Great news! The wikiscanner project I’m doing with Erik - where we ‘repurpose’ the WikiScanner to study the local aspect of Wikipedia production - is getting some attention in Dutch academia. My case study on Dutch Universities was noted on scienceguide.nl and on Willem van Valkenburg’s blog related to education and the Web.
Comparison of Dutch Universities’ input on Wikipedia on Science Guide
October 11th, 2007Making the Spinplant Relevant: more from Friedrich Nietzsche
October 10th, 2007Update — see bottom of the post and the discussion at Masters of Media. — /Update
About a week ago there was a small-scale furor on the Masters of Media blog and a Nettime-NL thread surrounding the spinplant. Laura (one of the very creative Masters of Media) wrote a Wikipedia entry on the fictional plant, complete with a taxonomic category and a high-resolution photo. The article was deleted within the hour.
While this was basically a good thing for Wikipedia - a kind of anti-Siegenthaler moment - the reason given for the deletion was not. It turns out that the Wikipedian responsible simply queried ’spinplant’, found no corresponding hits in Google, and that was that. Soon critics brought up the question: what happens when an encyclopedia relies so heavily on a commercial search engine, especially one with worrying censorship ‘issues’? When it comes to Wikipedia, or even Web knowledge more generally, does Google deal in capital-T truth?
In short, my answer is no. Firstly, it is unfair to tag the Wikipolice as lazy or uninformed. Anyone who spends their free time reverting bad edits on Wikipedia cannot but hold ‘exhaustiveness’ as a virtue.
Second, and more importantly, Google does not deal in truth at all. Like the cognitivists, the search engine giant has taken the pragmatic view that truth is immaterial - relevance is where it’s at.
On Google, the search for meaning ends when some presumption of relevance is satisfied (a feat normally achieved within a range of 10 hits) and not, say, once every option has been reviewed. Google has relevance theory, or something like it, at its core. There is a constructivist turn in the famous PageRank algorithm, too: Google bombs make it clear how contextual clues like anchor text (the words attached to a link) are ultimately what defines an object - that is, barring any manual editing. And the power John Battelle attributes to the database of intentions does not require searchers to become epistemologists, but simply to click on the link that looks good enough.
But pragmatic realism (if I’m using the appropriate term) is still realism. Google makes no claim about serving us reality, but nonetheless manages to produce ‘reality effects’. And Nietzsche still hates it:
Only as creators!— This has given me the greatest trouble and still does: to realize that what things are called is incomparably more important than what they are. The reputation, name, and appearance, the usual measure and weight of a thing, what it counts for—originally almost always wrong and arbitrary, thrown over things like a dress and altogether foreign to their nature and even to their skin—all this grows from generation unto generation, merely because people believe in it, until it gradually grows to be part of the thing and turns into its very body: what at first was appearance becomes in the end, almost invariably, the essence and is effective as such! How foolish it would be to suppose that one only needs to point out this origin and this misty shroud of delusion in order to destroy the world that counts for real, so-called “reality”! We can destroy only as creators!— But let us not forget this either: it is enough to create new names and estimations and probabilities in order to create in the long run new “things”. — The Gay Science, Book II (section 58).
In ditching ‘Truth’, Google is able to present itself as a demystifying agent, a poster child for a techno-libertarian worldview. But as Nietzsche says, we can destroy only as creators. So the question is not about truth, but what exactly Google has created in its place.
How relevant can we make the spinplant? [Try this: link to the non-page http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spinplant with the anchor text 'spinplant']
Update — “But let us not forget this either” … Premediating a Wikipedia entry is not the only way to get things done, and Laura has created some more pages for us to link to.
spinplant [http://www.lauravdv.nl/spinplant.html] and spinplant [http://home.student.uva.nl/laurina.vandervlies/spinplant.html]
Repurposing the Wikiscanner: Comparing Dutch Universities’ edits on Wikipedia
October 7th, 2007Under the banner of the Digital Methods Initiative, Erik and I have been working on a project called Repurposing the Wikiscanner. The following is an introduction to the project and the first of two case studies: this one deals with the presence of Dutch universities on Wikipedia, including how much they ‘anonymously’ contribute and the kinds of articles they edit. In the conclusion I suggest that the Wikiscanner, with some modifications, could prove a valuable tool for researching ‘local’ aspects of Wikipedia production.
Introduction
The Wikiscanner ‘de-anonymizes’ edits on Wikipedia, linking IP addresses to the organizations and institutions where the edits were made. Released in August 2007, it was quickly taken up on the Web and in the media, and within days a number of high-profile cases of misconduct were revealed. These included unsavory edits by “the Al-Jazeera network, Fox News Channel, staffers of Democratic Senator Robert Byrd and the CIA” and, here in the Netherlands, a revelation that ‘the Royals’ were touching up their involvement in the Mabel affair.
As a tool, the scanner is skewed toward scandal research. Its question, ‘Who edits Wikipedia?’ comes with a suggestion: some of these edits will be “salacious”. The results are presented per edit rather than aggregated, meaning the focus is not on collaborative processes or article ‘evolution’, but on the single, incriminating edit. On the one hand, this benefits from a core assumption about Wikipedia, that it is subject to manipulation and should be approached with caution. On the other, it is perfectly in line with the larger Wikipedia narrative, the power of the many over the few.
The Wikiscanner reapplies the Wisdom of Crowds at a meta-level. Meta-editors now lead the charge in exposing conflicts of interest. But will this result in a better encyclopedia, or simply a relocation of ongoing ‘edit-wars’ to more news-worthy portions of the Web? At what point do we need to know who queried a certain set of Wikiscanner results?
Taking a step back, we wonder whether the Wikiscanner can be repurposed as a (new) digital method. Tools for Web research, including the Wikiscanner but also those created by the DMI team, use exploits in Web services (Google, Wikipedia, etc.) to test them and make claims about the knowledge they produce or make available. However, the tools themselves come with methods ‘built-in’. Can research questions be tweaked without tool-modification? Perhaps we are better off aiming for tool-amalgamation - combining existing tools so as to reposition their individual limits. Can we get past scandal research with the Wikiscanner?
Anonymous Wikipedia Production by Dutch Universities
(for the full case study, with a smörgåsbord of tables and tag clouds, go here.)
Every year, the Dutch weekly Elsevier conducts a large survey among students and professors, asking them to ‘grade’ the universities. The results are always highly anticipated, and a source of (somewhat) friendly competition. In addition to the ratings given by students and staff, the magazine looks at indicators of universities’ relevance in terms of scientific publications. Taking a cue from Elsevier, one could query Wikipedia for the relative presence of Dutch universities.
Overall Activity
Using the Wikiscanner, anonymous edits from 13 Dutch universities were aggregated and compared. The greatest number of edits were made by the University of Groningen, followed by Twente and Utrecht. Given the University of Twente’s relatively small size, it is surprising to find it in the top three. However, friends have explained that this is probably because Twente has a lively campus, with students living close by, meaning much of their regular Web surfing will happen at the university.
Making Wikipedia Local
There were 639 articles edited by users from more than one university. Of these, 120 articles related to Dutch culture, history and politics. The most active universities in this area were Utrecht, Groningen and Leiden. Interestingly, but perhaps unsurprising, these same three universities have the highest-rated Language and Culture programs, according to one recent national survey. Wageningen University and Research Centre is also very active on these topics, but a closer look reveals that this has been ‘inflated’ by a great number of edits on just a few articles (especially ‘Ayaan Hirsi Ali’, ‘Wageningen’ and ‘Wageningen University’).
Profiling Technical Universities
The three technical universities (Twente, Eindhoven and Delft) were ‘profiled’ based on the articles each edited. As expected, each contributes often to articles relating to mathematics, science and technology. In addition to this, each was found to conform somewhat to ‘Geek’ stereotypes, with a high proportion of edits on topics dealing with science fiction and fantasy games. (I hope it is clear that, as a new media student, I would never use ‘Geek’ in a negative way.) This was most pronounced in the results for the Technical University of Eindhoven.
Cloud: Wikipedia articles edited anonymously from the Technical University of Eindhoven (Numbers indicate edits per article. Click image for a larger version)
Star-gazing at the University of Amsterdam
Last but not least is the University of Amsterdam, ‘home’ to the Masters of Media students. The most visible trend in the edits from our university could be termed a ‘Great Man’ view of Wikipedia. Half of the top thirty articles edited were biographies, and generally more than one were of a certain type (e.g. artist, charismatic leader, University of Amsterdam professor). Emphasis has been added in the cloud below to show this trend in the articles edited by the UvA (click the image for a larger version).
Conclusions
While the question has mostly been, ‘what can the Wikiscanner tell us about Dutch universities?’, the reverse is more interesting. What do the exercises carried out here say about the possible uses of the Wikiscanner for Wikipedia research?
The Wikiscanner, with some tweaking, makes it possible to ‘localize’ Wikipedia activity by linking edits to specific institutions or within geographical borders. Such a move adds a dimension to studies of Wikipedia. Where these have had to hang on to notions of the ‘virtual community’ in describing the ins and outs of collaboration online, the kind of research hinted at here will make it possible to rethink this production as both a local and global operation. General assumptions about Wikipedia’s ‘U.S.-centrism’ should be tested empirically, and alongside article content researchers should make use of location as a variable. In the case of universities, presumably hubs for the production of knowledge, this ‘trick’ is all the more interesting and relevant.
But the Wikiscanner also comes with limitations. Only anonymous edits are indexed, meaning the samples are relatively small and, until one can prove otherwise, not representative of all edits. Also, despite any attempts here or elsewhere, it will be tough to disassociate ‘anonymous’ from ‘discreditable’. With the profiles of technical universities, there is some indication that such samples are representative, but this needs more work. Taking the Wikiscanner further will require adequately theorizing the ‘anonymous edit’.
The University of Amsterdam’s ‘Great Man Theory’ on Wikipedia
October 4th, 2007Together with Erik, I’m working on a Digital Methods project called ‘Repurposing the Wikiscanner‘, where we try to adopt the infamous tool for uses other than scandal hunting. We’re still working on it, but here’s a nice preview. So far it seems that, compared to other universities, we at the UvA are still guilty of a ‘Great Man’ view of history. Here’s the cloud with emphasis added (click the image for the large version):
93 Wonderful Things: an illustrated review of BoingBoing
September 23rd, 2007
BoingBoing: A Directory of Wonderful Things is a groupblog that provides a mix of Web humor, art, politics, sex, gadgetry and unicorns. It is probably the only blog popular enough to receive its own backlash. I used to visit BoingBoing on a regular basis, nowadays it fills my feed reader. This analysis, completed for my New Media Practices course, takes the form of three short studies/observations, and assumes that readers are already somewhat familiar with the blog (for proper introduction, see the wikipedia article).
A Directory Exhumed
When I first saw BoingBoing’s extended title, ‘A Directory of Wonderful Things’, I thought it was just a juxtaposition meant to be funny. How could anyone associate ‘directory’ with such seemingly random posts? But the title has a history, and ‘directory of wonderful things’ actually refers to, well, a real directory. Comprising 93 things, the directory was (as far as I can tell) carefully compiled and annotated by Mark Frauenfelder in early 2000, when BoingBoing became a ‘real’ blog. It was featured prominently, as seen here at the top of the blog’s right column:
But within a year, the directory was forced below the fold to make room for a ‘donate’ button and a merchandise link (among other things). It also disappeared from the top menu bar. Jump forward another 2 years to 2003, and we find the directory - still the same 93 things - by scrolling all the way to the bottom of the page:
And then finally, a few days later, it disappears altogether:
In a way, the disappearance of Boingboing’s directory reflects more general changes that were happening on the Web. A professor recently pointed out (also using the Internet Archive) how something similar occurred at Google. Its directory was slowly being phased out, just as the Web’s most comprehensive directory - Yahoo - had to surrender to algorithmic search in order to better compete with Sergei and Larry.
Not to worry, though. Those carefully edited directories are still ‘out there’, if a little disheveled. Boingboing’s directory of 93 things can be found here. To get to Google’s directory, you will have to google it.
Watching Big Brother Watch Back
September 16th, 2007Reading some of the surveillance and society literature a few years back with the databodies project, I came across an interesting vision of the future: the author (can’t remember who) imagined demonstrations where police and protesters would do nothing but film one another and wait … Of course I was reminded of this when I saw the picture below, taken at yesterday’s anti-war protest in D.C.
What’s the look on the officer’s face? I think it says, “I’m sorry I’m doing this, but not really.” Or maybe just, “Wow, that guy’s got a nice camera.”
Review: From Counterculture to Cyberculture
September 15th, 2007What follows is the relatively long summary and review of Fred Turner’s book, From Counterculture to Cyberculture: Stewart Brand, the Whole Earth Network and the Rise of Digital Utopianism. For the very short (Twitter-sized!) version, go here. Otherwise, get comfortable.
Nerd Politics?
A recent Ask Slashdot piece appeared with the headline, “Why are so many nerds libertarians?” The interrogator suggests this is linked to the incompatiblity of Leftist ideals and high incomes, but a more likely answer can be sensed further down the thread (far below the funny let’s-mock-Ayn-Rand’s-stilted-prose detour):
“[T]his is the core of libertarian thought: if I’m not hurting you, leave me the hell alone. Don’t tell me what to do. Don’t order me to attend your schools. Don’t take my money for your causes. Let me trade freely (for example, let me buy sugar from Cuba). Let me read, or view, or say, what I want. I don’t need you to tell me what to do; I’m quite capable of figuring it out for myself. Let me have sex with any adult I want, male or female (n.b. I’m quite straight, but I see no reason to surpress other adults’ desires; I’m still protective of minors). Let me put into my body what I choose to put in it.
[...]
Why are so many nerds libertarian? Because you can’t code by rote. You can’t create or develop a new application following someone else’s rules. It requires individual thought, individual judgement, and individual spirit - exactly the same qualities that caused you to be either bored to tears, or jeered at, or socially ostracized at school. So when you finally come to political awareness, and realize that the GOP and the Dems are two sides of the same coin - both of them take your money, lie to you, and shove crap down your throat, while they live high on the hog on your dime (I’m not going to say which side is worse; to me, they’re both squalid), you’re eager to find a personal philosophy that avoids their traps. Libertarians are basically socially progressive and financially conservative. It seems like a logical philosophy, and we’re basically logical people.”
The author of this comment, Brickwall, suggests the trend is linked to a deep-rooted sense of individualism - thought, judgement and spirit, he says. But where he argues that this mix of ’socially progressive and financially conservative’ politics is simply ‘logical’, one could take a different route, tracing the history of ‘nerd-politics’ to the odd marriage of Newt Gengrich’s Neo-Conservativism with the pages of Wired circa 1996, and then even further back. In From Counterculture to Cyberculture, Fred Turner does exactly this, arguing convincingly that the libertarian world-view so strongly associated with the Web, as well as the corresponding emphasis on de-regulation and on individual responsibility, is intricately tied to the project begun by a distinctive faction of 1960s counterculture, the group he terms the New Communalists.
This blog circa 1996: courtesy of the time-machine gun
September 11th, 2007I’m dubbing Tobias Leingruber’s Time Machine Firefox addon the time-machine gun, because it is lethal. It works best with sound on.
So what did this site look like back in 1996? Here are the screenshots:
The blog:
And the front page (which didn’t need to get any uglier!):
Interactivity is Affectivity
September 9th, 2007Over the summer I wrote an essay called ‘Interactivity is Affectivity’ for the tutorial ‘Current themes in new media’. You may like to read the following teaser, or click pdf for the pdf.
The report of the death of interactivity comes from Mark Andrejevic (2001). He calls the initial failure of the Big Brother television format in the United States a watershed moment in the passage from interactivity to what he terms, following Slavoj Zizek, interpassivity. During its first season, viewers voted off the show’s most interesting participants, the ones most likely to fight, seduce, connive and be generally entertaining. Understanding their tactical error, executives opted for an alternative format in the second season, whereby the Big Brother participants themselves did the voting, ensuring a maximum of drama inside the house. For Andrejevic, the story highlights the incompatibility of the democratizing potential of interactivity (“power-sharing”) with its imperative from the finance departments, i.e. to offload work to the consumer. Synthesis comes in the form of ‘interpassivity’, “the unobtrusive monitoring built into the digital TV that keeps track of [the audience]” so as to offer TiVo-like recommendations.
The narrative holds that, by default, real control will always elide consumers of interactivity, and represents a necessary critique of the so-called liberating potential of new technologies. It appears to me, though, that interactivity is an exceptional target. This is no doubt due to the simple fact that one hears about interactivity all the time – the term’s overwhelming presence in everything from entertainment and education to art and politics has long set in motion backlashes in each of these areas. As Andrejevic astutely argues, the equation of interactivity with user control and empowerment generally amounts to no more than an easy selling point with little substance. But to then conclude that this is the pacification of interactivity is, perhaps, to skip a step. If the selling point is fully rejected, as it should be, then why stick to the framework that pits interactivity against control at all? What is interactivity after empowerment?