Wikipedia:WikipediaWeekly/Episode69

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Participants:

• Fuzheado
• Witty Lama
• Tawker
• Jdforrester
• Durova
• Ragesoss

Roundtable Topics

• This week in Censorship
• RNA Biology - science journal requires authors to edit Wikipedia
• Wikipedians grumpy and closed-minded?
• Admin uses ability to view deleted edits to obtain test "answer key", posts on Facebook
• Philosopher finds that Wikipedia has good "epistemic consequences"
• Add more here

Podcaster's Picks

• Fuzheado: BART Police shooting of Oscar Grant (and see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/2009 BART Police Shooting)
• Ragesoss: Big Science (and see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Big Science)
• Choice of article could be launching point into bigger discussion below, or something you find interesting

Critical Issues and 2009 Predictions

• Deletionism
  • IS Wikipedia news/journalism, distinction?
  • Wikipedia becoming more like a conventional encyclopedia?
  • Effects of deletion (discourages authors, maintains exemplar standards, restores low-hanging fruit, destroys quirky content that flourished early on...)
  • Jimbo in 2003: "if someone wants to write an article about their high school, we should relax and accommodate them" (see this current AfD)
• Policies in conflict? Phil Sandifer's argument that NPOV and NOR contradict for some types of content (especially in the humanities)
• Arbitration
• Conflict of interest, undue influence?
  • Rick Warren and The Purpose Driven Life
• Stratification of Wikipedian society?

Links

• Wikipedia:Did you know/Darwin Day 2009
• Flagged Revisions poll
• The term for out-of-proportion Wikipedia articles that escaped us: Wikigroaninng.