# Tweets from Critical Point of View: WikiWars conference in Bangalore I am just back from Bangalore, where I had the good fortune to participate in the [Critical Point of View: WikiWars conference](http://www.cis-india.org/news/wikiwars) - a critical reflection on Wikipedia from a number of point of views. I will probably write more about some of the most interesting presentations, my own presentation, and other thoughts, but I thought I'd start by posting my tweets. It varies how much I tweet from conferences (or in general), but during this conference, I found myself using Twitter quite frequently. It serves as both a note taking function, a way to communicate with some of the others in the room, a way to focus on the content of the talk (rather than letting thoughts wander), and a conduit for people who are not participating. I am not sure how useful this collection of Tweets are for people who were not present, but I am posting them here as a collection. [Earlier](http://reganmian.net/blog/2009/06/19/tweets-from-oai6-on-open-access-in-geneva/) I posted the tweets from the OAI6 conference, and also mentioned how I created the list. Here they are, all 130 of them: - In Bangalore at Centre for Internet and Society for \#wikiwars conference. Bangalore seems nice, a small-town busy feel. - Just back from Avatar - good movie, but all the criticisms about the noble savage etc are right on. Looking forward to \#wikiwars tmrw. - @StevenWalling That's kind of nice - new voices. I love Doctorow and Lessig, but we've all heard from them before. \#wikiwars - \#wikiwars 3d wiki art installation - open space idea. First discussion starting: Wikipedia theory. - \#wikiwars "WP has gotten big enough that it deserves a research conference that is entirely external to WikiMedia Foundation." - Using new Google Live Search to follow \#wikiwars updates in real-time (automatically updating) http://bit.ly/8Cvc1i (expand) - Challenge @ \#wikiwars: since we've all circulated 2k word abstracts, how to structure 15 min presentation to still be engaging to everyone? - @ilya Cool, I'm very interested in Wikipedias in Indic languages. \#wikiwars - \#wikiwars Stuart Geiger presenting on bots in WP governance. I find his work very interesting. - \#wikiwars Wisdom of crowds vs wisdom of bots? - WP works bec. vandals outnumbered by good users? NO - 500-100 ppl banned every day! \#wikiwars - @tinucherian Cool! Random spot check: "Norway" 2 paras, but "Democracy" and "Physics" both good length. :) (Can't check quality) \#wikiwars - \#wikiwars @tinucherian Quick tool for checking articles in other languages http://bit.ly/7KmqJN (expand). Used it to check ML article length. - \#wikiwars Geiger: bots help reinstitute traditional features of the old style of production (gatekeepers, quality control, authority) - \#wikiwars Geiger: bot "nominated itself" for adminship - very convincing :) the machines are taking over! :) - \#wikiwars: Geiger: Are academics given epistemic roles in addition to academic. Do academics need to know coding to make headway in WP? - \#wikiwars Automatically redirect to the longest article in any of the official languages in India: http://pastebin.com/f5a21b4db - @wirefire Yes, but is there any difference between stylistic choices in WP and other trad encyclopedias? \#wikiwars - \#wikiwars Comment from audience: presentations give idea that Wikipedia is 1984'ish alienating modern nightmare... - \#wikiwars Geiger: Some of my best friends are bots. Pseudonymity is not equal to anonymity! - "Do we need to know who has written something to be able to trust it? Or do we want to know who is it when we DON'T trust sb?" \#wikiwars - \#wikiwars Wonder what the usage of bots is in other language versions (non-English)... Are there active bots on HI WP, ML WP? - RT @thewikipedian: More @staeiou gems: I"f Wikipedia is a battleground, the footnotes [citations] are the bullets." \#wikiwars - \#wikiwars Dror: Syrians much more sensitive abt what is in Arabic Wikipedia, than English. I think the Chinese feel the same abt ZH WP. - @williambeutler (Abt Nandi and French quote). I'm all for that. Maybe I'll give my entire prez tomorrow in Indonesian. \#wikiwars - Lot's of interesting epistemological discussions at \#wikiwars, is there objective knowledge? is NPOV possible? 很有意思的认识论的讨论 - 中立的知识存在吗? - @gkjohn 5:30 I think. There's a dinner at 7:30, maybe you could sneak in :) \#wikiwars - \#wikiwars Dror: Wikipedia exposed me to new ideas/facts that I didn't hear in "politically correct" school. - \#wikiwars Dror: It *is* possible to get near objective knowledge, and it's needed in conflict topics, we shouldn't just give up! - \#wikiwars Question: What would you do if WP wasn't there? Answer: It *wasn't* there... - Dror: When learning Arabic, talking to A-speakers, amazed how different our knowledge was. Excited by WP - this is what we needed! \#wikiwars - \#wikiwars Internet as a distributed network, and Wikipedia as *one* place. - \#wikiwars Are articles about Pokemon frivolous/don't matter? Should this disqualify from adminship? - \#wikiwars Dror: Difference between writing *about* a narrative, and adopting it. We can and should do the first, and not the second. - \#wikiwars Dror: East and West cult. difference of neutrality and objectivity? When working w/ Arab editors, noticed difference in standards. - \#wikiwars Dror: Do we not only need different language versions, but also WPs written from different epistemic traditions? - @cormaggio you would have been an obvius guest. although exclusively wp, not all wmf projs. \#wikiwars - \#wikiwars very excited abt \#hfordsa talk. disillusioned, next 8 yrs to work out what went wrong. want more impact in dev'l countries - \#wikiwars cc as political artefact, and what are the other options? - \#wikiwars lessig: ways of regulating: market, law, norms, artefacts. which work better where? - \#wikiwars no more laptop batt, using ipod. i suck at typing fast - \#wikiwars sunil and hfordsa are both disillusioned/critical of open movenents. hm, what are alternatives? how do we move forward? - \#wikiwars hfordsa: by choosing cc we're reinforcing copyright, commodification of culture...? - @ilya I've made a list for \#WikiWars. See http://twitter.com/jackerhack/wikiwars. (via @jackerhack) - \#wikiwars @hfordsa sth i wrote earlier related to encouraging sharing w/o bogged down w/ law http://bit.ly/71lFdi (expand) - \#wikiwars A very interesting first day is over. A lot of criticism about openness, licenses. The idea of an objective truth. - \#wikiwars Quite a few things that I will pick up in my presentation tomorrow. Great with so much time for debate and questions! - I dreamt I was invited to give a presentation about open licenses and OER to a primary school assembly. Weird. \#wikiwars - \#wikiwars Ready for day two of WikiWars. Today - with power! :) May the games begin. - \#wikiwars "It's scary that we all agree that we need to be critical to Wikipedia?" Being critical doesn't mean being negative... - RT @thewikipedian: I've heard of "greenwashing" and recently, "localwashing", but @sunil\_abraham offers a new one: "openwashing" \#wikiwars - \#wikiwars @sunil\_abraham: You kill local/traditional knowledge by encoding it? - \#wikiwars Sunil: Apparently Bangalore hasn't changed name to Bengaluuru yet, lost in bureaucracy and politics. Surprising. - \#wikiwars Dror: Is there a consensus in this panel that Wikipedia is *not* a revolution? - \#wikiwars Geert: WP is traditional in its understand of what knowledge is. Very biased towards Western idea. Epistemological and geographic. - \#wikiwars I don't see the geographical divide as critical. It can be solved by added more articles - rather than fundamentally changing. - \#wikiwars Stuart: Revolution is an empty signifier. - \#wikiwars "Trying to defend wiki part by clinging to the pedia part." - RT @hfordsa: 'Wikipedia might be revolutionary but not in the way that Wikipedia defines itself' NishantShah \#wikiwars - @fuzheado You guys should do a Wikipedia Weekly episode on the \#WikiWars conference going on in Bangalore. Lot's of interesting discussions. - \#wikiwars Apparently Indian teachers want handwritten instead of printed, to avoid copy+paste. Interesting. - RT @wirefire: http://bit.ly/71BHKK (expand) -- how often does Indian law refer to wikipedia? Shocking revelations \#wikiwars - Sad how many people could not make it to \#wikiwars. But still a great crowd. - \#wikiwars @williambeutler Starts presentation about why people join/leave WP, and what to do about it. Doors and windows. Or sth. - \#wikiwars Bill: Who reads WP? Most people. But very low WP literacy - how does project work, talk pages, warning tags, etc. - \#wikiwars Bill: Hard to how many contribute to WP. Most edits by small amnt of ppl, but if those are only tiny changes, does it mean anyth? - \#wikiwars Bill: Look at a few articles - most edit counts, made smallest contrib. Biggest contrib by accts that did not have many edits. - \#wikiwars Bill: more reasons to leave WP than to stay there. - \#wikiwars Bill: 50 policies, 150+ site guidelines, advisory essays. WP is *complicated*. (ENWP, what about other langs? Less bureaucracy?) - \#wikiwars Bill: Some people who leave Wikipedia leave "suicide notes". - \#wikiwars Any good working tools to animate WP edit history? Most tools here http://waxy.org/2005/06/automating\_wiki/ broken links. - \#wikiwars Ilya: Re-appropriating WP, lazy people's archive? LAM sector in Taiwan. - \#wikiwars My bad, Ilya is not about LAM sector in Taiwan. That's another guy. - @zimmee Was just repeating speaker's word. But it's an interesting concept to let an "online persona" "die"... \#wikiwars - \#wikiwars Great to finally have sb talk about other language WPs... (One earlier also studied German WP). - \#wikiwars Ilya: Story of zh-min-nan Wikipedia. - \#wikiwars Ilya: What is "Chinese"? ISO code only given for Mandarin, written language. How to write Taiwanese w/o characters? Holopedia... - \#wikiwars Ilya: Purchased Holopedia.org, installed Mediawiki (OSS), couldn't update software easily, couldn't connect to other langs in WP. - \#wikiwars Ilya: Interesting - early paper-drawn prototype of Holopedia, zh-minnan WP. - \#wikiwars Ilya: Decide to use certain transcription/writing system (dev'l by missionaries). Apply to WP again, accepted in 2004/2005. - \#wikiwars Ilya: Pan-Chineselization vs indep. langs. Relation with Taiwanese independence movement? Reductionism. Cultural revitalization. - \#wikiwars Input method is not method, web browser not just tool, localization get you globalized, fonts should be better than its terms (?) - \#wikiwars Ilya: a number of Chinese dialect WPs emerge. - \#wikiwars Ilya: Toward FormosanPedia... Me: But WPs are supposed to be by language, not by territory? - \#wikiwars Tsou: Why Taiwan doesn't like WP? New presentation starting. - \#wikiwars Tsou: We all use WP academically, but we are required to "remove all traces". - \#wikiwars Tsou: Strawberry generation in TW ("we don't all look like this"). Born after 1981, self-indulgent, credit cards, disobedient. - \#wikiwars Tsou: My teachers used to beat me often, for me it was natural. Now they record on handcamera, and upload online. - \#wikiwars Tsou: Current generation didn't go through proper brainwashing process, lack committment! - \#wikiwars Tsou: Brought up in greenhouse environment. Beautiful, fragile. High maintenance. Low frustration tolerance. - \#wikiwars Tsou: When growing up, only taught mainland hist. and geo. We called ourselves "Chinese". Now different. Nat'l identity contested. - RT @MadanRao: "Strawberry generation": - I always love these cultural metaphors! Wonder what fruits apply to other cultures? \#WikiWars - \#wikiwars Tsou: All turning into 穷忙族, poor while being busy, busily being poor. - \#wikiwars Tsou: They actually have a Chinese language "Uncyclopedia"! Neat! Kuso - means "shit" or poor quality in Japanese. - \#wikiwars Tsou: lovetaiwan.jpg Picture of a Chinese character shaped as swastika - resistance toward pervasive concept of patriotism? - \#wikiwars Tsou: Our encyclopedia is "contaminated" by Chinese Uncyclopedia - people write vulgar things, and it isn't revised/removed. - \#wikiwars Presentation is over. I love these international perspectives. So many rich local cultures represented! Now panel discussion. - \#wikiwars Audience: What have you meant by resistance? Resistance to what? Nishant: Read our website :) - \#wikiwars Maybe Wikipedia needs an "exit interview" to find out why people leave. Sometimes intentional, sometimes just fades away? - \#wikiwars Dror: Countries with more leisure culture contribute more? - \#wikiwars Tsou: Our education system doesn't encourage us to do anything outside of the "rules". That's why "uncyclopedia" is interesting. - \#wikiwars Tsou: Ppl post things on WP, deleted, then on Uncyclopedia. "Why deleted? It's a good point!" But no orig rsrch allowed. - \#wikiwars Nishant: Not apathy towards politics, but towards politics as we understand it currently. WP falls into "flat, boring concept" - \#wikiwars Nishant: Uncyclopedia shows - not a crisis of leisure time. But they don't choose to spend their time on what "we want them to". - \#wikiwars Q: Why do ppl choose to edit Holopedia, not zhwp? Even if I'm TW, might still not match my daily language experience. - \#wikiwars "Language is continuous, not discontinuous, but we have to chunk it somehow. Trad: nationally. How do we deal w/this in WP?" - \#wikiwars Delicious lunch. Now my session is coming up. Will post audio+slides, think it will also be videotaped. - \#wikiwars Zimmerman. Finally sb. makes distinc. betw. information and knowledge. Knowledge is constructed in our minds, info can be shared. - \#wikiwars Zimmerman: You need to distinguish between anonymity and pseudonymity. Huge difference! - \#wikiwars Zimmerman. The old idea that Google and WP are making us stupid. I'm not convinced at all. - \#wikiwars Zimmerman: Have we lost sense of personal identity? -- Wikipedia is collaborative, but tweets, blogs, homepages, etc? - \#wikiwars Zimmerman. Isn't this what Citizendium tried? They're not exactly racing alone... - \#wikiwars Niesyto: Wikipedia as Translingual Space - \#wikiwars Niesyto: List of 1000 articles that every WP should have. Too American/Western. "Edit each other's biases out of the list". - \#wikiwars Niesyto: Translingual dimension is somewhat "hidden"... Most people don't think about it. - \#wikiwars Niesyto: Actually did interviews w/ multilingual users, very interesting. Like to visit other WPs, even if they don't understand. - \#wikiwars Niesyto: Translation is betrayal... Have locally appropriate knowledge in each wiki? - \#wikiwars Just finished my presentation. Wow that was fast. IPod pinged at 15 mins just as I was on the last slide. Waiting for pushback :) - RT @ilya: Stian 的演講給了在場的人們一劑強心針，尤其是開場的中文。不只我與其他的中文與會者，許多認同語言行動態度的與會者都拍手鼓掌。 \#WikiWars - \#wikiwars My presentation Equitable governance of multilingual WP posted: http://bit.ly/64vecM (expand). Audio and video(?) will be added later. - RT @hfordsa: Scott Kildall and Nathaniel Stern:'Wikipedia Art lives on because of its death' http://wikipediaart.org/ \#wikiwars - Fascinating to what extent elephants became a topic/metaphore of the day at \#wikiwars. U subscribe 2 1-elephant or multipl-elephant theory? - \#wikiwars At the next conf, we should make all presentations with puppets. - \#wikiwars Artists talking about embodiment. Usually turns me off - but they make it meaningful. - \#wikiwars Focus on details - because it's beautiful. Interacting with real materials, and with other people. And in a structure. - \#wikiwars But general shape not pleasant. Like WP, we always see it "zoomed in", not from a distance? - \#wikiwars Wonder when I'll see most of the ppl in this room again? At Wikimania in Poland? - \#wikiwars We interacted with artwork in framework of wiki, but also used in other kinds of confs, which framed it differently. - Thanks to @cis\_india, the speakers, participants and just about everyone at \#wikiwars Hope to see you again :) (via @Srikeit) - Annotated video of \#WikiWars will soon be on PADMA http://pad.ma Official summaries, PPTs also on CIS site www.cis-india.org (via @MadanRao) Stian