William Beutler on Wikipedia

Posts Tagged ‘GLAM’

First Wikipedian (Officially Representing a Presidential Library)

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on January 24, 2013 at 7:03 pm

Via the NYT Arts Beat blog:

Gerald R. Ford may have governed during a time of economic stagnation, but his library has just laid claim to a cutting-edge distinction: becoming the first presidential depository to employ an official “Wikipedian in residence.”

Michael Barera, a master’s student at the University of Michigan’s School of Information who has been editing Wikipedia articles for five years, started the job last week, The Chronicle of Higher Education reported. He is charged with improving the Wikipedia presence of the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library and Museum, which is housed at the university’s Ann Arbor campus.

He’s the first official representative to Wikipedia at a presidential library, and surely not the last. Since Liam Wyatt became the first Wikipedian-in-Residence (WiR) at the British Museum, in spring 2010, the concept of an in-house Wikipedian has spread far and wide. So far, these have all been at non-profits, but I won’t be surprised if that isn’t always the case.

(Hat tip: cultural-partners email list.)

This Wikipedia Article Is Not Yet Rated

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on September 7, 2011 at 1:18 pm

Even if you’re a very casual Wikipedia reader (which I assume is not the case, or you wouldn’t be here right now) you might have noticed a few new features* at Wikipedia in recent weeks and months. Most noticeably, the Article Feedback Tool, pictured below.

And it takes a single click to see the ratings on a given article. In the following example, a number of readers have already expressed their opinion of the (very short and currently unreferenced) article about the new Clap Your Hands Say Yeah album, which isn’t supposed to be released until later this month (thanks, Spotify / BitTorrent!).

It’s not entirely clear what the long-range prospects for the tool may be. Unlike flagged revisions, it isn’t slated for a vote and approval or removal; indeed, it’s now listed on every Wikipedia article that you visit, and it will continue to be for the indefinite future.

But that doesn’t mean it will necessarily remain static. An invitation to “please take a moment to rate this page” has already been changed. More questions are surely in store, especially as some very good questions have been raised, such as who’s to say what it means to be “highly knowledgable” in a given subject area?

Certain aspects of its implementation, though, are quite clever. For example, any rating assigned to an article that itself may change often cannot be considered good for long, right? This has been anticipated: ratings expire after 30 edits have been made on a given page, and if you’ve rated a page before, you can re-rate it then.

Some Wikipedians have also asked for a statistical tool charting the data over time, which would be very cool to see. Like most Wikipedia projects, all information captured is available through its API, so anyone could build one if they wanted. A good example of this kind of ad hoc service is User:Henrik’s Wikipedia article traffic statistics tool.

Meanwhile, it also opens a new Pandora’s box for Wikipedia (as if it didn’t already have plenty). Perhaps the biggest concern ahead is that the ratings can be gamed; as Liam “Wittylama” Wyatt (known particularly for his work with the British Museum) has pointed out, the top-rated article (4.9 out of 5 stars) is something called the VAD 43 MRC Klang Chapter. About which, well, have a look for yourself.

I think the concept of article ratings is an idea whose time is coming, if that time is not yet now. These ratings have a long way to go before they should be considered a barometer of anything. It’s a good start, but still just that.

*The other is one asking how you feel about editing Wikipedia, complete with a choice of smiley and frowny faces, but I haven’t seen it lately.

GLAM Rock: The Wikipedian in Residence and the Race for the Prize

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on June 18, 2010 at 11:47 am

british_museum_cc_temporalataStarting in March, a longtime Wikipedian and co-host of the Wikipedia Weekly podcast, Liam Wyatt, began an unusual experiment: he has become, for a short while at least, a volunteer “Wikipedian in Residence” at the British Museum in London (which I visited in high school and where I touched the Rosetta Stone, when no one was looking, not that you care). It’s the first time such an institution has created such a position (voluntary though this arrangement is) and it points toward a future where organizations with significant cultural material (GLAMs, as this project calls them) may appoint or hire individuals to be representatives or ambassadors to Wikipedia.

Along the way, Wyatt and the British Museum are doing something very interesting: they are offering cash prizes for raising articles to Featured-level status on topics related to the British Museum. From the project page:

The British Museum is offering five prizes of £100 (≈$140USD/€120) at their shop/bookshop for new Featured Articles on topics related to the British Museum in any Wikipedia language edition. Ideally, the topics will be articles about collection items.

This is the first time an organisation in the UK has put out a prize that recognises the value of fine articles on Wikipedia. This is a recognition that Wikipedia work is not only good quality but is consistent with the outreach aspect of the Museum’s mission to engage the public.

It’s an inventive idea, even if some of the rules are a little unclear: it almost sounds like it requires the creation of a brand new article, though that doesn’t seem to be the case. Meanwhile, there are already a dozen or so articles on the English-language Wikipedia currently judged to be Good, B, or C-quality, according to Wikipedia’s internal rating system. Though the prize is pointedly offered in any language edition, most will surely be won in the English, German or French language versions, and at least a few of the aforementioned English articles will be the five ones improved by the winners.

And in keeping with Wikipedia’s “There is no deadline” ethos (related to the concept of “eventualism“), the competition runs until all prizes are claimed. I wouldn’t be surprised if they went fast, and I wouldn’t be surprised if that leads to another interesting situation: most quality articles have several major contributors, as was pointed out on a Wikipedia mailing list this week.

the_great_court_mchohanAs Wyatt points out, getting an outside organization to care about “the value of good quality articles on Wikipedia in their own right” is a significant achievement, and the first of a kind. Now that the English-language Wikipedia has grown to include far more articles (3 million) than its veteran editors (a few thousand editing on a daily basis) can possibly handle, more ideas will be needed to generate new content for Wikipedia. Perhaps this represents the next step in the development of the human-powered “content management system” for Wikipedia. Wyatt hopes that other museums will follow in the British Museum’s lead; as someone who works with companies, associations and other organizations that are frequently concerned about how they are represented on Wikipedia, I think outposts for representatives to the Wikipedia community from many organizations can be a good idea, though sorting out the conflict of interest issues is likely to be different for each.

If you’re interested in joining the British Museum contest, you might start with one of the articles discussed above, or find your own in the Collection of the British Museum category. And if you’re looking for a curator at the British Museum to work with, here is the page to do that.

And for more information about Wyatt’s residency, see his personal blog posts here: Part 1: Making Wikipedia “GLAM-friendly”* and Part 2: Making Wikipedia “GLAM-friendly”.

Exterior of British Museum by temporalata on Flickr; Great Hall by M.Chohan.

*GLAM stands for “Gallery, Library, Archive and Museum”; I had to look it up, too.