Comments on: Wikipedian in Residence & Notability

By: CCCB LAB » Arxiu del Bloc » Es porta el GLAM: Sobre com Wikipedia i les institucions culturals poden entendre’s i col·laborar

Mon, 26 Jul 2010 13:13:14 +0000

[...] cada comunitat”. Així ho va explicar Liam Wyatt, vicepresdient de Wikimedia Austràlia i primer Wikipedian-in-Residence en un museu – el prestigiós British Museum – en una trobada aquest mes de juliol al Museu [...]

By: Museu Picasso Barcelona » Blog Archive » Museos - Wikimedia: resumen del encuentro en Museums and the Web

Thu, 15 Apr 2010 15:12:06 +0000

[...] British Museum, en junio de 2010, será el primer museo del mundo en acoger a un residente de Wikimedia, que trabajará con los técnicos del museo para crear o expandir artículos sobre piezas del [...]

By: Un wikipédien en résidence au British Museum | Autour de Wikipédia et des projets Wikimedia

Mon, 15 Mar 2010 10:31:22 +0000

[...] étant que comme le travail de sensibilisation prend tant de temps, le mieux serait qu’un Wikipédien soit intégré aux équipes d’un musée pour détecter les possibilités de collaboration bénéfiques aussi bien au musée, gain de [...]

By: The British Museum and Me | Witty’s Blog

The British Museum and Me | Witty’s Blog — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 17:34:47 +0000

[...] is built on the idea by the same name that I’ve previously blogged about and I think this is extremely significant as it represents a new way for cultural organisations to [...]

By: Liam Wyatt

Liam Wyatt — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 13:41:22 +0000

Thanks Jim!
I’ve copied your comment across to the Museum and the Web forum here: http://conference.archimuse.com/forum/notability_criteria#comment-2575

By: Jim Croft

Jim Croft — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 07:03:11 +0000

[I am posting here because I do not want to resister at http://conference.archimuse.com/forum/notability_criteria - you can move it, or delete it, if you want.]
The notability/deletion nexus is to me the most vexing aspect of Wikipedia, associated with the perception of a propensity of self-appointed arbiters not necessarily expert in the field to delete others’ work on the basis of lack of notability. The anonymity and lack of accountability coupled with omnipresent threat of deletion keeps a lot of museum professionals from getting too deeply involved in creating and managing Wikipedia content [I know, I know - citation needed].
The distinction you draw between notability and significance is a good one. The problem with notability, and to a lesser extent significance, is the question of ‘to whom’; does the opinion of a few undo that of many; and who decides?
In the biological domain, every species, no matter how rare or insignificant to the general population is both notable and significant and should have its own Wikipedia (and Wikispecies). However, Wikipedia probably does not want to cast its net over every specimen in a museum, no matter how notable and significant these may to the museum or the science (these specimens could be the analogue of your individual coins).
Another example would be authors. Any person who publishes on a species, even if it only a ‘one-page-wipe’, becomes ‘notable by that very act. But you probably do not want every technician who has ever worked in a museum.
This is where GLAM-Wikicam comes into its own: museums are going to maintain this level of highly atomized granularity for their own operational purposes so there is no reason for Wikipedia to do it as well. They will also be doing it with species level information, often harnessing and coordinating efforts of entire scientific communities. This authoritative ‘point of truth’ information can be harvested (in real-time or cached, in whole or in part) for Wikipedia without the need for human intervention or ‘value-adding’. Projects like the Encyclopedia of Life (http://www.eol.org/) are already doing this with Wikipedia content - there is no reason why the reverse should not be possible.
The key is information integrity, and the chain of acknowledgement and attribution. If we can deal with this, contributions from those currently reticent will flow.
In terms of criteria, it is difficult to list these without a degree of circularity. A couple of things relating to scientific collections and information (and cultural material may be similar?) might include:
Significance: object/concept and its its metadata required for research; object/concept required for collections management, accountability; object/concept required by internal or external information systems;
Notability: object/concept of public interest or educational value; object/concept required by other parts of Wikipedia (internal references); object/concept referenced by external applications (the Google test)
I have a fairly liberal attitude to notability i if one person is interested enough to look it up and write it and another is interested enough to look it up and read it, then it it notable, even it it is lowbrow ‘trivia’. We are not dealing with a book and there are no real theoretical or financial limits to the number of pages. That is not to say they may not be some ideological ones.

By: Steven Waling

Steven Waling — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 19:18:29 +0000

I have not been involved much in GLAM work unfortunately, but I would say that the idea of a “Wikipedian in residence” is great one, and not only for museums.

It’s probably an even more necessary goal for libraries, and more in line with their thinking (we both know some smart, dedicated librarian-wikipedians already!)

Basically, I think the idea of member advocates acting as liasons between organizations could be extended almost infinitely. We darn sure know we could use them for BLPs; in the past, I’ve have acted as point person to answer questions for a celebrity and their PR person.

We could also use them for big companies. Can you imagine how much less COI editing and promotional-sounding articles there would be if Monsanto or Google had a Wikipedian they could get on the phone to explain things to them? Of course, outside of GLAMs there is a lot less natural cohesion of mission, so the transparency and “no editing on their behalf” rule would be much more strict, I think.

By: Amgine

Amgine — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 19:28:00 +0000

“all revisions of every article”? well, no, not quite all, but near enough to make a gross generalization.

I think you missed the low-hanging fruit: Museums keep assiduous records regarding their collections. Much of this data is already digitized. They spend a reasonably large percentage of their budgets creating, maintaining, and attempting to entice researchers into examining the contents of their collections. A Wikipedian-in-residence could assist them in creating articles about their collections, thus helping Wikipedia expand its knowledgebase (what exists in the museum’s collection) and helping the museum advertise its contents (what they are preserving.)

In many respects museums are libraries of unknown knowledge.

And can I put in a plug for someone to go over to Mystic Seaport and vacuum their naval design collections into Wikisource? Please? Pretty please?

By: AndreasPraefcke

AndreasPraefcke — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 18:23:31 +0000

A very good idea. Maybe “Social Media & PR” training or some “public domain awareness” course for museum management and staff would help beforehand. My experiences as a Wikipedian “in residence” in German and US museums (meaning: spending an afternoon there photographing objects and descriptions) contain all kinds of obstacles, prohibitions, ignorance and mistrust.