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

[Kate Chapman]

Hi All,

Drew, Wikipedia does have local chapters and meet-ups they vary in scope.
HOT shares in office with Wikimedia Indonesia and the Web Foundation in
Jakarta. The vibe is very different from the cultural described at the
international wikipedia level. Clearly people in Indonesia are aware of it,
but I am curious with the smaller communities around languages such as
Indonesian if as they grow they will develop similar problems to the larger
communities of languages such as English.

Martin, yes HOT certainly is attracting different people with different
motivators. The message is very different from traditional OSM especially
in projects such as Missing Maps where we are encouraging people to map to
help others. Versus a lot of traditional inroads to OSM are mapping to help
yourself. The countries where we physically go and teach OSM workshops and
provide technical assistance are very different as well. I do worry about
the clash of the new OSM versus the old. Here is a recent example of it on
twitter(1), there was also an instance where I talked to an Indonesian
student who asked why the OSM community on IRC hates Indonesians. At that
time an instructor was giving students OSM related tasks to do such as
setting up map rendering without much instruction and people were not very
tolerant of those no familiar with OSM.

-Kate


(1) https://twitter.com/wonderchook/status/543044091362041857

On Sat, Dec 13, 2014 at 12:57 AM, Martin Dittus <martin at dekstop.de> wrote:
>
> In these respects I’m personally very curious about the long-term effects
> HOT will have on OSM. In several ways it’s a more accessible presentation
> of OSM: always friendly, with an explicit focus on supporting newcomers,
> steadily improving documentation, an explicit focus on the social
> experience, and offering safe spaces to make early mistakes and learn from
> each other.
>
> And maybe more importantly HOT speaks to very different motivations, not
> to the historically dominant mapping/ideology/tech motivations of OSM
> proper. Demographically HOT mapping parties look very different from the
> usual OSM crowd. (At least here in London.)
>
> m.
>
>
> > On 12 Dec 2014, at 16:34, Drew Dara-Abrams <dda at dara-abrams.com> wrote:
> >
> > 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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