Wikipedia: #Edit2015

Wikipedia Protests SOPA / PIPA

On January 18, 2012, the Wikipedia community is blacking out millions of articles of content in the English version for 24 hours to protest pending US legislation: the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA). The decision to withdraw content was made by the global community of Wikipedia editors and is supported by the Wikimedia Foundation, which is the non-profit organization that operates Wikipedia and numerous related projects.

Wikipedia is urging US constituents to contact their elected representatives and voice their opposition to the two acts now under consideration in the House of Representatives and Senate. Wikipedia states further that:

SOPA and PIPA cripple the free and open internet. They put the onus on website owners to police user-contributed material and call for the blocking of entire sites, even if the links are not to infringing material. Small sites will not have the sufficient resources to mount a legal challenge. Without opposition, large media companies may seek to cut off funding sources for small competing foreign sites, even if big media are wrong. Foreign sites will be blacklisted, which means they won't show up in major search engines.

In a post SOPA/PIPA world, Wikipedia --and many other useful informational sites-- cannot survive in a world where politicians regulate the Internet based on the influence of big money in Washington. It represents a framework for future restrictions and suppression. Congress says it's trying to protect the rights of copyright owners, but the "cure" that SOPA and PIPA represent is much more destructive than the disease they are trying to fix.

To learn more about SOPA/PIPA, click here.

Wikipedia Celebrates Tenth Anniversary

Wikipedia, the open access encyclopedia, is celebrating its tenth anniversary today, January 15, 2011, with hundreds of events scheduled around the world. Wikipedia's growth has been nothing less than phenomenal, with over 17 million articles of content distributed over 278 languages at present. English is the largest Wikipedia language, with over 3.5 million articles.

Wikipedia is hosted by the Wikimedia Foundation, which also sponsors numerous other projects, such as Wiktionary, Wikiquote, Wikibooks, Wikimedia Commons, etc.

For previous Wikipedia-related posts, click here.

Wiki See, Wiki Do

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is not the only governmental entity that is turning to the wiki as a means of communication (see previous Carolina Curator post on NIH & Wikipedia). The U.S. Army is now beginning a three-month pilot program to rewrite seven of its field manuals with a wiki, but anonymous contributions will not be allowed. According to a recent New York Times article, "Care To Write Army Doctrine? With ID, Log On," Army officials hope that "by embracing technology, the Army can break down barriers, save money, streamline processes and build a bright future."

The Army's field manual system comprises over 500 manuals and not all would be subject to "wikification," although some 200 practical manuals are slated as candidates, and will be renamed as "Army Tactics, Techniques and Procedures, or ATTP." Christopher Paparone, of the Army Command and General Staff College's Department of Logistics and Resources Operations, states: "My view (not an official view) is that we have been much too rigid in our doctrine. By using wiki, we begin to challenge dogmatic thinking," and that wikis made rank "immaterial."

NIH and Wikipedia To Collaborate on Health Information

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Wikimedia Foundation have entered into a collaboration to improve the quality of health and scientific information in Wikipedia, the heavily-used online encyclopedia. On July 16, 2009, a Wikipedia Academy was held at the NIH's Bethesda campus to begin a dialogue about how to improve public knowledge about health and science. As Frank Schulenburg, head of public outreach for the Wikimedia Foundation, noted in the press releases of both NIH and the Wikipedia Foundation:

Wikipedia Academies are public outreach events, usually lasting one or two days, aimed at engaging academics and other subject-matter experts who are not familiar with wiki culture or online communities. In presentations and workshops, experienced Wikipedia authors teach the participants how to contribute to Wikipedia and orient the audience to Wikipedia’s structures and community policies.

John Burklow, NIH director for communications and public liaison, also observed:

NIH works to ensure that the information it provides on science and health is of the highest quality and reaches the widest audience. We look forward to this opportunity to collaborate with the Wikimedia Foundation and participate in a resource that is used by millions of people around the world.

Wikipedia is a rapidly growing free resource that presently contains over 13 million articles in over 250 languages. Average page views per hour total more than 14 million. One recent example of the tremendous popularity of Wikipedia for health information is the Wikipedia article on the 2009 flu pandemic. It originated on April 24, 2009 as a brief article of about 200 words, but has subsequently grown to over 20 printed pages of information and data. Flu-related articles garnered about 16,000 hits on April 23 but a week later approached 3 million hits (see the Wikimedia blog for further information).

The use of Wikipedia as an source of online health information was examined in an article entitled "Seeking Health Information Online: Does Wikipedia Matter?" published by the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association. The authors, both Wikipedia contributors, concluded that "Wikipedia ranked among the first ten results in 71–85% of search engines and keywords tested," and that "Wikipedia surpassed MedlinePlus and NHS Direct Online (except for queries from the latter on Google UK), and ranked higher with quality articles."