On 11 September 2010 04:56, Risker risker.wp@gmail.com wrote:
http://newsfeed.time.com/2010/09/07/wikipedia-entry-on-iraq-war-turned-into-...
Technology writer James Bridle (website: http://shorttermmemoryloss.com/) took the [[Iraq war]] entry....and turned it into a 12-volume historiography, publishing every edit over five years. It's an interesting exercise that isn't just a snapshot of how our project works, but of how information becomes part of the cultural lexicon. Which battles to include? How is that word spelled? How does one properly describe the impact of various religious sects on the outcome? And can the entire war really be reduced to "Saddam Hussein was a dickhead"?
Bridle raises many good points in his discussion, differentiating history from historiography. Our "History" button is not just a means of attributing contributions to meet license requirements: it is a window into the manner in which our society collates, discusses, and accretes information about historical events, shaping the way in which current and future generations will view the world in our time.
This article is well worth the read.
Risker/Anne
It's an impressive example of churnalism.
Original source is:
http://booktwo.org/notebook/wikipedia-historiography/
Talk can be found at: http://huffduffer.com/dConstruct/25256 http://www.slideshare.net/stml/james-bridle-dconstruct-2010