Listen to Wikipedia

It’s been a little quiet on the Hatnote blog since the launch of RCMap, but today’s post puts an end to that. After a recent NPR/TED broadcast on the nature of collaboration gave a voice to real-time editing, we couldn’t help but try it out, too.

So, without further ado, Listen to Wikipedia. (Tune your speakers/headphones accordingly.)

Wikipedia Mining Algorithm Reveals The Most Influential People In 35 Centuries Of Human History — The Physics arXiv Blog — Medium

 meower wrote: 
Heh. Missing Bunni Boi since we aren't at the other place anymore.

 Proclivities wrote: 

136 Creepy Wiki Articles..

including:  
"The Bunny Man is an urban legend that probably originated from two incidents in Fairfax County, Virginia, in 1970, but has been spread throughout the Washington D.C. area. There are many variations to the legend, but most involve a man wearing a rabbit costume ("bunny suit") who attacks people with an axe..."

 RichardPrins wrote: 
If there were a way to get that done as a part-time, side gig - from home, it could be kind of interesting.  I guess it depends on the volume expectations.  I have a feeling that there are probably a lot of people out there already doing similar things on Wikipedia, but it may just be one part of their job.

 Proclivities wrote: 
It seems to me they're merely looking for a Wikipedia "power user" with an affinity for their stuff, who will be working as an assistant (see snippet), and not as a lead for anything...

Take (existing) catalogue(s) stuff and put it in the wiki in a smart and relevant way...

 ScottFromWyoming wrote: 
Yes, be an "expert" archivist, writer, and editor for an Ivy League school and get paid less than a babysitter does.

That Philip Roth post from a couple of years ago is pretty funny.

 ScottFromWyoming wrote: 
What does an expert burger flipper make nowadays?

 RichardPrins wrote: 
Some people just don't listen to themselves talk.

Get Paid By Harvard to Post on Wikipedia
At $16-an-hour, you could become the next “Wikipedian-in-residence.”

(...) The person who lands the job will ultimately serve as a liaison between Houghton and the Wikimedia community, but they will only be doing so for about 13 weeks.The role would also be as an “assistant,” rather than a lead in organizing posts about the library’s archives. The Wikipedian-in-residence would be working with John Overholt, the library’s curator of early modern books and manuscripts.

Overholt said he hopes to find an expert that can help get the library’s collection out to more people by filling the temporary role. “I want to make it better for them and for everybody. If those collections get more use, and get in front of people that have a research interest in the things that we have here, that’s a win-win,” he said. “You have someone come in who has a real solid background in Wikipedia and its systems, and its culture, who can do this job of taking resources in your collection and make Wikipedia articles better, and the material you hold in your museum becomes more accessible.”

Although it may sound odd, the idea of a Wikipedian-in-residence is not a made up title that the Houghton Library created to try and entice interested applicants. According to WikiMedia’s webpage, the concept was first introduced by the Galleries Libraries Archives Museums group, or GLAM. Since then, institutions such as Chateau de Versailles, the Children’s Museum of Indianapolis, and the Museum of Modern Art have all had similar positions available at some point.

“There have been a number of major library and museum institutions that have been doing these sorts of projects for a few years now,” said Overholt. “It’s such an important information resource.”

Wikipedia's "Sock Puppet" Problem

An Open Letter to Wikipedia
Posted by Philip Roth

Dear Wikipedia,

I am Philip Roth. I had reason recently to read for the first time the Wikipedia entry discussing my novel “The Human Stain.” The entry contains a serious misstatement that I would like to ask to have removed. This item entered Wikipedia not from the world of truthfulness but from the babble of literary gossip—there is no truth in it at all.

Yet when, through an official interlocutor, I recently petitioned Wikipedia to delete this misstatement, along with two others, my interlocutor was told by the “English Wikipedia Administrator”—in a letter dated August 25th and addressed to my interlocutor—that I, Roth, was not a credible source: “I understand your point that the author is the greatest authority on their own work,” writes the Wikipedia Administrator—“but we require secondary sources.”

Thus was created the occasion for this open letter. After failing to get a change made through the usual channels, I don’t know how else to proceed.

My novel “The Human Stain” was described in the entry as “allegedly inspired by the life of the writer Anatole Broyard.” (The precise language has since been altered by Wikipedia’s collaborative editing, but this falsity still stands.)

This alleged allegation is in no way substantiated by fact. “The Human Stain” was inspired, rather, by an unhappy event in the life of my late friend Melvin Tumin, professor of sociology at Princeton for some thirty years. One day in the fall of 1985, while Mel, who was meticulous in all things large and small, was meticulously taking the roll in a sociology class, he noted that two of his students had as yet not attended a single class session or attempted to meet with him to explain their failure to appear, though it was by then the middle of the semester. (...)

 RichardPrins wrote: 
Cool. There are several sites I have easy access to, including our local post office, that don't have photos...

 RichardPrins wrote: 
That seems like a good idea.  But when I first read the title, I thought it meant a contest to produce the "world's largest" photo.

Wikipedia launches “world’s largest photo contest”

Wikipedia is launching another massive photo contest to boost the number of free photos visible in WikiMedia Commonsand available for illustrating Wikipedia stories.

The contest is Wiki Loves Monuments 2012, and is focused on photos of historic sites around the world. Last year’s contest saw 168,000 pictures uploaded by more than 5000 photographers from 18 European nations. This year volunteers in more than 30 countries, including the U.S., will join in as organizers attempt to surpass that total.

The Wikipedia Commons is already one of the world’s largest repositories of freely usable image, with  13.6 million media files. But there are substantial gaps in the database, according to Lodewijk Gelauff, one of the organizers of the first Wiki Loves Photos contest in 2010. No freely usable pictures exist of many world heritage sites, culturally significant monuments, and notable buildings around the world.

“Wiki Loves Monuments is an important way for volunteers around the world to showcase the cultural heritage in their countries and share these images with everyone through Wikipedia,” Gelauff said in a Wikimedia Foundation blog post.

All submitted photos will be added to the Commons, which means that anyone can use them for any purpose, as long as the photographer is credited. Ten finalists and one grand prize winner will be announced in December, and the winner will receive a trip to Hong Kong to shoot a photo tour in conjunction with Wikimania 2013.

“By uploading your photos you are sharing our national heritage with everybody in America and in the rest of the world. The photos will be free to use, and free of cost, forever,” said the national coordinator for the U.S. contest, Peter Ekman.

A Wikimedia app is available on Google Play that contestants can use to both locate monuments of interest and enter photographs into the contest, directly from their Android smartphones.

Participating countries include India, Russia, South Africa Argentina, the Phillipines, and Brazil, plus all of North America and almost all of Europe.

Americans can contribute here, and international contributors can submit photos at wikilovesmonuments.org.