New Media M.A. Research Blog | Media Studies, University of Amsterdam

Follow up: Dutch Wikipedia strangely crueler than English Wikipedia

It is with great sadness that I announce the death of two Wikipedia articles. These were articles I introduced with parental pride a couple of weeks ago. On beforehand we were told that the English Wikipedia would be the...

By Cendy Calis on 10/28/10 5

Wikipedia, we have a Google refresh problem!

What did the web crawler say to Wikipedia? I'll update you later! So the question is … just how much later?! I'm wondering because there seems to be a discrepancy between just how fast Wikipedia bots/editors seem to shoot down...

By Isobel Gorman on 10/16/10 7

E = Media Combinations2: The survival of the fittest

Every old medium was once new. And when something gets old we’ve got to search for a way to give it its old glance back. The printed book was once a new medium. It was revolutionary, groundbreaking. But today...

By Chris Hoogeveen on 10/13/10 3

Hacktivists and trolls on Wikipedia

In the past few years, a lot of research efforts have been directed towards topics that gravitate around Wikipedia, be it trying to determine the motivations of users to contribute with their own content, the proper use of Wikipedia...

By Stefania Bercu on 10/08/10 Comments Off

You Are All Missing Out On Elementary Stuff People

6.060.000 results reports Google on the query “back door”. Another common two word object such as “kitchen table” has 4.470.000 results. I would say a back door is pretty elementary, and pretty much everyone uses it in their daily...

By Pim van Bree on 10/08/10 Comments Off

Groupon: a sprouting little Wiki entry

Again I fell into the trap of thinking that it would be easy to write on a topic after my own choice. There’s lots of stuff that I find interesting, so there must be plenty to write about. This...

By Anouka Slemmer on 10/07/10 2

The Wiki Game

Sometimes, things going smoothly can be very disappointing. It seems strange and contradictory, but there you have it. Writing my first Wikipedia article I had expected to experience first hand the community driven process that defines the wiki platform....

By Onur Yilmaz on 10/07/10 1

The Wiki-Elite

Sitting in class, I had just created my account on Wikipedia. Within minutes somebody had altered my biography on my personal user page. Luckily, it was the person sitting next to me in class who had successfully fooled me,...

By Erik van Bemmelen on 10/07/10 2

Please publish my thesis and make it true

We were told to start a Wikipedian adventure. Create an account and contribute to the knowledge of the world. The English Wikipedia has almost 3,5 million entries, so coming up with a term that no one has thought of...

By Philip Man on 10/07/10 2

My brother on Wikipedia is RELEVANT!

The policies and text regulations that are presented by Wikipedia, display a very different form of politics, the debate falls on the aspect of RELEVANCE. It is all very complicated, yet also very simple. Their requirements are seemingly reasonable;...

By ibtisam omer on 10/06/10 Comments Off

And the winner is…

This week I took my fist shaky steps on the Wikipedia. I was supposed to because of this week’s assignment, but I wasn’t quite enthusiastic. Wikipedia barbarian as I was, I thought it would be quite easy to create...

By Lotte Woerde on 10/05/10 Comments Off

Californian Ideology 2.0, A First Farewell

Where the internet and greater new technologies before have military origin, nowadays technologies and implementation are developed and financed by private companies and organizations. Even the backbone of the internet has become privatized, as part of its protocol, DNS,...

By Pim van Bree on 10/05/10 1

Cinekid On Wikipedia

Write what you know, it is often said. And love, is what I’d like to add. In embarking on the Wikipedia adventure this past week, the saying has certainly proven to be a very helpful starting point for me....

By Rosanne Sliuzas on 10/05/10 Comments Off

Wikipedia is the mother of my entry

Searching the definition of ‘community’ on Wikipedia (yes it is ironic) I found the most common one of ‘ a group of interacting people living in a common location. The word is often used to refer to a group...

By Levien Rocha on 10/05/10 1

Wikipedia’s ‘Rise of the eediots’?

Call someone an idiot. Expect trouble. Say to someone; ‘You eediot!’ and they just might respond in hysterical laughter, and then call you a purist. You just showed off that you’re into cult cartoons and you found an ally....

By Hans Terpstra on 10/04/10 2

Encyclopedic Enough?

The integration of wiki knowledge into mirror worlds would possibly satisfy our desire to capture and understand the world to a large extend. Mirror Worlds; Yes, I would like to contribute. The 80s ‘neutral’ knowledge-gathering tour took me from...

By Mareline Heijman on 10/04/10 1

Kaassouffle…good enough to stay?

My adventures in kaassouffle’ing have officially begun and the beloved Dutch streetfood snack has now triumphed to English Wikipedia status. Thus far, the bots have not attacked my entry and only a reviewer from the Czech Republic stepped in to...

By Ekaterina Yudin on 10/04/10 1

To Be or Not To Be Deleted: My First Wikipedia Entry

There are 3,431,688 articles in the English Wikipedia on a dizzying range of topics. Surely there must be one on data-driven journalism, right? Well, the answer is no; an article on database journalism focuses on computer-assisted reporting, the digital...

By Catalina Iorga on 10/04/10 Comments Off