Mindsigh

Deconstructing wikis – The Heavy Metal Umlaut

Posted by Jerry on April 19th, 2008 — Posted in New media, Technology, Theory

The wikipedia phenomenon has been with us for a while – but aside from the occasional press article, scholarly treatments of wikis are few and far between.

Here is one exception – a serious look at the evolution and development of a wikipedia entry on heavy metal music – and the introduction and use of the umlaut in the names of heavy metal bands. John Udell’s video examines several aspects of the wiki through this example. One of the more interesting aspects is the ‘wisdom of crowds’ – the self-correction of wiki entries. At one point the wiki entry was vandalised, and within a minute it was restored by someone else. This phenomenon has been observed elsewhere. I recall reading that the ABC TV Australia did a short documentary on wikipedia and deliberately put in wrong information on some prominent entries, and the longest it took before the entry was corrected was four hours. That’s pretty impressive for a global free gafitti wall!

Thanks to Beth Kanter for bringing this to my attention.

Cheers
Jerry

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