[Air-L] in defense of wiki vandalism....

[Gordon Carlson]

That is a good thing to point out Jordan.
Cartman (or however you want to personify that part of human nature) is not
only a real issue, but is what software designers and system managers just
assume.  The hard part of putting together a tool like Wikipedia or a
community like an open editing system is anticipating the strange things
that people will do and have happen to them.  Whoever it was earlier in this
thread that used the phrase "testing boundaries" was dead on.

Wikipedia is hard because of the inevitable yet unpredictable confluence of
events that will get in the way or make something change.  These, I think,
are often the barriers to people joining and using Wikipedia et al.

Thanks,
Gordon Carlson
University of Illinois, Chicago



On Thu, Nov 13, 2008 at 11:28 AM, Jordan Lynn <jordanl at uga.edu> wrote:

> Cartman merely represents a single facet of human nature- he is the
> quintessential trickster, the agent of chaos, inside everyone that
> automatically rejects norms forced upon us by society. Given an anonymous
> online environment, with instant gratification and no negative
> consequences,
> Cartman is bound to show up.
>
> On Thu, Nov 13, 2008 at 9:49 AM, rsadler <rsadler at uiuc.edu> wrote:
>
> > What would Cartman do?  Well, Cartman is a cartoon!  I'd "hope" that we
> can
> > expect better of real life than characters from South Park!!!!
> >
> >
> >  -----Original Message-----
> >>> From: air-l-bounces at listserv.aoir.org [mailto:
> >>> air-l-bounces at listserv.aoir.org] On Behalf Of Margie Borschke
> >>> Sent: Wednesday, November 12, 2008 6:10 PM
> >>> To: air-l at listserv.aoir.org
> >>> Subject: [Air-L] in defense of wiki vandalism....
> >>>
> >>> It strikes me as almost appropriate that students who are required to
> >>> edit a Wikipedia entry as part of a class, ended up vandalizing pages.
> I
> >>> think you could argue that it is a valid response to being forced into
> >>> public participation, particularly in the context of a self-organising
> >>> community where all the other participants are self selected.  If you'd
> not
> >>>  edited Wikipedia before,  wouldn't boundaries be the first thing you'd
> want
> >>> to test?  What would Cartman do?
> >>> I assure you he's not going to try the sandbox first.
> >>>
> >>> I think a lot of  students would also 'get' that in addition to being a
> >>> knowledge resource, wikipedia is also a kind of game, something former
> >>> Wikipedia editor  Brion Vibber pointed out in Nicholson Baker's NY
> Review of
> >>> Books article, The Charms of Wikipedia.
> >>>
> >>> While there are clearly good pedagogical uses of Wikipedia, required
> >>> editing makes me uneasy. It's not so great for students to have to
> learn in
> >>> public and not so great for the people participating to have a group of
> >>> students descend upon them either.
> >>>
> >>> --Margie Borschke
> >>>
> >>>
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-- 
Gordon Carlson
C: 541-990-1155