Daily Thoughts 9/18/2009

I like Wikipedia. This is a Creative Commons Share Alike Attribution 2.0 image from Wikimedia.

Daily Thoughts 9/18/2009

I enjoy using Wikipeda a huge amount. I like the photographs, the images, the content. I also realize that it is not always accurate. This seems to be most true around politics where different politicians try to rewrite each others content. I think of it as primarily a secondary source. You look at it to get a general outline of a subject but don't assume it is authoritative or even completely accurate.

Generally, I will read the articles, then go to the places which the Wikipedia article sited and check those to see if they are a more primary source. Quite often the documents point to a government website like NASA, or a depository of primary source material like Project Gutenberg with original works. This is one of the reasons I like Wikipedia so much. Not for the content, but for the materials cited.

Today I took some more time to relax. No reading today, except for the news on the internet.

The Wikipedia Revolution by Andrew Lih, Foreword by Jimmy Wales

The Wikipedia Revolution How A Bunch of Nobodies Created The Worlds Greatest Encyclopedia by Andrew Lih, Foreword by Jimmy Wales Founder of Wikipedia.

This book is written by Jimmy Lih who was an editor for Wikipedia for over four years. The book itself reads very much like Wikipedia does. If you like using Wikipedia, you probably will like this book. Mr. Lih seems to use the NPOV (no point of view) style which Wikipedia uses in writing the book. If you look in the notes section, the majority of citations come directly from the Wikipedia site.

There is a lot of precursor material to when Wikipedia starts. The technology behind Wikipedia is very much a history of open source software, linux, and "the hacker ethic." In 1995, Ward Cunningham invented Wiki software which was a quick way to edit and create web pages by any person involved. It was not until 2001 that Wikipedia was started. Wiki is the Hawaiian word for "quick."

The book describes how already existing technology coalesces around a new form of organization to make an online encyclopedia. Wikipedia is based on volunteer time. Very few people on Wikipedia are paid. A lot of the people who are editors on Wikipedia come from http://slashdot.org/ a premiere technical community. Many of the same people who work on open source software which is free work on Wikipedia which is also free. The majority of the licensing on Wikipedia's content is copyleft, an idea created by Richard Stallman, a famous computer programmer and proponent of the GNU free documentation license.

Wikipedia is not the first major reference work which asked for donations of free time to create. The Oxford English Dictionary put out general requests for donations of dictionary entries. The Professor and the Madman by Simon Winchester chronicles a story in the creation of the OED. Wikipedia takes it one step further, it asks for donations and then makes the information freely available.

There is a story of Wikipedia taking what is already available in the public domain, editing it and expanding it into encyclopedic entries. Wikipedia absorbed the United States census data and used it as a template for creating descriptions of towns and cities in the United States. The CIA World Fact Book entries were taken as descriptions of countries and then expanded with user generated content. When I use Wikimedia, I see many images from the Library of Congress archives which are in the public domain. This is incredibly useful, however, it has some problems with reliability.

The human factor is both the strength and weakness of Wikipedia. Because anybody can contribute to Wikipedia, there are a number of problems. Wikipedia acknowledges they are not a primary source of information, the majority of their information is secondary. We learn they are not seeking to be a place for original research. I thought this was very interesting. When I use Wikipedia, I find the citations in Wikipedia's entries to be far better in many cases then the written entries because they link to primary or original research.

The structure of Wikipedia described in this book is very loose. The code of conduct seems to be more important than fixed rules. This looseness has led to a lot of controversies; inaccurate biographical entries, editors who are other than they say they are, a focus on self-promotion, a preference for popular articles over more academic works, and a way of work based on the idea of consensus. The infighting and the controversies inside Wikipedia are described in detail inside this book. We get the story of how spammers, trolls, libelous content, edit wars, and other problems are addressed.

I liked reading this book. It gives a lot of insights into how people can build on peoples previous works. I also like Wikipedia and find it a useful. This book tries to be objective, it is not pure praise which makes it much better than many recent books on technology. The writing is journalistic in style. The book has citations and an index, but no pictures.

Wikinomics How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything by Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams

Wikinomics How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything by Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams

This book is about the new world of shared digital information production. It has a lot of spin and hype in the writing, but at the same time it reveals many new ideas. The book is quite entertaining to read and well written. It has a nice exuberant feeling to the writing which is clearly tech evangelist oriented.

With wikis, blogs, and other mass forms of internet communications we have become the producers of a large slice of our own media. Large chunks of the publishing world have been freed up from direct corporate control and formed it communities of production. Anyone with a computer and an internet connection can start creating their own content. This has extended beyond computers to include peripheral devices tethered to computers like camcorders, iphones, and similar things. The book does not talk a lot about this a lot, however.

Suddenly content can be shared in various spaces like Myspace, Facebook, Twitter, and Blogger. I belong to all four of these spaces. More importantly, the content is syndicated and connected together with advertising like Technorati, Entrecard, and other services. Everyone participating in a sense becomes a producer of content.

This has not just extended into the public spaces like blogs and wikis, but has also moved into corporations and universities. This is not as visible to most social networking users. The book covers the use of collaborative technologies in corporations and universities. Things like open source software, patent and idea sharing networks like yet2.com and Innocentive, and modular open source style manufacturing are discussed. It even discusses MITs fab lab which is a modular home manufacturing center.

The book points out we have in a very real sense become the designers of our own products and the producers of our own media. People don't wait to have new features put into their Lego sets they send in custom designs to the factories, or hack new features into their Xboxes. When a news story comes on television it is often the result of someone catching it on camcorder or writing about it on a blog. Sometimes this is better than what the television shows produce.

Welcome to the new world of Wikinomics or massive collaboration. Those who produce the best content win. According to the book, it takes seven skilled people to build a world class content site. This can be done anywhere in the world where people have the skills and the internet connection. The internet runs in an "Always On" mode. (I am not an always on kind of person.) Step in and get ready to face obsolescence in a flash. This world is merciless, full of hype, and offers no guarantees.

Wikinomics is deep and complex. However, it fails to point out that some of the ideas in this book are flawed. For example, in touting the Boeing 787 Dreamliners, they don't acknowledge that for a while there were production problems for the plane. They had not gotten their open source form of sourcing parts together that well.

Also, I found the section on Geek Squad to be an extreme example of hype. I would not buy a computer from Best Buy and saying that Geek Squad are the best possible technicians seems overblown. Having a technician drive up in a black and white volkswagon beetle is not that impressive. Having them fix my computer is.

I also can understand the desire for IBM and Red Hat Linux to push open source for people. For the non-technically minded linux is incredibly complex and not that well documented. IBM clearly makes it fortune from providing consulting services and customizing linux services which can cost a fortune. The initial up front costs can be cheaper, but the customization and technical support requires people who have excellent computer skills.

Despite this if you want to know a bit of history on Wikipedia, or other collaborative projects this book will give the basics as well as many interesting facts. For example, Wikipedia has exactly five full time employees. The site is almost entirely run by volunteers.

The book is great if you want to learn about how business is using collaborative tools. It even includes the hype to go with it. There is a profusion of ideas; ideagoras, peering, wikis, prosuming, Wikipedia, open source, and so much more. In addition to this profusion of ideas, it does include how Wikis and collaborative tools may have an effect on your workplace. A lot of the material is focused on things which are currently happening, not theory.

Perception And Format In Media

The Globe Theatre

One of the things I notice a lot is that people are being assigned to read plays in high school and college. Shakespeare is one of the most assigned authors. The thing which bothers me about this is that in the class room Shakespeare is read not shown. I enjoy watching Shakespeare far more than I enjoy reading his work. In fact, there is very little effort to get people to critique the live play in the classroom setting. In effect the experience is being changed from its original intention. The context changes. Individual words on the written page are analyzed for their meaning.

Many students come in confused about Shakespeare because they have no way to place the words with the actions. They set aside the script of the book unable to understand and ask for the movie. The problem with this is which movie. Are they going to take the Laurence Olivier stage dramatization, or are they going to take the action film Romeo Must Die with Jet Li in it. This actually happens. Quite often they take the wrong movie. Those who take the video get a context for what they are reading and can understand it far better. I think generally if a first person first sees a play, then reads it, there is a better context for understanding.

However, the Jet Li problem with Romeo Must Die is not a joke. Imagine a person in high school or college in the future coming into the library and asking for the Neil Gaiman version of the dvd of Beowulf. It is not out yet, I am looking forward to the dvd. They come in and get a fantasy version of Beowulf then use it to write their class assignment. Angela Jolie as Grendel's wife is very different than original. Because, they don't want to be bothered they don't read Beowulf because it is "too hard" and they hand their assignment based on the movie. I can imagine the confusion on the teachers part. Beowulf is a lot harder than Shakespeare for many students to understand. The language is older.

Another thing which quite often happens is that people come in to get the unabridged audiobook of an assigned book like Catcher In The Rye. I think this may have an opposite effect on understanding. Although, they are not reading the book in question, they are hearing every world in the book being pronounced. If they have difficulty reading, they are still going to get the full experience of the book. In many cases, this leads to better ability to write about the book than reading the title.

I think this is one of the reasons why audiobooks are so popular. People have different learning styles. Some people understand more when they see the movie, other people understand more when they hear the story, and others need to look up close and hold the book. People learn differently.

Getting back to Shakespeare. I notice that very few people read Shakespeare's sonnets. They are meant to be read. I can understand people analyzing individual sonnets much more than analyzing a play.

The other thing which happens is that people read Blooms notes or Cliff notes. These are canned summaries of a book. They guarantee a canned answer which will give a student a passing grade. Many people just want to pass the class and only read the notes. These will most of the time guarantee a passing grade. How do you guarantee a person read the book with these kind of things? I don't think you can. These, however, are better than watching a movie about a book because they at least attempt at accuracy. Many people have lost that sense of value tied in with the concept of a "liberal education." Education in literature is supposed to expand your horizons...

Teachers are finally noticing the multiple formats in the classroom. Quite often people are being assigned to watch movies. Freedom Writers is a popular assignment. I haven't seen it, it is just an example. Maybe, they are asked to watch the Color Purple and comment on the film.

It is also becoming acceptable to use multiple formats for assigned topics. Many people don't even bother with reading books, they just go to the internet. This brings up the idea of authority. How do you know the information being presented to you is accurate. Let us take up the issue of Wikipedia, we say when people want to use Wikipedia, "We cannot guarantee the accuracy of this material." Apparently, Wikipedia is about as accurate as the Encyclopedia Britannica. http://www.news.com/2100-1038_3-5997332.html In away, this is both disturbing and hilarious.

Sometimes authority is more about control of access to information than accuracy. I think people are more disturbed about the loss of the authority of information than accuracy. However, with certain subjects like math, history, or science the wrong information can be presented. There is a real attraction by some students to use radical versions of history that more closely align with their ethnicity or background. These are readily available on the internet. Schools want the standard version so everyone can be on the same page. This must make it very hard for teachers on occassion.

Using multiple formats is often the best thing to do for many assigned topics. Let us take the example of Martin Luther King Jr. A college student is assigned to write about Martin Luther King Jr. Generally, watching video clips of him, listening to his speeches on audio, and reading about him at the same time will give a much better understanding than just reading alone. This is becoming expected because it gives a more comprehensive understanding of the subject.

I wish there were more forward looking teachers who both showed the video in the classroom of Shakespeare, the right one, and asked the student to read the book at the same time. Literacy in both the printed word and media literacy are becoming equally important. It is very easy to make bad decisions about media.