[Wikipedia-l] Articles and speeches about Wikipedia?

[Erik Moeller]

jakob.voss-
> Hi!

> I am a) writing a student research paper and b) going to have a lecture on a
> german linux-congress about Wikipedia. Has there anybody done this before?
> I know the lecture of Kurt Janson last year on 19C3 in Berlin but is there
> no newer stuff? Well I know what to write and talk but I am just wondering
> why there are so little (=practically no) scientific publications or
> conference papers (=everything but simple newspaper articles) on Wikipedia
> yet. On the other hand I don?t mind if I am the first one ;-)

Wikipedia is less than 3 years old. Many people still don't take us  
seriously, and most academics are relatively clueless with regard to the  
Internet, i.e. they know how to find stuff, but they aren't usually  
familiar with the communities. Give it time -- sooner or later, most of  
them will discover Wikipedia by pure chance.

Jimbo and I are going to talk about the project at the Wizards of OS  
conference next year, and I think I'm the only one in Germany to have done  
any in depth reporting on the project. It's not in a peer reviewed  
journal, but probably more thorough than anything you are going to find in  
the journals for some time to come:

http://www.heise.de/newsticker/data/fr-30.05.03-000/

When I talk about Wikipedia at conferences, once thing I like to do is to  
just show people some articles, even using the "random page" function to  
give people an impression how the quality is and what kind of material we  
have. When people think "encyclopedia", they usually don't think of a  
reference work that has everything from comprehensive Harry Potter  
summaries to in depth articles about Irisih politics.

At the Merz Akademie in Stuttgart I did a direct comparison with  
Britannica on some key subjects, and Wikipedia clearly came out on top in  
many areas. If you're going to do a comprehensive paper, that's the  
direction I would pursue.

Regards,

Erik