Jon, your academic work following up on Kant and Peirce devising "a concept or term of description that unifies a manifold of sense impressions" concords with my own work on modeling or characterizing a system. I don't use the same vocabulary terms as you. My terminology comes from the fields of Systems Theory, Systems Science, and Systems Modeling, as pioneered by those who, some 60 years ago, called their work "Cybernetics". But we fundamentally have been using the same tools for thought.

I am perplexed by the recurring observation that these reflective inquiry processes keep getting halted, just as we are converging to a deeper and more profound insight, model, or understanding of the rascally beast we are seeking to tame.

Niesyto, Johanna <niesyto at fk615.uni-siegen.de>
Mon Aug 2 16:24:46 CEST 2010

[[Wikipedia:Ein kritischer Standpunkt]]
September 25-26, 2010
University Library Leipzig, Germany

On 25th and 26th of September 2010 the German speaking conference [[Wikipedia:Ein kritischer Standpunkt]] ([[Wikipedia:Critical Point of View]]) will take place at the University Library in Leipzig, Germany. The conference will gather Wikipedia researchers, critics as well as community-members from the German-speaking world for an interdisciplinary debate. In particular the significance of Wikipedia for education, politics, culture and society will be discussed.

Wikipedia is one of the largest, if not the largest, self-contained general knowledge reference of our time. It offers critical insights into the contemporary status of knowledge, its organizing principles, function, impact, production styles, mechanisms for conflict resolution, and relation to power (re-)constitution. New strategic and tactical operations of knowledge and power are clearly at work through Wikipedia. Of specific interest is the concept of 'the open', which is ambiguous within the social formation(s) constituted by Wikipedia, serving as both a rallying concept of digital democracy enthusiasts and as an ideoglical nodal point masking new agonistic encounters.

In both material and perceptional ways, every new technology modifies the conditions of possibility for knowledge. The logic of technologies bleeds into the very structures and organizing principles of knowledge, and today both medium and message may reflect the ideas of the (organized) network, multitude, or the Deleuzian machine. It is through a selected mix of technological and normative conditions — the distributed architecture of the net, the Wiki software platform, commons-based property licenses and the FLOSS zeitgeist — that Wikipedia as the encyclopedia of the information age emerges, both continuing and transforming the Enlightenment encyclopedic impulse or will to know.

The main topics of the conference are Wikipedia & The Politics of Open Knowledge, Digital Governance, and Wikipedia & Education. These topics derive from the significance of the online encyclopedia in the reconfiguration of knowledge (re-)production and its consequences for the public, architectures of participation, and political education in a media democracy. Alongside presentations of established scholars like Christian Stegbauer, Peter Haber, Rainer Hammwöhner, Ramón Reichert, and Ulrich Johannes Schneider, the programme of the conference will consist of a panel discussion of Wikipedia community-members and critics, as well as Wikipedia-workshops and a research network meeting.

The research network meeting addresses Wikipedia researchers to discuss their current research and draft new research projects. Especially aimed for young academics, the research network meeting is planned as open space, allowing its participants to actively engage in the event as questions and topics are shaped and discussed among the group. To participate, we ask for a registration by email not later than August 31, 2010 to info at cpov.de. Please include a description of your research interest or abstract of your research on one page and tell us, if you are interested to make a short presentation.

The Leipzig conference continues the series of international conferences of the Wikipedia Research Initiative Critical Point of View from January and March 2010 in Bangalore (India) and Amsterdam (Netherlands). It is hosted by cultiv — Gesellschaft für internationale Kulturprojekte e.V. in cooperation with the Research Initiative Critical Point of View and funded by the Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung.

The conference will be open to the public. There will be no participation fee. Conference language is German.

For further information please visit the conference website: www.cpov.de

Deadline for the Registration for the network meeting: August 31, 2010

Concept and Editorial board: Geert Lovink, Johanna Niesyto and Andreas Möllenkamp

Contact
cultiv
Gesellschaft für internationale Kulturprojekte e.V.
Bernhard-Göring-Str. 65
D-04107 Leipzig
Tel. +49-341-2228893
Email: info at cpov.de
www.cpov.de

Johanna Niesyto, 02 Aug 2010

> nathaniel tkacz
> i don' think the question of whether wikipedia is or is not a cult
> is a useful one. what is there to add by calling it a cult?

Demystification.

I've been saying "Wikipedia is a cult" for years now, including in some columns I wrote for the Guardian newspaper, for example:

“Inside, Wikipedia is more like a sweatshop than Santa's workshop”

“One subtext of the Wikipedia hype is that businesses can harvest an eager pool of free labour, disposable volunteers who will donate effort for the sheer joy of it. The fantasy is somewhat akin to Santa's workshop, where little elves work happily away for wages of a glass of milk and a cookie. Whereas the reality is closer to an exploitative cult running on sweatshop labour.”

The point is a very concise way (four words) of conveying an alternate explanation for Wikipedia's functioning, against the immense marketing of it as a mystery created by magical technology ("wikis" and "The Internet").

I get a lot of flack from describing Wikipedia as a cult. One common response is a strawman argument, something like: Cults are by definition extreme apocalyptic, murderous, or suicidal, organizations. Wikipedia does not fit that definition. Therefore Wikipedia is not a cult.

But I'd say such a definition would be drawn too narrowly. Extreme cults tends to be self-limiting, precisely because they are too dysfunctional to survive (mass suicide is not good for organizational continuity).

Then sometimes people want me to give an extensive theory, which will handle all cases and examples they can imagine. That's very tedious.

The basic point is that "cult" is a extremely illuminating way of analyzing how Wikipedia works (or doesn't), in terms of social dynamics. Especially in the face of much pressure to view it as some sort of unique technological entity which should not be connected to many well-known aspects of group psychology.

Seth Finkelstein Consulting Programmer <sethf at sethf.com> http://sethf.com
See Guardian columns at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/sethfinkelstein

Seth Finkelstein, 03 June 2010, CEST 15:04

Cults are by definition extreme apocalyptic, murderous, or suicidal, organizations. Wikipedia does not fit that definition. Therefore Wikipedia is not a cult.

I have found Wikiculture to be apocalyptic, annihilative, and self-defeating.

I can provide details (and evidence), but I suspect everyone here has already seen it.

The "susceptibility to sudden belief system conversion" is the issue that I find most intriguing and perplexing.

It's intriguing because it is seen to actually happen (so we know it's possible).

It's perplexing because the beliefs in question do not necessarily progress towards increasingly accurate ones. The gains in accurate knowledge are neither monotonic nor fluid in time.

As near as I can tell (from recent observations), belief system reversals seem to correspond to guidance from selected mentors whom one respects. Guidance from disrespected sources tends to be rejected, no matter how authoritative or accurate the disrespected source might be.

Once you open your eyes to the presence of the phenomenon, the next couple of questions are:

• What is the belief that these wannabelievers so desperately wannabelieve?
  
• And why?

Banhammerama


My preferred hypothesis regarding the belief most in need of being questioned is the belief in a Rules and Sanctions Regime as a suitable regulatory mechanism to sustain a low-drama educational project to systematically compile the sum of all human knowledge.

As to why that is, I'd love to have Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, Sabina Spielrein, Fyodor Dostoevsky, and Rene Girard on hand to help us discuss that question.

Now, seriously, does that really sound like the sort of belief that would entrain the entrails — grab the guts — of these “I Just Wanna Be Pseudonymous Me” con-marks?

Try again …

Jon

Yes it does, Jon. If you like, I'll take the time explain why I see it that way.


I keep getting the same answer.

By way of comparison, what answer do you get, Jon?

More fun, and more edificational, to let a few others take a shot at the Kewpie Doll.

Jon

Once you open your eyes to the presence of the phenomenon, the next couple of questions are:

• What is the belief that these wannabelievers so desperately wannabelieve?
• And why?

1. That a volunteer-generated encyclopedia will be better than all other encyclopedias, and that said encyclopedia will help and empower ordinary people in profound ways.
2. We live in a world where a very few hold much of the wealth and power. By making a transfer of knowledge management from the restrictive wealthy/powerful minority to the impoverished/weak majority, there will be a more equitable, peaceful, productive global society that emerges.

I honestly believe these are the sorts of answers that Wikipediots would provide to you, Jon. I don't honestly believe in the rationale behind these beliefs.

I have to say, that is pretty funny, Jon. That they think it's "pretty good, overall" that "about half" of new media enthusiasts have substantial trouble with Wikipedia … is quite rich.

Out of the 55 or so students only 2 or 3 had ever edited a Wikipedia page. Mind you, these are new media students … they do not have technical issues. After a training session it was relatively easy for them to figure out how to create a new entry, the formatting etc. Despite some frustrating experiences the overall response was positive.

I am always surprised how few young people contribute to Wikipedia. They all use it, but it doesn't cross their mind to change or add something. Why is that? Same with most academics. They complain a lot about Wikipedia but we never take up the initiave [sic] to make that small step to edit an entry. I would say, this is due to culture. I believe that changing (and creating) Wikipedia entries should be part of every school cirriculum [sic]. Not all these changes will remain. But that's not the point.

The actual percentage of students that will continue to add to Wikipedia will be quite low. Maybe 10%?

The Ortega curve, if I may call it like that, should be of great concern for us all. The initial response of the Wikimedia Foundation and some individual Wikipedians to the stagnation of editor numbers etc. was one of initial denial. Maybe understandable but not very clever on the long run. The inclusion of Wikipedia in courses like these is one of possibly many ways to break out of the current threat of social closure.

— Geert Lovink, CPOV List, 06 Oct 2010

One of the reasons I can think of is that this niche entry has little interested readers. Not a lot of people know about this term so revisions should be quite rare. I did put a reference to post-demographics in the first paragraph of the much busier demographics-entry, because it, well, belongs there and also hopefully to give my entry some more readers. It states in the demographics-entry:

“Another form of demographics is post-demographics, originally a way to study the data retrieved from social networking sites, but also very applicable to integrate with marketing theories.”

The last part of that sentence, that it is very applicable with marketing theories is my own opinion. Yes, my opinion on Wikipedia. Still there.

Subj: cpov reader
From: nathaniel tkacz <tkaczn@...>
To: Jon Awbrey <jawbrey@...>
Date: 10/17/2010 9:29 PM

Hello Jon,

As you may know, we are currently working on a CPOV book, based on the three events we have held and on discussions from the list. As a "controversial" figure in relation to Wikipedia and to a lesser extent CPOV itself, we would like to ask you to contribute to the reader. It is obvious that you have a range of critical material about Wikipedia already and you could simply compile and edit the best of these into one piece. Alternatively, or in addition, you could map out the various online spaces for critical commentary about Wikipedia, such as the Wikipedia Review, and perhaps why and how they came about. If you are interested I will send you more details.

Best

Nate Tkacz

School of Culture and Communication
University of Melbourne

Twitter: http://twitter.com/__nate__
Homepage: www.nathanieltkacz.net
Current project: http://networkcultures.org/wpmu/cpov/about-2/

Subj: cpov reader
From: Jon Awbrey <jawbrey@...>
To: nathaniel tkacz <tkaczn@...>
Cc: Gregory Kohs, Seth Finkelstein
Date: 10/19/2010 10:02 AM

Hi Nate,

As you may or may not know, Geert, et al. summarily banned Greg Kohs, Seth Finkelstein, and myself from the so-called "Critical" POV List, so I can hardly be expected to take their pretensions seriously any longer. I had been cautiously optimistic up to that point and had even devoted a thread on The Wikipedia Review to covering the Institute and the List -- naturally the character of our critique was affected by that highly non-open action:

wikipediareview.com/index.php?showtopic=28881&view=findpost&p=244574

If you wish to discuss the situation further, I would invite you to participate there.

Sincerely yours,

Jon Awbrey

I wonder … is three posts per month a "healthy" level of activity on a mailing list?

Subj: cpov reader
From: nathaniel tkacz <tkaczn@...>
To: Jon Awbrey <jawbrey@...>
Cc: Seth Finkelstein, Gregory Kohs
Date: 10/19/2010 8:38 PM

Hi Jon, Seth, Gregory,

I figure I'll address all three of you because Jon forwarded on my last email.

Firstly, Geert sent the email but it was a group decision. All the editors/organisers, including myself, agreed. It is to be expected that the three of you were unhappy with our decision. What I will say is the CPOV makes no pretensions as to being "open". We have a list where people discuss ideas and events, but we also have a hierarchy. Indeed, my contribution to the reader is titled "A Critique of Political Openness". I believe that Openness simply masks the power dynamics of a group. Not everyone from CPOV agrees with me, but that's my position. The book we are preparing will be freely available and under a commons based license, but it won't be organised like a "bazaar". Geert and I are the editors. We will make suggestions and negotiate with the authors.

Part of the reason that we invited Jon to contribute (and this was also very much Geert's suggestion), was exactly because of his antagonistic position regarding Wikipedia. I know you have described our group as not really critical and as an echo chamber etc. etc. But we are of the opinion that our book will have different kinds of voices. For example, we have a recognised expert on star trek who kept a diary while trying to edit key entries. We have an inclusion from the authors of Wikipedia Art. We are negotiating contributions from Nicholas Carr and Jaron Lanier. We have people focusing on how power is delegated to bots, as a critique of the idea of Wisdom of the Crowds. We have a long interview with a disgruntled former Wikipedian who was very active on the Hebrew and Arabic Wikipedias. We have people focusing on the question of Western Knowledge and classification. We have Joseph Reagle talking about what kinds of
larger social anxieties are expressed through Wikipedia and so on.

We expect the book to be widely read. We expect it to circulate among the Wikipedia communities, in teaching institutions and to a larger public. If Jon (or Seth or Greg, or all three working as a team — we chose Jon because he was the most active on the list) want to contribute another voice to this publication we welcome it. And as I said, we would like to have someone cover the main alternative places for critical info about Wikipedia (how they started, what they cover etc.), perhaps at the end of a larger contribution. (Originally, we invited Jon to compile his best writings into a longer piece.)

Although it would be good for us to have the contribution, I would expect that it would be written not to "help us out", but to have your own views published in a different place and for a different audience. Our book will come out regardless. We would like you to be in it, we would like your voice in our echo chamber (!), and we won't ask you to tone down your views about Wikipedia.

Let me know if you change your mind.

Best,

Nate Tkacz

School of Culture and Communication
University of Melbourne

Twitter: http://twitter.com/__nate__
Homepage: www.nathanieltkacz.net
Current project: http://networkcultures.org/wpmu/cpov/about-2/