William Beutler on Wikipedia

Archive for the ‘Remainders’ Category

Announcements, Ha Ha Funny, Popular culture, Remainders, Wikipedia culture, Wikipedia is Everywhere

30 for 30 (Divided by Ten)

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on May 25, 2012 at 4:46 pm

In Slovenian, the traditional name for the month of May translates to “the month when plants grow”, or so Wikipedia tells me. It’s apt then—if not altogether insufferable as a metaphor—that this month three “seedlings” I recently planted have all blossomed.

Horse ebooks Wikipedia article

First up is something I am almost embarrassingly prideful about: that I will go down in history as the person who created the Horse ebooks Wikipedia article. (The what, you ask? Read the article!)

Considering the meteoric rise to Internet fame of the Horse ebooks Twitter account—without a doubt, the most followed and most beloved Twitter spam account of all time—it’s rather surprising that when I first looked in late April, no such article existed. So, I wrote it. The article debuted on May 5, and graced Wikipedia’s front page with its presence—in the “Did you know” section—on May 12.

Read the Wikipedia article, follow the Twitter account, and then buy the T-shirt (note: I have no deal with the sellers, except that I did buy the shirt). And then take sides in the debate over whether the magic is gone since its automation became a subject of disagreement.

Best of Wikipedia Sandbox Tumblr screenshot

Another fun project that has taken off this month is The Best of Wikipedia:Sandbox, a Tumblr account.

There are many Tumblrs like it, but this one is mine. In fact, there are other Tumblrs about Wikipedia, including Best of Wikipedia, [Citation Needed], and—if you know Tumblr, you know this is coming—Fuck Yeah Wikipedia!

Ostensibly Wikipedia:Sandbox is a place to test edits and check formatting, but that’s not all it gets used for. What started out as a joke among my colleagues—sharing screen caps of the ridiculous things we’d seen in the Sandbox—has transformed into a Tumblr to share these largely unknown and unappreciated comic gems with the world. The Sandbox is an unlikely repository for strange world views, faceplam-worthy test edits, and—since this is the Internet—cat pictures.

I’ve saved the biggest announcement for last… this month I launched what is essentially my second Wikipedia-related website: Beutler Wiki Relations. Yes, it’s a business website.

Although I rarely write about my consultancy much here, close readers of The Wikipedian are likely aware that one of my professional focuses (focii?) is helping brands, companies and individuals work constructively with the Wikipedia community to improve articles. I’ve never sought to draw attention to this—and indeed, when I appeared on C-SPAN this January, the subject only came up briefly. But I feel like it’s worth posting a simple website explaining myself to skeptical Wikipedians and, sure, potential clients alike. Closer readers may recall the phrase “wiki relations” from my post about the Bell Pottinger mess, and how it could have been avoided.

Although “conflict of interest” and “paid advocacy” on Wikipedia remain contentious topics, I think it’s more important than ever to make them seem less mysterious. It won’t stop the Bell Pottingers, but it may stop people from hiring them to mess with Wikipedia.

And yes, I realize I have a conflict of interest in saying that. Can’t avoid it; might as well own it. Or as Horse ebooks says: “Discover the usefulness of wax.”

Remainders

Remainders in Light

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on April 23, 2010 at 3:54 pm

Because updating The Wikipedian necessarily takes a back seat to my day job — the one that pays me money I need to buy things to stay alive so I am able to keep updating The Wikipedian — I don’t get to write about every Wikipedia story that I might like.

Until now, these have languished in a Google Docs file, waiting for me to develop them into full posts with original commentary. And because this sadly will never happen for some deserving stories, it is better to clear the field / room / palate and look toward the future. So here is the first of an occasional series of remaindered post ideas. Let’s open up the file…

  • In late February I noticed a new blog about Wikipedia had launched. Called On Wikipedia, it presents a thoughtful take on Wikipedia. Except in early March, one of its contributors decided to make a point about Wikipedia’s unreliability by… adding unreliable information. In fact, they created an outright hoax: inventing a person to create an article about, claiming they were suspected of murder and pushing it through to a fairly prominent spot on the front page (the Did you know? section). The blogger then impersonated the non-existent person and contacted Wikipedia, upset about the murder allegations. They described the whole process in one long post announcing what they had done. All this, though the blogger / editor surely knew about the Wikipedia’s guideline “Do not disrupt Wikipedia to illustrate a point“. It didn’t take long for Jimmy Wales to get involved, and a lengthy discussion was initiated at the Administrator’s noticeboard. I can’t say I’ve dove deeply into this one, but On Wikipedia wrote about it twice more, here and here.

  • On March 21, the German-language Wikipedia’s Featured article of the day was “Vulva” — with a photograph. Jimmy Wales asked for it to be removed, a request that was duly ignored. Wikipedia Signpost covered the story.

  • So Larry Sanger, estranged co-founder of Wikipedia, reported the Wikimedia Foundation to the FBI over allegations of child pornography. This is an unusual development to a long-running debate about certain images’ propriety — and even legality — for inclusion. Then Sanger decided / realized / found out the images did not depict real people, which apparently presents a different legal case that reminds me of a philosophical argument I had with some friends back in college. The sardonic wiki-trackers at The Register covered the story, and here is Sanger’s original letter to the FBI.

  • Which government entity / famous person is getting hostile news coverage for “meddling” with their Wikipedia article this time? It’s the Government Information Service and the Dutch Royal Family.

  • Dan Lewis, who has the enviable job of being the new media guy for Sesame Street, recently proposed an interesting concept — the Wikipedia Reading Club. He reads an entry on a topic he should know more about but does not, takes notes and offers thoughts for others to comment upon. His first two are John Adams and Jackie Robinson. Those are both quality articles; he’d do best to stick with top-quality “Featured” articles — now at 2,800+ — to which the Adams article (surprisingly to me) does not belong.

  • Teaching Wikipedia in the classroom? Great! Teaching Wikipedia in the sixth grade? Maybe overly optimistic.

  • I never did get around to writing about my trip to Bangalore this January for the WikiWars conference, co-sponsored by the Centre for Internet & Society and the Institute of Network Cultures, though my Keynote presentation is on SlideShare. A follow-up conference was held this past week in Amsterdam, and one of the speakers was Scott Kildall, with whom I attended WikiWars. Here is a blog post about that.

  • I wrote an article for Politics Magazine, the trade magazine for political consultants and campaign professsionals, titled It’s a Wiki World. Here’s how it begins:

    Few websites present as many potential opportunities and pitfalls to the campaign professional as Wikipedia. Whether a Wikipedia article is friendly or unfriendly toward a candidate, it is going to be highly ranked on Google. But Wikipedia is unique among other influential websites because its content is not under one person’s control: Anyone can—and will—try to change what a given article says.

    I tell a few stories, well-known to Wikipedians, about failed (or questionable) Wikipedia engagement and offer some guidance on a better way to approach Wikipedia.

That’s all for now. Much more to come, very soon.