CITASA, Hello! As part of a class I'm helping to teach this semester, I'm looking at what specific knowledge is part of 'expertise' on Wikipedia. For pedagogical purposes, I'm creating a kind of 'Wikipedia Quiz' that contains simple true/false or multiple choice questions about things that more experienced users on Wikipedia might know. For example, one question I've thought of is: How far back in the edit history of a Wikipedia article is it possible to browse? a. The last six months b. The last year c. Since the last major revision d. Since the creation of the article e. I don’t know Anyway, I thought there are many knowledgeable CITASA folks out there who might share their thoughts, brainstorm a bit on other nuggets, nuts-and-bolts type pieces of information that one might learn through experience with Wikipedia. Thanks in advance for any and all ideas! --Judd -- Judd Antin School of Information University of California Berkeley jantin@ischool.berkeley.edu web: http://technotaste.com blog: http://technotaste.com/blog

Judd, Much of the stuff like that is in Phoebe Ayers, et al's _How Wikipedia Works_. NoStarch Press. (COI: I have a blurb on the back cover). What that book doesn't cover as much is what I think is more important for social scientists to cover: The interpersonals -- dealing with trolls (Do Not Feed), Vandals, Political folks (who show up in music articles as well as Palin or Obama -- there are wars about rock folks), Edit Wars (and the 3 Revert Rules). Barry Wellman _______________________________________________________________________ S.D. Clark Professor of Sociology, FRSC NetLab Director Department of Sociology University of Toronto 725 Spadina Avenue, Room 388 Toronto Canada M5S 2J4 http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~wellman fax:+1-416-978-3963 Updating history: http://chass.utoronto.ca/oldnew/cybertimes.php _______________________________________________________________________ On Mon, 17 Nov 2008, Judd Antin wrote: > Date: Mon, 17 Nov 2008 18:23:39 -0800 > From: Judd Antin <jantin@ischool.berkeley.edu> > To: citasa@list.citasa.org > Subject: [CITASA] Wikipedia Expertise > > CITASA, > > Hello! As part of a class I'm helping to teach this semester, I'm > looking at what specific knowledge is part of 'expertise' on Wikipedia. > For pedagogical purposes, I'm creating a kind of 'Wikipedia Quiz' that > contains simple true/false or multiple choice questions about things > that more experienced users on Wikipedia might know. > > For example, one question I've thought of is: > > How far back in the edit history of a Wikipedia article is it possible > to browse? > a. The last six months > b. The last year > c. Since the last major revision > d. Since the creation of the article > e. I don’t know > > Anyway, I thought there are many knowledgeable CITASA folks out there > who might share their thoughts, brainstorm a bit on other nuggets, > nuts-and-bolts type pieces of information that one might learn through > experience with Wikipedia. > > Thanks in advance for any and all ideas! > > --Judd > > -- > Judd Antin > School of Information > University of California Berkeley > jantin@ischool.berkeley.edu > web: http://technotaste.com > blog: http://technotaste.com/blog > > _______________________________________________ > CITASA mailing list > CITASA@list.citasa.org > http://list.citasa.org/mailman/listinfo/citasa_list.citasa.org >

What are you trying to achieve with the quiz? And what level of experience are you interested in? A few thoughts on expertise in wikipedia: I did a few interviews with wikipedia users in 2006/2007 and one of the most interesting things that I came across was the concept of "wikilawyering". The current wikipedia article on Wikilawyering describes this as a pejorative term, but the guy who mentioned the term to me used it more positively. His point seemed to be that at some level Wikipedia becomes a rather political affair, especially when you are dealing with controversial issues. In order to get your point of view represented you need support of Admins. This means you need people among Admin's who share your perspective. (In this particular case it meant having Russian admins to be able to successfully represent the Russian point of view in articles touching on Russia and its neighbors.) This also means stopping wrong people from becoming admins. This in turn requires getting into complicated politics during Admin selection and arguing about the methods for identifying sock puppets. And this all requires good understanding of wikipedia procedures, to avoid getting pushed around on procedural basis. In other words, "wikilaywering." Working on a much much lower level, what I personally have found most important as a contributor is a knack for identifying which changes are likely to stick. This requires paying attention to whether someone "owns" the page. Editing a page that is "owned" is a waste of time, because the "owner" will revert your edits unless you put lots of effort into defending them. Other pages, on the other hand, are pretty much on their own. You can vandalize them even and nobody would notice. (But those tend to be boring.) At yet another level, I think there a certain set of skills that is required for _reading_ wikipedia. I read wikipedia quite often, and I've been finding that over time it takes me less effort to judge quality of the information on the paragraph by paragraph basis. I think part of it is that I can often guess the history of the paragraph (the discussion and revisions that went into it) from the combination of phrasing and the subject matter. Perhaps this could be somehow converted into a quiz. :) - yuri On Mon, Nov 17, 2008 at 6:23 PM, Judd Antin <jantin@ischool.berkeley.edu> wrote: > CITASA, > > Hello! As part of a class I'm helping to teach this semester, I'm looking at > what specific knowledge is part of 'expertise' on Wikipedia. For pedagogical > purposes, I'm creating a kind of 'Wikipedia Quiz' that contains simple > true/false or multiple choice questions about things that more experienced > users on Wikipedia might know. > > For example, one question I've thought of is: > > How far back in the edit history of a Wikipedia article is it possible to > browse? > a. The last six months > b. The last year > c. Since the last major revision > d. Since the creation of the article > e. I don't know > > Anyway, I thought there are many knowledgeable CITASA folks out there who > might share their thoughts, brainstorm a bit on other nuggets, > nuts-and-bolts type pieces of information that one might learn through > experience with Wikipedia. > > Thanks in advance for any and all ideas! > > --Judd > > -- > Judd Antin > School of Information > University of California Berkeley > jantin@ischool.berkeley.edu > web: http://technotaste.com > blog: http://technotaste.com/blog > > _______________________________________________ > CITASA mailing list > CITASA@list.citasa.org > http://list.citasa.org/mailman/listinfo/citasa_list.citasa.org > -- http://sputnik.freewisdom.org/

Judd Antin wrote: > Hello! As part of a class I'm helping to teach this semester, I'm > looking at what specific knowledge is part of 'expertise' on Wikipedia. > For pedagogical purposes, I'm creating a kind of 'Wikipedia Quiz' that > contains simple true/false or multiple choice questions about things > that more experienced users on Wikipedia might know. > Anyway, I thought there are many knowledgeable CITASA folks out there > who might share their thoughts, brainstorm a bit on other nuggets, > nuts-and-bolts type pieces of information that one might learn through > experience with Wikipedia. You may be interested in a course on Wikipedia that's being developed on Wikiversity: http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Wikipedia It includes quizzes: http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Wikipedia/Quizzes I'd like to invite all people interesting in teaching such a course to take part in its development on Wikiversity - I've just recently learned about it and I think it's a great idea! -- Piotr Konieczny "The problem about Wikipedia is, that it just works in reality, not in theory."