Wikipedia Review

Wikipedia Review

The Wikipedia Review logo, which uses a white hat
URL www.wikipediareview.com
Commercial? No
Type of site Internet forum
Registration Optional (required to post)
Available language(s) English, German
Owner Anonymous
Launched Original site: November 2005.[1]
Current site: February 19, 2006.[2]
Revenue Accepts donations
Current status Active

The Wikipedia Review is an Internet forum for the discussion of Wikimedia projects, in particular the content and conflicts of the English Wikipedia.[3][4] In the InformationWeek Grok on Google blog, Alice LaPlante described Wikipedia Review as a "watchdog" website, "dedicated to scrutinizing Wikipedia and reporting on its flaws".[5] It provides an independent forum to discuss Wikipedia editors and their influence on Wikipedia content. Participants range from current Wikipedia editors to people who have never edited, and a few users banned from Wikipedia.[6]

Contents

Background

The site was founded in November 2005 by "Igor Alexander", and hosted by ProBoards.[1][7] Since February 2006, the forum has been located at its own domain name and uses Invision Power Board software.[2] The site requires registration using a valid e-mail address to post. It blacklists email providers which allow anonymity, which it says is to discourage the operation of multiple accounts by a single user.[8]

Wikipedia Review has been cited for its discussion and evaluation of concepts surrounding wiki-editing, such as the Palo Alto Research Company's WikiDashboard,[9][10] as well as used as an evaluation subject for the tool.[11]

Commentary

Wikipedia Review is not a conspiracy, a team-building exercise, a role-playing game, or an experiment in collusion. It is not meant as a resource or training ground for those who would instill fear and misery in others. It does not exist to corrupt, but to expose corruption; it does not exist to tear down institutions, but to expose the ways in which institutions are torn down; it does not exist to hate, but is meant to expose hate in others.
—Statement made when the site was out of service, Wikipedia Review[12]

Seth Finkelstein wrote in The Guardian that Wikipedia Review has provided a focal point for investigation into Wikipedia-related matters such as the "Essjay controversy".[13] Cade Metz, writing for The Register, credited Wikipedia Review with the discovery of a private mailing list that led to the resignation of a Wikipedia administrator; he also suggested that mentioning Wikipedia Review was banned on Wikipedia.[14] The Independent noted that "allegations against certain administrators came to a head on a site called Wikipedia Review, where people debate the administrators' actions."[15] Irish technology website Silicon Republic suggested visiting Wikipedia Review in order to "follow disputes, discussions, editors and general bureaucracy on Wikipedia".[16] Philip Coppens used posts made on Wikipedia Review to help construct a report, published in Nexus Magazine, on WikiScanner and allegations that intelligence agencies had been using Wikipedia to spread disinformation.[17]

Content and structure

Wikipedia Review's publicly-accessible forums are broken up into four general topic areas:

  1. Forum information;
  2. Wikimedia-oriented discussion, which contains subforums focusing on editors, the Wikipedia bureaucracy, meta discussion, articles and general Wikimedia-focused topics not fitting elsewhere;
  3. Media forums containing a news feed and discussion about news and blogs featuring Wikipedia/Wikimedia; and
  4. Off topic, non-Wikimedia related discussions.[18]

References

  1. ^ a b "Original Wikipedia Review on Proboards". Wikipedia Review. 2005-11-25. Archived from the original on 2006-01-17. http://web.archive.org/web/20060117153536/wikipediareview.proboards78.com/index.cgi?board=general&action=display&thread=1132934970&page=1. 
  2. ^ a b "First post on www.wikipediareview.com". Wikipedia Review. 2006-02-19. Archived from the original on 2006-05-31. http://web.archive.org/web/20060531011359/http://wikipediareview.com/index.php?showtopic=1. 
  3. ^ Mahadevan, Jeremy (2006-03-05). "Not everything on Wikipedia is fact". New Straits Times. http://www.redorbit.com/news/technology/415771/not_everything_on_wikipedia_is_fact/index.html. Retrieved 2008-07-01. 
  4. ^ "L'édition de référence libre et collaborative : le cas de Wikipedia." (in French). Institut national de recherche pédagogique. April 2006. p. 7. http://www.inrp.fr/vst/Dossiers/Wikipedia/Wiki/encyclopedie3.htm. Retrieved 2008-07-01. 
  5. ^ LaPlante, Alice (2006-07-14). "Spawn Of Wikipedia". InformationWeek. http://www.informationweek.com/blog/main/archives/2006/07/spawn_of_wikipe.html. Retrieved 2008-07-01. 
  6. ^ Shankbone, David (June 2008). "Nobody's safe in cyberspace". The Brooklyn Rail. http://www.brooklynrail.org/2008/06/express/nobodys-safe-in-cyber-space. Retrieved 2008-07-01. 
  7. ^ "Second post on www.wikipediareview.com". Wikipedia Review. http://www.wikipediareview.com/index.php?showtopic=2. "Was The Wikipedia Review created by Igor Alexander? Yes." 
  8. ^ "Info for new registrants". Wikipedia Review. 2006-03-24. http://wikipediareview.com/index.php?showtopic=286. Retrieved 2008-07-01. 
  9. ^ "Augmented social cognition: understanding social foraging and social sensemaking" (PDF). Palo Alto Research Center. 2008. pp. 5. http://www-users.cs.umn.edu/~echi/papers/2008-AAAI/2008-AAAI-AugSocialCognition.pdf. Retrieved 2008-07-01. 
  10. ^ general chairs, Mary Czerwinski and Arnie Lund ; program chairs, Desney Tan. --; Bongwon Suh, Ed H. Chi, Aniket Kittur, Bryan A. Pendleton (2008). Lifting the veil: improving accountability and social transparency in Wikipedia with wikidashboard. Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. Association for Computing Machinery. pp. 1037–1040. ISBN 978-1-60558-011-1. http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1357214. Retrieved 2008-07-01. 
  11. ^ "Providing social transparency through visualizations in Wikipedia". ACM-SIGCHI (CHI 2008, Florence, Italy: IBM / Palo Alto Research Company) Social Data Analysis Workshop. 2008-04-06. http://researchweb.watson.ibm.com/visual/social_data_analysis_workshop/papers/ed_chi.pdf. Retrieved 2008-07-04. 
  12. ^ "Wikipedia Review out-of-service page". Wikipedia Review. 2008-06-24. Archived from the original on 2008-06-24. http://www.webcitation.org/5Z0pjEk6t. Retrieved 2008-07-02. 
  13. ^ Finkelstein, Seth (2007-12-06). "Inside, Wikipedia is more like a sweatshop than Santa's workshop". The Guardian. http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2007/dec/06/wikipedia?gusrc=rss&feed=technology. Retrieved 2008-07-01. 
  14. ^ Metz, Cade (2007-12-04). "Secret mailing list rocks Wikipedia". The Register. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/12/04/wikipedia_secret_mailing/page2.html. Retrieved 2008-07-01. 
  15. ^ Marsden, Rhodri (2007-12-06). "Cyberclinic: Who are the editors of Wikipedia?". The Independent. http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/features/cyberclinic-who-are-the-editors-of-wikipedia-764529.html. Retrieved 2008-07-01. 
  16. ^ Boran, Marie (2007-12-04). "Wikipedia under fire for 'editorial elite'". Silicon Republic. http://web.archive.org/web/20090422060827/http://www.siliconrepublic.com/news/news.nv?storyid=single9782. Retrieved 2008-07-01. 
  17. ^ Coppens, Philip (October–November 2007). "The Truths and Lies of WikiWorld". Nexus. pp. 11–15, 77. http://www.nexusmagazine.com/index.php?option=com_docman&task=doc_view&gid=86&Itemid=71. Retrieved 2008-07-02. 
  18. ^ Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; no text was provided for refs named main; see Help:Cite errors/Cite error references no text

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