Presentation given at the University of Sydney "Wikipedia in Higher Education Symposium" (5 April 2013) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meetup/Sydney/5_April_2013
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1. Wikipedia: The Endless PalimpsestSummary of the concluding
chapter to my history thesis: The academic lineage of Wikipedia
http://wittylama.com/thesis Wikipedia in Higher Education Symposium
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Wikipedia:Meetup/Sydney/5_April_2013
University of Sydney 5 April, 2013 Liam Wyatt @wittylama
2. Palimpsest?The palimpsest is that most unusual of sources as
it shows not only what was retained but also what was considered
unworthy of retention. What was once discarded can be
reclaimed.
3. enwp.org/Palimpsest#Famous_examples Ciceros De re publica,
Archimedes Stomachion Some double palimpsest One hyper-palimpsest
(Novgorod) Wikipedia: the Infinite palimpsest
4. Using Wikipedia Read it Cite it Edit it For Primary
Research
5. There is an increasing literature about how to use Wikipedia
in the classroom and also the speciccircumstances when you could
legitimately cite its articles. This presentation talks about
Wikipedia as an historical record in its own right and therefore
how it might be legitimately used as a primary source. It is the
most controversial of the four uses.
6. Three Policy Pillars Neutral Point of View (NPOV)
Veriability (V) No Original Research (NOR)
7. Without these three pillars,Wikipedia would not be of any
use to historical research. With them, Wikipedia is a compendium of
information - created by the world in real time - of primary
history. It is the people consciously attempting to write history
in as neutral a way as possible.
8. Four Primary History Uses of Wikipedia Articles Paratexts
Discussions Popularity
9. Digital Archaeology Given an sufcient amount of server space
and the commitment to maintain it, a resource already exists
thatmay not only sound the death knell of archaeology but also the
opportunity to enable a greater depth and sophistication of
anthropology than has ever existed before. So radical an innovation
would this newanthropological methodology represent that it
deserves its own name. Call it Wikipediology. - Andrew Updergrove,
The Wikipedia and the death of archaeology 2006
10. Articles
11. Everything is kept.Everything is available for analysis.
And I mean everything.
12. Long History Australasia - natives - Encyclopaedia
Britannica, 1842Indigenous Australians - Encyclopaedia Britannica,
present. It is not the information in these EB articles which is
interesting to historians. It is that they demonstrate the spirit
of the age. As it is with EB, so too with WP.
13. Its even possible to visualise big history
http://www.ragtag.info/2011/feb/2/history-world-100-seconds/
http://stats.wikimedia.org/
14. Short HistoryA minute by minute account of the public
record of history. Wikipedia isnt the eyewitness history, but
compiles the chronology of what was publicly known. [suffers from
Western and popular biases though] e.g. Timelapse video of first 24
hours of WP article development: July 2005 London Bombings
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s8O-hv3w-MU
15. Discussions
16. Article
17. Of the associated discussion pages:I submit that this
transcript is valuable in revealing exactly how a war ofideas is
waged... As the primary article about the Muhammad cartoonsevolved,
there also arose behind the scenes a erce debate over whetheror not
the cartoons themselves should be included and how they shouldbe
displayed.The transcript of the debate captures not only the ideas
expressed by themany contributors and readers, but also the tenor
of the debates, thepleas, the acts of vandalism, the argumentative
styles, strategies, tactic andgambits. In other words, the
transcript reveals how some contributors wonthe debate, how the
others lost, and how each side treated the other.This transcript
reveals the mechanics of the clash of civilizations. John Simmons,
Iraq Museum International www.baghdadmuseum.org/wikipedia
18. This is unmediated debate in the frame of describing topics
for posterity. Wikipedia discussion pages are not for
conversationbut for planning and debating the best way to convey a
topic.
19. Paratexts
20. Vandalism......from the philosophical and the poetic to the
lewd and the obscene.
21. Vandalism......from the philosophical and the poetic to the
lewd and the obscene. Rex Wallace, An Introduction to Wall
Inscriptions from Pompeii and Herculaneum, 2005
22. Their banality becomes their usefulness. What was once
discarded becomes important, precisely because it was never meant
to be kept.Spelling/grammar mistakes, marginalia, erasures...
23. popularity
24. Quantitative, not just Qualitative history How does the
historian footnote the following statement:In the lead-up to the
2008 US presidential elections, the choice of Joe Biden took no one
by surprise but the choice of Sarah Palin took her from relative
obscurity to become political phenomenon, instantly.
25. Absolute popularity
26. Relative PopularityHow does the historian footnote the
following statement: In the 2008 US Democratic party primaries,
BarackObama consistently dominated the popular interest of the
global population, at least those online.
27. Four Primary History Uses of Wikipedia Articles Paratexts
Discussions Popularity
28. participation?
29. Peace, Love & Metadata [email protected] [[user:witty
lama]] @wittylama These slides available from
www.wittylama.com/presentations