Conceptions and Misconceptions Academics Hold About Wikipedia
From Devwiki
sgeiger
As an ethnographer, I enter into communities, learn their customs, beliefs, and practices, then report back to the academy to share what I have discovered. In this presentation, I wish to do the opposite, presenting to the Wikipedian community an ethnography of academics as they relate to Wikipedia. I believe I can give such an account without violating the trust other academics have placed in me while casually conversing, although it requires me to rely more on academic publications, publicly-available academic mailing lists, academic blogs, and the School and University Projects section on Wikipedia.
While the myth that Wikipedia is written by experts and is unchangeable by the public has generally (but not uniformly) been dispelled, many in academia still fundamentally misunderstand Wikipedia itself, the Wikipedian community, and the Wikimedia Foundation. Far from benign, these are based on something more than a simple ignorance of Wikipedia, the Wiki community and the Wikimedia Foundation. Contrary to my initial reaction, the biggest misconception was not an ignorance of a specific feature or element of the project, like the permanent link or editorial standards. It is the belief that the defining line between pro-Wikipedia academics and anti-Wikipedia academics is based in the decision to accept Wikipedia as a reliable, authoritative source. Instead, there are a growing number of academics who do not believe in citing Wikipedia authoritatively contribute to the project and integrate it in their research and teaching. I also comment on the conceptions of pro-Wikipedia academics, who have linked Wikipedia to various theoretical or ideological movements.
No specialized academic knowledge is required to understand this presentation, because it is most important for those outside of academia. However, a familiarity with Wikipedia's features, the Wikimedia Foundation, and the broader norms of the project is recommended.
R. Stuart Geiger is a graduate student in the Communication, Culture, and Technology program at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. He is interested in themes of power and law in virtual communities, as well as the various discourses in and around free culture. A registered member of Wikipedia since 2004 under the username staeiou, Stuart frequently uses Wikipedia in all areas of life, although he contributes less frequently than he should.
This video as well as the included slides are all multi-licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License 2.0 or later and the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License. You can download the slides at R. Stuart Geiger's website. You can contact R. Stuart Geiger at his website or on Wikipedia.
