interest (COI)
Too old for the news
Too new for the history books
41. Core policies
Inadequacy of the News
"Trying to determine what is
going on in the world by reading
newspapers is like trying to tell
• Neutral point of view (NPOV)
• Verifiability (V)
• Reliable sources (RS)
• Conflict of interest (COI)
the time by watching the
second hand of a clock"
-Ben Hecht
42. Core policies
Curating the News
• Neutral point of view (NPOV)
• Verifiability (V)
• Reliable sources (RS)
• Conflict of interest (COI)
Wikipedia changes everything
43. Information*Priorities
Speed Depth
Spot news Museums
Encyclopedias
Features
Journalism History
Accuracy
Scholarly research
Live news
Film
Investigative
Books
44. Information*Priorities
Speed Depth
Spot news Museums
Encyclopedias
Features
Journalism History
Accuracy
Scholarly research
Live news
Film
Investigative
Wikipedia
Books
45. Information*Priorities
2001
Peer production
Speed Depth
Spot news Museums
Encyclopedias
Features
Journalism History
Accuracy
Scholarly research
Live news
Film
Investigative
Wikipedia
Books
46. Information*Priorities
2005
Topic coverage
Speed Depth
Spot news Museums
Encyclopedias
Features
Journalism History
Accuracy
Scholarly research
Live news
Film
Investigative
Wikipedia
Books
47. Information*Priorities
Speed Depth
Spot news Museums
WFeatureiskipedia Encyclopedias
Books
Journalism History
Accuracy
Scholarly research
Live news
Film
Investigative
48. Wikipedia Revolution
• “Crowd” delivers the hardest parts:
speed and depth
• Wikipedia’s accuracy increasing with
time
67. Mobiles Multimedia Community
33% of Wikipedia traffic is
mobile; 50% by 2025
What does this mean for
participation?
Input methods, browsing/
creating