Su-Laine Yeo Vancouver User Experience Group November, 2007 Dynamics of Wikipedia This presentation is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
Overview
How does it all work?
Who writes for Wikipedia, and why?
How does the site keep vandalism and spam away?
What happens when contributors disagree?
How does the site keep articles consistent and organized?
Agenda
What is Wikipedia?
Contributing: Part I
Vandalism and spam
Conflict and culture
Contributing: Part II
Please ask questions along the way!
What is Wikipedia?
Vision
A free, neutral encyclopedia that anyone can edit
Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge. That's what we're doing. Wikipedia founder Jimbo Wales
The global project
253 languages
2 million+ articles in English
5 million articles in languages other than English, accounting for half of all traffic
Freely -licensed image, video, and sound files on Wikimedia Commons are used across languages
Semi-protect pages (lock pages from being edited by unregistered and new users)
Protect pages (lock pages from being edited)
Edit protected pages
Delete and undelete page histories
Addressing spam
No-follow on external links
Spam blacklist
As with vandalism: revert, warn user, block persistent offenders
Other obviously-bad edits
Blatant advertising
Copyright violation
Libel
Hoax
Complete bullocks
Conflict and Culture
When someone just writes 'f**k, f**k, f**k', we just fix it, laugh and move on. But the difficult social issues are the borderline cases people who do some good work, but who are also a pain in the neck.
Jimbo Wales
Conflict
When contributors disagree in good faith, there are procedures for working through disputes.
The Wikipedia community has final say on most things
The community is: people who have a history of good contributions and who show up for the debate
What not to do
Dispute resolution
After being bold:
Discuss on the article Talk page and/or the other persons Talk page
Third Opinion
Mediation
Request for Comment
Arbitration
Intervention by Jimbo
Content policies and guidelines
What are reliable sources?
What is an acceptable External Link?
Is company XYZ notable enough for an article?
Should the article title be Giraffe or Giraffes?
Is it program or programme?
Conduct policies and guidelines
Be civil
Assume good faith
Dont edit war
Write for the enemy
Ignore all rules
Dont use Wikipedia for self-promotion
Corporate advocacy and self-promotion
Includes adding excessive links to your own companys website
If in doubt about possible conflict of interest, suggest changes on the articles Talk page or on one of the noticeboards
Talk pages
Dispute resolution principles
Focus on how to improve the articles
Widen the conflict; ask for third-party viewpoints
Dont wikilawyer
Discuss rather than vote
See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Deleted_articles_with_freaky_titles http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Pooky_the_Teddy_Bear
