Question on Project Abstracts/Short Proposals due March 18

I’d like to have some more information about what we need to do for this assignment. I know that we need to prepare “at least two different project proposals that each have at least two scope variations: one full and a reduced version.” What should the proposals include and what should we be prepared to present/discuss in class? Thanks.

Integrating Autism and Asperger’s Syndrome Into The Workplace

Wikipedia’s article on “High-Functioning Autism and Asperger’s Editor’s” was very insightful in terms of describing who these people are.

The article describes how these individuals are different and explained some of these differences at length.  It is good to know that these individuals are employed in the “real world”, have rights within workplaces, and have a sense of autonomy.

The article indicated that all of Wikipedia’s employees (neurotypical, autistic and Aspergers), are expected to be creative in their problem solving.  This concept of finding different ways to approach and solve problems are often applied to the ways we use technology.  It seems to me that because these high-functioning individuals “like to fix things” and are good with “data storage, processing, indexing and have rapid access” (memory) they could be innovatively inclined.

Now that many more individuals are born into the autism/Asperger categories, and information around their conditions is widely available on line, is it possible that greater understanding can help pave the way to help these individuals become contributors in all areas of society?  I wonder if this is the case how technology might be utilized, given their unique abilities, and how they might be trained to utilize their skill sets.

In the article “The 36 People Who Run Wikipedia” Stephen Lurie notes how the impossible is quite possible – success can happen when lots, and lots of people come together to make or build something, and in this case every single human being can share in the sum of all knowledge”!  Given their interactions at Wikipedia, and their way of “knowing stuff”, it is apparent that these individuals likely enjoy their work as much as others do, gain a sense of pride and I imagine are quite satisfied with their contributions.  In fact, the article calls for a certain “gentleness” when some fact they know may not be quite right.

I wonder if any of the Wiki Stewards are on the autism spectrum.

Wikipedia’s article indicates that autistic individuals are called out around behavioral issues, so given that skill set, it seems there are less reasons for autism/Asperger people to not be engaged within other communities.

Is Wikipedia too idealistic in its aims? Are Wikipedia editors equipped to deal with other editors on the spectrum?

When we were claiming blog topics at the beginning of the semester, I jumped on the opportunity to motivate the discussion on dystopic views of Wikipedia. After going through this week’s readings, though, I found that the positive and negative aspects of Wikipedia’s collaborative project are often inextricably linked.

As Joe Mullin’s article demonstrates, the Wikimedia Foundation doesn’t always make clear its positioning … to the point of hypocrisy. In Mullin’s discussion of Sarah Stierch’s termination, he quotes Wikimedia’s Senior Director of Programs, Frank Schulenberg, standing behind Wikimedia’s decision on the grounds that “it is widely known that paid editing is frowned upon by many in the editing community and by the Wikimedia Foundation,” while somewhat contradictorily spouting that “the Wikimedia movement is a place of forgiveness and compassion.” Well, apparently it wasn’t a place of forgiveness for Sarah Stierch. Clearly, though, paid editing is a potential problem. And I do mean potential, because who is going to determine if the editing itself is biased, meaning in violation of Neutral Point of View and/or Verifiability? Is the “bright line rule” (that paid advocates should limit their comments to  the “talk” page of an article) necessary? Presumably the Wikipedia community would eventually discover such biases and make the necessary changes to restore a NPOV. Should we believe that paid advocates will never adhere to the goodwill of Wikipedia’s guidelines?

I would also like to open up a discussion about Wikipedia’s democratic structures. We looked at the Categories for Deletion (CfD) discussion about American Women Novelists, the Article for Deletion discussion about David Horvitz, the Arbitration Committee (ArbCom) discussion about the Gender Gap Task Force (GGTF), as well as multiple articles discussing the ArbCom decision surrounding GamerGate (Reddit thread, Mark Bernstein’s “Infamous”, and Alex Hern’s article). Is the existence of the Arbitration Committee a sign that the Wikimedia Foundation’s goodwill does not work? In particular, the ruling surrounding the GamerGate ArbCom decision are extremely upsetting. I don’t think that the banned editors were guiltless, but doesn’t the ruling seem to favor GamerGate? Is that my own perspective on the conflict and issues at hand, or is systemic bias more deeply ingrained than I thought?

I was very drawn to ThatPeskyCommoner’s article “Wikipedia:High-functioning autism and Asperger’s editors”, which humorously draws attention to the fact that Wikipedia editors do not always know how to effectively communicate. (I came to this realization myself while reading through the various discussion pages.) Are Wikipedia editors equipped to deal with other editors on the spectrum? Maybe it’s human nature and the complexity of human emotions, but the discussion pages on Wikipedia are filled with much more than just productive conversation.

The Discussion Discussion

Hi Everyone,

After our talk about blogging in class on Wednesday, here’s a space to explore potential tools that might be useful in promoting greater online discussion possibilities. If you have a tool you’d like to suggest, leave it here in a comment  with a little description of what it does.

Thanks!

 

Processing the changes that were made to my most recent Wikipedia edit and deciding if I need to revert any of the information that was removed

For our small exploration into the world of Wikipedia editing, I took a crack at revising the entry on Theatre Journal, which is one of the top journals in theatre studies. Prior to the revisions I submitted yesterday afternoon (4 March 2015) at 19:36, the page had had no activity since 9 July 2014, but even the edits made last year were only minor; the content of the entry had not been substantially altered since March 2012. When I came upon the entry, it looked like this:

Robertgreer revision to Theatre Journal Wikipedia page

As Michael had suggested to me during our Wikipedia workshop, I began my edits by looking at entries on other academic journals. I quickly realized that at the very least I could add some information about the history of Theatre Journal, find some much-needed citations for the entry, and make minor corrections to the entry’s content (e.g. updating the name of the current editor). I thought that my edits took a huge step in improving the content (and usefulness) of the Wikipedia page.

Josephpaulhilll revision to Theatre Journal Wikipedia pageAnd thus ends the editing process, right?!

Minutes before class last night, I decided to check on the entry and see if anyone had swooped in to revert my edits, and I was surprised to see that Randykitty published additional revisions to the Theatre Journal page less than an hour after my own revisions went up. Before I decided to get personally offended, I checked out the revision history page.

I synthesized the edits one at a time. “Cleanup” … okay. That’s generally a good thing. “Remove contents list” … I don’t like the idea of removing any of the material I added, but perhaps I added something to the entry that should not have been included. I am new to this and others out there know much more about it than I do. “Add abstracting info” … absolutely no idea what that means, so I’ll have to check it out on the page itself.

As you can tell from the revised page, Randykitty’s revisions did a lot to cleanup the entry and make it look more like a standard Wikipedia page–and by that I mean that there’s now magically a Contents box listing the page’s different headings.

Randykitty revision to Theatre Journal Wikipedia pageI had added information about the journal’s history, but I hadn’t made a section heading. Thanks, Randykitty. The abstracting and indexing information is also something that I would never have done. Another positive improvement. My list of recent special issues was removed, but as Randykitty informed me, pages should not be used as directories. After some reflection (and my initial anger at having my own [perhaps not so] invisible labor become even more invisible), I understand Randykitty’s rationale behind removing my list as it was. Indeed, I had merely cataloged the last six special issues of the journal. However, there still might be cause to mention some of the journal’s past special issues in order to demonstrate the types of subjects that the journal considers noteworthy. Perhaps this is something that I should discuss on the talk page. It’s also interesting to note that my brief list of notable previous editors did not get removed. My list, which consists of Sue-Ellen Case, Susan Bennett, and Jean Graham-Jones, is factual, although the inclusion of prominent female scholars (and the omission of male editors) clearly demonstrates a political positioning on my part to fight back against systemic bias.

The only other noticeable deletion was a sentence taken from the front matter of the journal itself about the publication’s subject matter and approach. I had revised a simpler version of the statement in my own edits, so I had some attachment to its inclusion, and I haven’t yet decided if the removal of the statement helps or hinders the page’s content. My shift from “performing arts” to “theatre arts” (another conversation worthy of the talk page) was retained in a different sentence, which I like, but the deleted statement also included information about the journal’s scope, and I think that such information could be informative for Wikipedia users.

It’s interesting to consider that some of Randykitty’s revisions could have been made before my own. Certainly the abstracting and indexing information could have been generated previously, as could the LCCN and OCLC numbers (whatever the heck those are). Yet, Randykitty, whose user page indicates that s/he spends most of his/her time editing articles on academic journals, waited until after I had made some significant changes. At the moment, though, and having just finished reading Joseph Reagle’s book chapter “Nazis and Norms,” I’m deciding to perpetuate the notions of goodwill and collaboration. This is part of the process, right? If I want to continue to edit and talk about the Theatre Journal Wikipedia page, it looks like there’s someone else here with whom I can engage.