<CPOV> wikipedia debate on netzpolitik (in german)

Mazarakis Athanasios A.Mazarakis at zbw.eu
Wed Mar 19 19:43:37 CET 2014


Hi.

Actually I totally agree with the German article. In my opinion, another aspect is very important, which adds totally to the conclusion of the article: WM looks for technical solutions to solve social problems of WP.

Lets take for example the WYSIWYG editor. The development and successful implementation of such an easy project and tool took WM from 2007 until 2013... these are 6 to 7 years. And the program like language of the editor was always (sic!) one the biggest obstacles. By this a natural selection was established: only really motivated people and/or nerds (sorry but programmers are usually perceived as nerds for the average person out there in real life :) ) made it into WP. And of course, these people have some characteristics, which are not always compatible for an easy and relaxed atmosphere.

I had the chance to visit WikiSym 2011 at Mountain View to present my work about automated post-edit feedback (feedback mechanisms) and additionally to visit the WM team in autumn 2012 in SFO to take a look about the results. This automated post edit feedback was one of very few attempts, to tackle the declining number of authors at WP. But when I asked about participation, further research or publication of results, the complete team including Dario acted in a neutral-negative manner, e.g. "no, I'm not interested in doing a paper about this" and "no, I have no time for anything more". Though I can understand these responses (e.g. as a contract employee I am usually not interested in academic merits), still this shows a very bad example, which WM reflects all the time: We try a lot of things but we lack a strategy. :-( Needless to say, that I never got the requested data to reanalyze the results. (for more info, check this: http://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/09/24/giving-new-wikipedians-feedback-post-edit/ )

So, in my opinion maybe a community manager might be a good idea. I guess some people in charge at WP will cry out loudly if this would happen. But in the end it was never fruitful and it will never be, to apply only (!) technical solutions, when feelings and emotions are the reason for not intended behavior, i.e. declining number of active authors.

And boy, this is now a very long post... and I guess it shows how I feel disappointed and frustrated about WM and WP.

Athanasios

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DR. ATHANASIOS MAZARAKIS
Postdoc
 
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E: a.mazarakis at zbw.eu 

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-----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
Von: cpov [mailto:cpov-bounces at listcultures.org] Im Auftrag von Geert Lovink
Gesendet: Mittwoch, 19. März 2014 14:41
An: cpov
Betreff: <CPOV> wikipedia debate on netzpolitik (in german)

https://netzpolitik.org/2014/kommentar-wie-die-kluft-zwischen-wikipedia-und-wikimedia-zum-autorenschwund-beitraegt/

It is about the stagnating/shrinking numbers of contributors. CPOV gets mentioned too, in the comments, amongst others by me. Marcus Cyron calls CPOV a failed project. /geert

Wie die Kluft zwischen Wikipedia und Wikimedia zum Autorenschwund beiträgt

Von Leonhard Dobusch | Veröffentlicht: 17.03.2014 um 20:22h | 39 Antworten

In den letzten Wochen häufen sich bei mir wieder die Interviewanfragen zum Thema Autorenschwund in der Wikipedia (z.B. bei detektor.fm). Seit 2007 geht die Zahl der aktiven WikipedianerInnen langsam aber stetig zurück. Ungefähr seit damals werden auch immer dieselben beiden Fragen gestellt: Was ist der Grund für den Rückgang? Was ließe sich dagegen unternehmen?
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