Wikis and Socially-Constructed Text CS 445/656 Computer & New Media

Social Media Social media is not new –Opinion pages –Telephone –Others? What is new –Fewer intermediaries –Individual ability to broadcast –Massive quantity

Web 1.0, 2.0,…… Web 1.0 –It is the “readable” phrase of the World Wide Web with flat data. –simply an information portal where users passively receive information without being given the opportunity to post reviews, comments, and feedback. Web 2.0 Web 3.0

Web 1.0, 2.0,…… Web 2.0 –It is the “writable” phrase of the WWW with interactive data –facilitates interaction between web users and sites, so it allows users to interact more freely with each other. Web 3.0 –It is the “executable” phrase of WWW with dynamic applications, interactive services, and “machine-to-machine” interaction –computers can interpret information like humans and intelligently generate and distribute useful content tailored to the needs of users

Core issues Socially-constructed text are usually open to anyone, –“if anyone can edit my text, anyone can ruin my text” Authority is unclear – who “owns” a collaborative document? – How can systems enable (social) control over authoring? Openness is at odds with typical work habits

Textual Social Media A wide variety supporting different categories of communication Web 2.0 social media enable new roles based on scale and controls Mining and visualization support access and create new (meta-)media forms

CSCW framework Honeycomb of Social Media CSCW framework related to place, time and directedness of communication –Many social media fall in between directed and not Wikis Visualization of authoring in socially- constructed text

Honeycomb of Social Media Kietzmann, Jan H., et al. "Social media? Get serious! Understanding the functional building blocks of social media." Business horizons 54.3 (2011):

Honeycomb of Social Media

Extended CSCW Framework Different Time Same Time Different Place Phone, Instant Messaging, Videoconferencing Same Place Notes on the Fridge Conversation (Augmented with technology) Directed Communication (select/know your audience) Broadcast Communication (do not select/know your audience) Different Time Same Time Different Place Discussion Forums, Blogs, Podcasts, Wikis Traditional and new broadcast forms Same Place Bulletin Boards Public speaking, meeting room support

Intermediate Directedness Directedness is a really a continuum Many social media fall in between –Facebook friends –Twitter followers –Google+ circles Partial knowledge of audience –Meetings and public speaking forms also have some of these characteristics

In the beginning: Wiki In 1995, Ward Cunningham invented a type of website software –That allowed anyone to modify the site’s content So this “WikiWikiWeb” could grow naturally and efficiently Ward gave this software a catchy name …That actually does have something to do with Hawaiian buses

How the Wiki Got Its Name

Wiki – Wikipedia Definition A wiki (according to Ward Cunningham) –is a type of website that allows users to add and edit content and is especially suited for constructive collaborative authoring. In essence, a wiki is a simplification of the process of creating HTML pages combined with a system that records each individual change that occurs over time, so that at any time, a page can be reverted to any of its previous states.

Wikis Wikis are collaboratively authored resources Are often used for (fairly) objective content –User manuals –Wikipedia –Fan / player sites Include facilities for collaboration –Talk pages –History pages

Today: Dozens of wiki engines & wiki companies on the market, including: “Enterprise wikis” – software for company intranets –Socialtext, confluence Free wiki hosting services – –Jotspot, Wikia, Wetpaint Or, download & install your own: –Mediawiki, PhpWiki, Kwiki etc. And dozens of communities.... –Including Wikipedia – famous and enormous

Communicating in Wikipedia The talk pages Page history The Village pump (non-article discussions) The bulletin board Comment pages Mailing lists IRC (internet relay chat) channels

Community self-regulation Quality control features: –recent changes, watch lists, related changes, page histories, user contributions lists Community features: –talk pages, user profiles, access levels, user- to-user , message notification, RFC, mediation, arbitration. 3RR rule (no more than 3 reverts on a single page)

Comparing versions

Revision History

Rolling back versions

Community Organization Example: Articles For Deletion

Community Organization Example: Featured Article Candidates

The future? Referencing particular revisions Greater participation from academics Reader validation of articles Development of a stable version –Wikipedia 1.0

Limited studies thus far IBM History Flow study –Major vandalism repaired in less than 5 minutes – Wikipedia vs Brockhaus and Encarta –German computer engineering magazine –Comparison of German encyclopedias (Oct04) –German Wikipedia won except in multimedia –

History Flow study Wattenberg and Dave [7] –Analyze and display the complex structure of the evolution of Wikipedia articles by visualizing the textual contribution of different authors at different times. –Patterns of vandalism Mass deletion Offensive copy (insertion of vulgarities) Phony copy (insertion of unrelated material) Idiosyncratic copy (biased, one-sided material)

Wikipedia article on chocolate –Zigzag pattern = argument over certain type of surrealist sculpture exists or not. History Flow Visualization of Wiki Edits

Article on abortion –Black gashes show points where article has been deleted and replaced with offensive comments –These vandalisms common on controversial articles History Flow Visualization of Wiki Edits

Article on “history” –Black slice shows when a user replaced entire article with word “ha” History Flow Visualization of Wiki Edits

Visualizing a Collection of Texts 33,000 words grouped by meaning –Each word given average color of web images found when searching for that term.

Other technologies: web forums Modern form of newsgroups Users can change their own content after it has been posted Archival of communication threads is intrinsic Forums are more communication centric (unlike Wikis which are document centric) Wikis provide better support for authoring, retrieval and interrelation of documents

Core issues Socially-constructed text are usually open to anyone, “if anyone can edit my text, anyone can ruin my text” –not so, since changes are logged, authors are notified, pages are easily restored Authority is unclear – who “owns” a collaborative document? – Copyleft, Creative Commons, Public Domain Openness is at odds with typical work habits –Norms are constantly enforced through permanent editing process and agency of socially approved members (e.g., the sysops)