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

Response to sarahnats: What is Causing the Decline in Wikipedia Participation?

This short article is a response to sarahnats’ article “What is Causing the Decline in Wikipedia Participation”? You can see this short article as a further extension of her argumentation structure and my own experience of adding information to...

By Tim van Essen on 09/21/09 Comments Off

The Wiki Beehive

Generally Wikipedia is praised for it’s collective driven overload of information. “Britannica’s biggest errors are of omission, not commission. It’s shallow in some categories and out of date in many others. And then there are the millions of entries...

By Maarten Hoogvliet on 09/21/09 Comments Off

Speaking Hedberg to Italians

“I saw a commercial on late night TV, it said, ‘Forget everything you know about slipcovers!’ So I did. It was a load off my mind! Then the commercial tried to sell me slipcovers, but I didn’t know what...

By Nicola Bozzi on 09/21/09 Comments Off

Wikipedia Edit Wars: The Web Encyclopedia as a Political Battleground

The United States is a vast expanse of landscape in which millions of people hold a myriad of differing opinions. Due to its open editing policy, many of these opinions have found their way on to Wikipedia. With high...

By Thomas Wielemaker on 09/21/09 Comments Off

What are possible consequences of Wikipedia for the future of human knowledge?

Two of the most important features of Wikipedia are the history pages and the discussion pages. Wikipedia not only contain the facts, but it also records and contributes to the politicization and dissemination of scientific research and communication. It...

By Jan Bajec on 09/21/09 2

Wikipedia changes our perception of knowledge

Wikipedia differs greatly with the traditional encyclopedia. Examples of aspects of differentiation: · Broader public: knowledge is for everyone. · Authority: everyone can write for Wikipedia. · Broader range of subjects: everyone can decide what is important to be...

By Suzanne Schram on 09/21/09 Comments Off

Wikipedia and Social Networking

It’s easy to feel excited about Wikipedia when you’ve just created your own article. But soon after you publish it, the thrill seems to fade away. Wikipedia has relied on a participatory system and it can’t be denied that it’s been very...

By Margarida Fonseca on 09/21/09 Comments Off

Wikipedia, we want the truth?

I am a student of the new millennium. That means that I rarely go to a library building, I hardly use books made out of paper and the reference lists on the bottom of my school papers look very...

By Marta Colpani on 09/21/09 Comments Off

Wikipedia Laundry List

It’s easy to love wikipedia. Especially once you’ve joined its fold, embraced the ethos, and gotten the satisfying pay off of adding a page to its massive index. Enthusiasm aside, here’s nine thoughts on research-rich areas for the future...

By Morgan Currie on 09/21/09 2

Are you a murderer according to Wikipedia?

In December 2005 BBC reported that “the free online resource Wikipedia is about as accurate on science as the Encyclopedia Britannica.” (1) The study of Wikipedia’s reliability was conducted by the British journal Nature which examined a range of...

By Hania Piotrowska on 09/21/09 Comments Off

The road not taken, the entry left blank

Bacalar Chico National Park and Marine Reserve is a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Belize, home of jaguars, manatees, and the largest nesting grounds for sea turtles in Belize, and contains the only spot along the Mesoamerican Barrier Reef...

By Allison Guy on 09/21/09 1

Wikipedia: on the Value of Information and the Concept of Censorship

It’s a fact that people more and more gather information from the internet and other digital sources instead of learning -to master- that information. What will be the long term effects of this development? Does the posibility to search...

By Charlotte van Brakel on 09/20/09 Comments Off

What is Causing the Decline in Wikipedia Participation?

Wikipedia is considered to be the largest online database of information. Launched in 2001, Wikipedia has had exponential growth and have celebrated it’s 3 millionth article in August 2009. However, in the past month, both Times Magazine and Fast...

By Sarah Moore on 09/20/09 3

Ich don’t think so, or different viewpoints on Wikipedia entries

Although the homepage of Wikipedia invites one to participate in the growth process of Wikipedia, this notion is being prevented by different thresholds. For instance there is the threshold of the technical; as easy as it is to click...

By Thomas Fonville on 09/20/09 Comments Off

Is Wikipedia too Encyclopedic?

While I was creating and editing the “Hijab Tax”-entry, I noticed that Wikipedia is still ‘just’ an encyclopedia, in spite of its mission; As an encyclopedia building project, Wikipedia seeks to create a summary of all human knowledge: all...

By Han Rusman on 09/20/09 1

Wikipedia assignment: Is ‘WikiTrust’ the next step towards a more reliable online-encyclopaedia?

Once again the online-encyclopaedia Wikipedia is in the spotlight of attention; after years of various forms of praise, critique and academic studies – in which several different and overlapping aspects of Wikipedia have been discussed – the encyclopaedia has...

By Sander Leegwater on 09/20/09 1

De-botting wikipedia

Wikipedia is praised for its open “everybody can contribute” system and it’s collaborative knowledge production. An environment that is seemingly built by human editors, but where in fact wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Bots">bots do much of the work. Since 2002, Wikipedia entries...

By Kimberley Spreeuwenberg on 09/20/09 3

The great power of a Wikipedia sysop

A sysop (as a system operator) is a controversial actor in Wikipedia. The term sysop means an administrator of a multi-user computer system, such as a bulletin board system (BBS) or an online virtual community. In the Wikipedia world,...

By Yu-Fen Chen on 09/20/09 3

The accuracy or inaccuracy of Wikipedia

The accuracy of information on Wikipedia is one of the most fundamental points for it’s success. Previous research has shown that Wikipedia uses Google to check entries of their users on accuracy. After some research I also found out...

By Denise Pires on 09/19/09 2

White lies and orange experts: WikiTrust

For a long time, online encyclopedia Wikipedia has been criticized for not being a fully reliable source; anyone is able to edit the encyclopedia anonymously, dis- and misinformation can be posted and might even persist. There is no consistent...

By Marc Stumpel on 09/19/09 Comments Off

Wikipedia And Its Contradictory Open System

Wikipedia is a frequently discussed Internet website. Some people are lyrical about it’s possibilities and future, where others seriously doubt Wikipedia’s credibility and its open “everybody is allowed to contribute” system. Even in the scientific world opinions differ strongly....

By Rutger van den Berg on 09/19/09 Comments Off

Could a subtractive analysis be used to test NPOV?

While WikiScanner is an important tool that advances critical inquiry regarding Wikipedia, it is not exactly user friendly. In addition, by acting as a catalog of edits with little information attached in its results list, the tool falls short...

By John Haltiwanger on 09/19/09 1

Book Review: Mathieu O’Neil’s Cyber Cheifs

In 2004, after researching the allometric growth of antlers between extinct and extant deer, trapped deep within the dungeons of my university’s vertebrate collections, I whizzed over to the Wikipedia entry on the Irish Elk, sure I could add my two...

By Allison Guy on 09/17/09 Comments Off

What is a ‘blogger’?

The definition of a blogger is commonly given as “someone who maintains a blog”. Yet on many sites, including Wikipedia and Dictionary.com, ‘blogger’ does not have its own page, 'blogger' forwards to the page for ‘blog’. This week I...

By Chris Castiglione on 07/14/09 4