[diversity-talk] Article about Wikipedia's dysfunctional culture

[Drew Dara-Abrams]

Thanks for the pointer, Alan. That's an interesting--and
disappointing--read.

In theory, OSM has an advantage of collecting data of a more grounded
reality than Wikipedia. It's not necessarily objective. Contributors'
decisions about what features to contribute, how to tag, what authoritative
bulk imports to consider (and which to argue/fight against), and of course
the personal relationships behind all of those--those are just some of many
subjective factors. Still, OSM contributors are mapping, editing, and
discussing an external world in its present state, and those who care most
about their local surroundings do have the potential to get together in
person (unlike Wikipedia, where I imagine those who care about cultural
Marxist are more distributed than those who care about, say, New York
building imports).

I'm not sure if Wikipedia has local chapters/meet-ups/etc., but I do think
that the better parts of the OSM community shine through at mapping
parties, meet-ups, Maptime's, local chapters, and "regional" conferences
like SOTM-US.

Drew



On Fri, Dec 12, 2014 at 11:04 AM, Darrell Fuhriman <darrell at garnix.org>
wrote:
>
> It was a good article, and while OSM certainly isn’t as bad as Wikipedia,
> I think it has more to do with scale than any inherently better structure.
> The organizational problems sound extremely familiar.
>
> Tell me how this doesn’t also describe OSM?
>
> “The encyclopedia that anyone can edit” is at risk of becoming, in
> computer scientist Aaron Halfaker’s words, “the encyclopedia that
> anyone who understands the norms, socializes him or herself, dodges the
> impersonal wall of semiautomated rejection and still wants to
> voluntarily contribute his or her time and energy can edit.” An entrenched,
> stubborn elite of old-timers, a high bar to entry, and a persistent 90/10
> gender gap among editors all point to the possibility that Wikipedia is
> going adrift.”
>
>
> If anything, Wikipedia should serve as a cautionary tale.
>
> Though I would add, that one huge difference is that Wikipedia has a
> foundation that actually sees this as a problem, and is working to do
> something about it. I’m not sure I see the same will in OSM — in fact, we
> have a foundation that has traditionally tried to do as little as possible.
>
> d.
>
>
> On Dec 11, 2014, at 21:04, Alan McConchie <alan.mcconchie at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> There are certainly some parallels with OpenStreetMap in this article, but
> overall it really puts things in perspective: OSM's culture could be a lot
> worse. A fascinating read.
>
>
> http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/bitwise/2014/12/wikipedia_editing_disputes_the_crowdsourced_encyclopedia_has_become_a_rancorous.html
>
>
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