Collaborative Writing Wiki and Wikipedia

							Collaborative Writing: Wiki and
           Wikipedia

     Keshava P Subramanya (keshava@cs.ucsb.edu)
       Roopa Kannan (roopakannan@cs.ucsb.edu)
              Today’s Talk
   Quick introduction about the wiki and
    collaborative writing idea.
   Wikipedia
   Two views of how Wikipedia works
   Criticisms
   Details about the Community
   Future
What is collaborative writing?
   Projects where written works are created by multiple
    people together (collaboratively) rather than
    individually
   Some projects are overseen by an editor or editorial
    team
   Many grow without any top-down oversight.
    Computer based collaborative
              writing
   Revision control software providing check-in/out
    ( example subversion, cvs )
   Enterprise information portal, Content management
    system
   SharePoint
   Wikis
          Some Collab projects
   Novel Twists Online collaborative novel where each
    of the 150 pages is written one at a time by a
    different person.
   co-write.me.uk
   The Linux documentation project
   OOoAuthors
                 What is a Wiki
   Essentially a dynamic, collectively authored set of
    web pages.
   Invented in 1995 by Ward Cunningham to facilitate
    online collaboration about programming and design
    best practices.
   Evolved by the early 2000’s into a way to facilitate all
    kinds of online collaboration.
               Wiki – Definition
   A wiki (according to Ward Cunningham) is a type of
    website that allows users to add and edit content and
    is especially suited for constructive collaborative
    authoring.
   In essence, a wiki is a simplification of the process of
    creating HTML pages combined with a system that
    records each individual change that occurs over time,
    so that at any time, a page can be reverted to any of
    its previous states.
                                  As defined in Wikipedia.
    How the Wiki Got Its Name
   Wiki is the Hawaiian word meaning “quick”, “fast”, or
    “to hasten”.
   Wiki-Wiki is the name of the bus line in the Honolulu
    International Airport.
How the Wiki Got Its Name
   How the Wiki Got Its Name




“Wiki-wiki to the beach.” - Elvis
Presley (as Chad Gates) in the
movie Blue Hawaii (1961). The
line was said with a snap of the
fingers.
               Some more …
Wiki (according to UIC Prof. Steve Jones)
                    Web-based
                    Interactive
                    Kollaborative (collaborative)
                    Iterative
Wiki is sometimes interpreted as the backronym
for “What I Know Is”, which describes the
knowledge contribution, storage and exchange
function.
          More Uses for a Wiki
   100 things to do before you die
   The world’s largest “How-To” manual – wikiHow
   Things to do in Seattle
   World-wide travel guide – wikitravel.org
   Everything you want to know about VoIP
   All about the flu – Flu Wiki
           Free Hosting of Wikis

wikihost.org
free-wiki-hosting.com
wikicities.com
educational.blogs.com
duckcomputing.com
pbwiki.com
wikispaces.com
               What is Wikipedia?
   Wikipedia is a freely licensed encyclopaedia written
    by thousands of volunteers in many languages
   Free license allows others to freely copy,
    redistribute, and modify work commercially or non-
    commercially
   Founded January 15, 2001
   Run by the wikimedia foundation.
                                             wikipedia.org
             What is the Wikimedia
                 Foundation?
   Non-profit foundation
         Its 4th Quarter 2005 costs were $321,000 USD, with hardware
         making up almost 60% of the budget
         Where does it get the money ?
   Aim: to distribute a free encyclopaedia to every single person on the
    planet in their own language
   Wikipedia and its sister projects

                                                  wikimediafoundation.org
    Advantages of Freely Licensed
              Content
   GNU Free Documentation Licence
   Remains non-proprietary
   Enhances the popularity of Wikipedia
   Decreases individual sense of ownership
   Increases a sense of shared ownership
                Free Software
   MediaWiki is GPL
   Uses all free software on the website
   GNU/Linux
   Apache
   MySQL
   Php
         How big is Wikipedia?
   English Wikipedia is largest and has over 260 million
    words
   English Wikipedia larger than Britannica and Microsoft
    Encarta combined
   In 15 months the publicly distributed compressed
    database dumps may reach 1 terabyte total size
How big is Wikipedia Globally?
Total more than 5 million articles!
 English – 1,412,000 articles

 German – 172,000 articles

 Japanese – 87,000 articles

 French – 66,000 articles

 Swedish –53,000 articles

 Over 5 million across 250 languages

 19 with >10,000. 52 with >1000



                         (statistics could be dated)
     How popular is Wikipedia?
   According to Alexa.com, Wikipedia (ranked ~ 20th) is more
    popular than the websites of:
   IBM
   Paypal
   Open Directory Project
   Geocities
   ~400 Million page views monthly
        Wikipedia vs. Britannica
   AP article on CNN website




    This study was challenged by Encyclopædia
    Britannica, who described it as "fatally flawed.“
                        source www.wikipedia.org
          Wikimedia Projects
   Wikipedia
   Wiktionary
   Wikibooks
   Wikiquote
   Wikispecies
   Wikimedia Commons
   Wikinews
                    Wikinews
   Community edited news along the same principles of
    Wikipedia
   Fairly new project
   Aim of the project
                                            wikinews.org
         Wikimedia’s Hardware
   30+ servers
   Squid caching servers in front to serve cached
    objects quickly
   Apache/PHP webservers in the middle
   Database backend (MySql)
                   MediaWiki
   MediaWiki is one of many wiki engines
   Collaborative software that allows users to add or
    edit content
   Primarily developed for Wikipedia from 2002 onwards
   Scalable and multilingual
   Free license
            MediaWiki features
   Quality control features (versioning)
   Editing features (simple markup)
   Community features (talk pages, profiles, access
    levels)
       Page History




DEMO
DEMO
       Interlanguage linking
          Criticism Workshop 
Hints:
   Can Wikipedia Content Be Trusted?
   Systematic bias
   Reliability of Information
   Technology requirement
     Can Wikipedia Content Be
             Trusted?
   Review processes
   Partly post-moderation, partly reactive moderation
   Linking to particular revisions
   Development of a stable version
   Free license allows you to modify it
        Reliability of Information
   Criticism                                Rebuttal
   The community contribution               The open source approach allows
    approach allows for too much false        for new information to be added on
    information.                              a daily basis.
   Without an expert background a           The articles that exist on Wikipedia
    person can not present an unbiased,       are a group effort where any wrong
    factual position.                         information can be edited.
                                             The group editing also lets people
                                              combine information to get a broad
                                              background.
        Reliability of Information
   Criticism                              Rebuttal
   The large quantity of daily            Wikipedia does maintain a staff
    information added prevents proper       whose sole purpose is to review and
    fact checking.                          edit articles.
   The daily edits allow too many         Each day articles are viewed by
    mistakes to go unnoticed or be          thousands of people, any one
    reintroduced.                           person can implement changes to
                                            correct mistakes.
                                           Printed encyclopedias can not fix
                                            errors once released, while
                                            Wikipedia is always able to make
                                            corrections.
                    Systematic Bias
   Criticism                               Rebuttal
   Systematic bias exposes WIkipedia       Past requests for information have
    to unbalanced amounts of                 been met with quick action.
    information.                            These responses have created huge
   People are more likely to write          increases in the amount of coverage
    about topics that interest them as       of topics.
    opposed to more historically            Wikipedia also includes a inquiry
    significant topics.                      page. Any topic can be requested
                                             and the Wiki community is quick to
                                             respond.
       Technology Requirements
   Criticism                                   Rebuttal
   Wikipedia faces technology                  The technology constraints
    constraints as an online                     constantly decrease as the world
    encyclopedia.                                becomes more advanced.
   A reader must have Internet access          The student population has almost
    at all times.                                100% Internet access due to school
   The possibility of tech failure on the       resources and class requirements.
    Wikipedia’s end also presents
    problems.
             Latest Information
   Wikipedia is built on the belief that collaboration
    among users will improve articles over time.
   The software of Wikipedia allows for rapid updating
    of existing articles, as well as constant introduction of
    new topics.
     Quick Vandalism Response
   Most vandalisms on Wikipedia are reverted within
    five minutes.
   There is a record of change made to every page and
    Wikipedia volunteers watch the list of recent
    changes.
   If a user constantly vandalizes pages of Wikipedia,
    individuals can be blocked and pages can be locked
    down.
          Neutral Point of View
   Three sides to everything, your version, my version,
    and the truth
   Editors are asked to maintain a neutral point of view
    when writing for Wikipedia.
   When editing wars break out and neutral points of
    view are not maintained, Wikipedia volunteers usually
    remove the information posted.



           Click here
Two Views of Wikipedia
           •Emergent

   •Community   of thoughtful users
                          Emergent
   Thousands of individual
    users who don’t know each
    other each contribute a little
    bit
   Out of this emerges a
    coherent body of work
         A Community?

London                                Berlin



             Genoa
          A dedicated group of a few
          hundred volunteers who know
          each other and work to guarantee
          the quality and integrity of the
          content.
                    Implications
Emergent Model                 Community Model
 Need reputation mechanisms    Reputation is a natural
  like Ebay, Slashdot            outcome of human
 Users are tiny, have no        interactions
  power                         Users are powerful, must be
                                 respected
                    80/10 Rule
   Counting only logged in users, and even excluding
    some prominent approved bot users
   10 percent of all users make 80% of all edits
   5 percent of all users make 66% of edits
   Half of all edits are made by just 2 1/2 percent of all
    users
                Edits by Anons
   Controversial, intriguing
   Yes, you can edit this page
   Without logging in!

   Anonymous ip numbers can edit Wikipedia
   But these edits make up a total of around 18% of all
    edits, with some evidence of a downward trend over
    time
     Edits across namespaces
 Articles 85%
 Talk pages 8%

 User Page 3%

 User Talk Pages 4%

These percentages are stable in 2003
And 2004
Wikipedia is a community…

          •How does it work?
         •Who are the users?

      •How do they self-regulate?
           Many types of users
   As in any society, there are many types of people --
    these types are reflected in editing patterns
   Individual users may not fit cleanly into a single type,
    but thinking about editing patterns is a helpful way to
    understand the community
                   Broad Types
   Worker Bees, POV pushers
   Police, Judges
   Controversy lovers - Moths
   Pseudo-users - Sock puppets, Vandals
   Extra-Wiki - Mailing list, IRC, Board activities,
    Developers
                           Bees
   The most important users at
    Wikipedia
   But may go unnoticed unless
    special attention is given
   Generalists
   Specialists
   Proof-readers




Question: What attracts the bees??
Sock Puppet
         Not all sock puppets are bad
         Privacy
         The chance to start over
         But when used wrongly, is
          one of the worst offenses
                            Moth
   Drawn to flames
   Not necessarily a bad
    thing - some people thrive
    on controversy
                          Vandal
   Less of a problem for the community than most people
    assume
   Vandalism is easy to revert, and blocking vandals
    (temporarily) slows them down and takes the fun away
             Outside the Wiki
   Developers - coders and system admins
   IRC Channels
   Mailing lists
         Wikipedia Governance
   A confusing but workable mix of
   Consensus
   Democracy
   Aristocracy
   Monarchy
        Community Challenges
   How can such a large community scale?
     – Through software features
     – Through policy (mediation, arbitration)
     – Through an atmosphere of love and respect
    Community Self-Regulation
   Quality control features: recent changes,
    watchlists, related changes, page histories, user
    contributions lists
   Community features: talk pages, user profiles,
    access levels, user-to-user email, message
    notification.
       International Community
   Interlanguage linking of articles
   Choice of language interface
   Global newsletter: Quarto
   “Translation of the week”
                    Conclusion
   Wikipedia is a community
   Automated and artificial Slashdot-style
    reputation metrics are not needed and may
    not be desirable
   Achieving quality levels equalling or
    exceeding traditional publishing models can
    be expected without “emergent” magic
                             Credits
   http://www.wikipedia.org and related sites
   Some slides adapted from
    – Jimmy Wales President, Wikimedia Foundation Wikipedia Founder
    – Prof. Burks Oakley II Prof of E.C.E University of Illinois