Wikipedia: fenómeno social y enciclopédico

Aunque tengamos a David Laniado en nuestro grupo de investigación, un experto en materia de la Wikipedia y la producción social y conversacional del saber que además está a punto de acabar su tesis doctoral sobre “Social production of knowledge by online communities”, al final hablamos demasiado poco sobre este tema que promueve tanto interés, no solamente por parte de investigadores sino también en la prensa. En su “Editor’s choice” de hoy, The New Yorker ofrece un artículo largo, didáctico y bastante completo sobre la Wikipedia, titulado “Know it all”, publicado por primera vez en el 2006. Una cosa sorprendente, debido a la vida generalmente muy corta de los fenómenos tecnológicos y mediáticos.

Su autora, Stancy Schiff, hace un repaso bastante exhaustivo del fenómeno enciclopédico en general y de la Wikipedia especifícamente, preguntando “Can Wikipedia conquer expertise?”. Unas reflexiones y una pregunta que hasta hoy en día promueve a la investigación.

Los números y hechos de la Wikipedia que menciona son increíbles:

Primer de todo, se trata de un fenómeno social, basándose en la creación de una comunidad.

“Wikipedians are officially anonymous, contributing to unsigned entries under screen names. They are also predominantly male—about eighty per cent, Wales says—and compulsively social, conversing with each other not only on the talk pages attached to each entry but on Wikipedia-dedicated I.R.C. channels and on user pages, which regular contributors often create and which serve as a sort of personalized office cooler.”

Segundo, los Wikipedistas han creado un propio vocabulario, “of which “revert,” meaning “reinstate”—as in “I reverted the edit, but the user has simply rereverted it”—may be the most commonly used word. Other terms include WikiGnome (a user who keeps a low profile, fixing typos, poor grammar, and broken links) and its antithesis, WikiTroll (a user who persistently violates the site’s guidelines or otherwise engages in disruptive behavior). There are Aspergian Wikipedians (seventy-two), bipolar Wikipedians, vegetarian Wikipedians, antivegetarian Wikipedians, existential Wikipedians, pro-Luxembourg Wikipedians, and Wikipedians who don’t like to be categorized.”

Tercero, los números: “There are two hundred thousand registered users on the English-language site, of whom about thirty-three hundred—fewer than two per cent—are responsible for seventy per cent of the work. The site allows you to compare contributors by the number of edits they have made, by the number of articles that have been judged by community vote to be outstanding (these “featured” articles often appear on the site’s home page), and by hourly activity, in graph form.”

Pero Schiff también habla de los problemas, como la precedencia o la cualidad de las entradas:

“Part of the problem is provenance. The bulk of Wikipedia’s content originates not in the stacks but on the Web, which offers up everything from breaking news, spin, and gossip to proof that the moon landings never took place. Glaring errors jostle quiet omissions. Wales, in his public speeches, cites the Google test: “If it isn’t on Google, it doesn’t exist.” This position poses another difficulty: on Wikipedia, the present takes precedent over the past. The (generally good) entry on St. Augustine is shorter than the one on Britney Spears.”

“The entries can read as though they had been written by a seventh grader: clarity and concision are lacking; the facts may be sturdy, but the connective tissue is either anemic or absent; and citation is hit or miss. Wattenberg and Viégas, of I.B.M., note that the vast majority of Wikipedia edits consist of deletions and additions rather than of attempts to reorder paragraphs or to shape an entry as a whole, and they believe that Wikipedia’s twenty-five-line editing window deserves some of the blame. It is difficult to craft an article in its entirety when reading it piecemeal, and, given Wikipedians’ obsession with racking up edits, simple fixes often take priority over more complex edits.”

Según Wales, “Wikipedia is to Britannica as rock and roll is to easy listening. It may not be as smooth, but it scares the parents and is a lot smarter in the end.” Schiff concluye su artículo, diciendo que “He is right to emphasize the fright factor over accuracy. As was the Encyclopédie, Wikipedia is a combination of manifesto and reference work.”

Si os interesa el tema, os recomendamos leer todo el artículo en The New Yorker.