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CFP: Collaborative Tagging workshop at WWW2006
by Golder, Scott A. 06 Dec '05

06 Dec '05

WWW 2006, Edinburgh, Scotland May 22, 2006 Collaborative Web Tagging Workshop Call for Papers and Participation URL: http://www.rawsugar.com/www2006/cfp.html Contact: [frank AT rawsugar DOT com] Chairs: --------- Frank Smadja, RawSugar. Andrew Tomkins, Yahoo Research. Scott Golder, HP Labs. Program Committee: ----------------------------- Eytan Adar, University of Washington. Michael Cafarella, University of Washington Ed Cutrell, Microsoft Research Susan Dumais, Microsoft Research Jonathan Feinberg, IBM Research, Cambridge Evgeniy Gabrilovich, Technion - Israel Institute of Technology R. Guha, Google Yoelle Maarek, IBM Research, Haifa Israel. Vova Soroka, IBM Research, Haifa Israel Background ------------------ There has recently there been a great surge of interest in collaborative tagging as a means of facilitating knowledge sharing in social computing. Collaborative tagging refers to the process in which a community of users adds meta-information in the form of keywords or tags to Web content such as web pages, links, photographs and audio files on a centralized web server. While collaborative tagging is only starting to be researched in the research community, it seems to address a real need on the Web as demonstrated by the growing popularity of tagging and annotation sites (see del.icio.us, flickr, technorati, RawSugar, Shadows, etc.); the most popular sites already have a combined user base of several millions. The philosophy of what is called Web 2.0, the social Web or also the two-way Web is that users can and should be content creators as well as consumers and it suggests that there is a great deal of untapped potential for tagging to improve how web content is organized, navigated and experienced. Yet it is not yet clear how it will evolve and how it will scale, when, if at all, its usage base will go beyond early adopters. There are many open questions about what tagging can and cannot do, especially for a larger, mainstream web community and we would like to explore that in our workshop. Goal and Topics of Interests ----------------------------------------- The goal of this workshop is to bring researchers and practitioners together in order to explore both the social and technical issues and challenges involved in Web tagging. We plan to address not only the current state of collaborative tagging, and understand its attractiveness to early adopters but also discuss its future. Topics of interest for the workshop include: ------------------------------------------------------------- * Semantics and Vocabulary: How can collaborative tagging be used in the creation of ontologies and the semantic web? What are tagging's benefits and limitations in this domain? How can meaning be faithfully preserved when disparate tag sets are integrated? Is there a place in tagging for controlled vocabulary? Is it necessary to match synonymous tags, and if so, how can this be accomplished technically? Are there other mechanisms that can extend tagging to provide some of the capabilities of hierarchies without the drawbacks? * Measurement: What is the structure of tagspace? What behavioral patterns do users display when tagging, and how can the entire space of objects and tags be understood and visualized? * Standardization efforts: Although very little of this has been done currently, current services are somehow interoperable through the use of RSS or Atom feeds. What could be the benefits of tagging standards and what would they be? * Scalable architecture for tagging: What will happen when millions of users will tag, how about hundreds of millions? What kind of architecture can deal with billions of objects? Can current tagging concepts be applied to such scales? * Multimedia: Are there special considerations for tagging multimedia such as photos, videos and audio? Yahoo photos now already has over two billion photographs. * Search and Navigation: How can tagging improve internet search? How are tags used as a mechanism for navigation and discovery of content? * Discovery paradigms: How to search, browse a tagged universe? What is the use of faceted search, people search, etc.? * Blogging: What is the relationship between tagging and blogging?? How do these two methods of adding personalized organization to web content affect how that content is found, navigated, used and interpreted by others? * Interfaces: Using Boolean operators like AND, OR and NOT on sets of tags rapidly grows complex and confusing, especially for non technical users. How can good interface design simplify and clarify these complex operations? Workshop Presenter Selection Process: --------------------------------------------------------- We will solicit submissions to present work to the workshop, and submissions will be evaluated by the organizing committee. Because collaborative tagging on the web is relatively young and has received relatively little scholarly attention, we encourage contributions from a diversity of disciplinary backgrounds, including computer science and engineering, sociology, anthropology and linguistics, and communications and library science. Despite the novelty of collaborative tagging, we seek contributions with demonstrable results, as well as purely theoretical pieces. These results may consist of designs and prototypes for future tagging systems, quantitative or qualitative analyses of existing systems, or solutions for technical challenges facing tagging. Though speculative or theoretical contributions will be considered, we will require that they be well-grounded in previous research or practice. How to submit a paper/proposal for the workshop: ----------------------------------------------------------------------- For research in progress work, each candidate will email to [frank AT rawsugar DOT com] in PDF format: * A short bio (less than one half page) * A position paper or extended abstract (less than 5 pages) including references and figures. For system presentations/demos, each candidate will email to [frank AT rawsugar DOT com] in PDF format: * A short bio (less than one half page) * A description of the system to be demoed (less than 3 pages) * If available, a demo of the system in some format. Submissions will be reviewed by the organizing committee and invitations to present will be sent accordingly. Authors of accepted submissions will be requested to submit a longer version for inclusion in the Working Notes to be distributed during the workshop. Format: ----------- Papers should be emailed to [frank AT rawsugar DOT com] preferably in PDF format and alternatively in HTML or MS Word. Papers should be formatted according to the standard ACM templates available at http://www2006.org/cfp/submissions.php, for example the MS Word template is in http://www2006.org/cfp/www2006-submission.doc; and then converted to pdf. Open Office (http://www.openoffice.org/) can be used to export standard formats to PDF. Important Dates: ----------------------- Individual workshop submissions deadline: 10 January 2006 Acceptance notifications to authors of workshop papers: 1 February 2006 Final workshop program available: 15 February 2006 Workshop date: May 22 (Mon), 2006

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wikipedia and defamation
by Barry Wellman 06 Dec '05

06 Dec '05

the current AOIR debate about wikipedia highlights another problem. It is quite easy to make legally defamatory statements on Wikipedia. Normally, the remedy is a law suit for civil damages. But if the author is anonymous, whom does one sue? And yes, I know that defamation law suits are expensive and hard to do. But at least the legal remedy is there in principle -- when the author is known. But the Wikipedia approach is like someone flooding the mail with anonymous defamatory photocopies. Barry _____________________________________________________________________ Barry Wellman Professor of Sociology NetLab Director wellman at chass.utoronto.ca http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~wellman Centre for Urban & Community Studies University of Toronto 455 Spadina Avenue Toronto Canada M5S 2G8 fax:+1-416-978-7162 To network is to live; to live is to network _____________________________________________________________________

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Re: [Air-l] Wikipedia and defamation
by Alex Halavais 06 Dec '05

06 Dec '05

The kind of "sit-ins" of information on Wikipedia are basic to its strength and its design. You could generalize the "defamation" critique by saying that Wikipedia does not support minority information. Indeed, that has been at the basis of other critiques of the system, most pointedly Larry Sanger's. That is, sometimes elites (and other minorities) are right. Defamation swings both ways. I challenge you to find within traditional reference works balanced articles on Scientology, something that Wikipedia (though not without some knock-down-drag-outs) has managed. On the other hand, it isn't hard to find areas in which the "popular wisdom" is not very wise, and Wikipedia doesn't do as well in these areas. In sum, it relies on a different kind of authority, and should be judged on that. Authority based (as is *most* peer review) on the certification of existing, established educational institutions also has flaws. While I understand the defamation concern, I don't think it is particularly compelling. When a newspaper repeats the lies found on Wikipedia, we have a problem: but that problem rests not in Wikipedia but in newspaper practices and the power of the press. Again, it is clear to any informed visitor to Wikipedia that it may be changed by any anonymous, interested visitor. To consider it to be disinterested, or not consider the process by which it is formed, is dumb. Caveat lector. As to Barry's worry: name a well known slander case. Sure, there are great examples of libel cases, because traditional mass media concentrate control of the message. One of the easiest ways of escaping a libel case (in the US, where libel law is weaker, anyway) is to print a correction. Anyone can print their own correction on Wikipedia. Yes, it may be overwritten, but they have the ability to voice their own defense. Really, this feeds into larger questions of the value of anonymity. Yes, anonymity encourages behavior that is detrimental. But it also provides spaces for truth--especially truth contrary to structures of power--truths that are difficult to otherwise voice. Governments, large corporations, and (cf above) large churches have made use of defamation law to stifle criticism. Anonymity provides an antidote to this, though with certain costs. Finally, there is a way of correcting this material swiftly: by publishing your own information on or off Wikipedia. The solution is "more speech." I believe that over time people will be more critical of Wikipedia, as is appropriate. But I would be much more interested in strengthening defamation law with regard to the mass media, where the message is controlled by an extreme minority, than I would be in extending within public forums. Existing journalists will continue to find anecdotal evidence that shows weaknesses in Wikipedia, and will spend far more time on this than they will on investigating their own lack of accuracy. I don't see calls to restrict Fox News as a secondary source, or the New York Times, despite some pretty obvious recent flaws in both. Alex

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Jimmy Wales responds
by Ken Friedman 06 Dec '05

06 Dec '05

Friends, One of our list members sent part of the thread to Jimmy Wales. He sent a reply, with the request that it be posted to the list. I post it here. Since Jimmy does not belong to the list, please copy to him any replies directed to him. Ken Hello, air-l! I am Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia and I'd like to thank danah for pointing me to this discussion. Ken Friedman wrote: > This letter is a suggestion that you address the problem of bad > information in student papers from an increasingly poor source: > Wikipedia. Wikipedia is not getting better. It is getting worse. While I certainly do think that professors should educate students about Wikipedia, and about how it is created, I must object to the idea that "Wikipedia is not getting better. It is getting worse." That's a very specific empirical claim which is fairly easy to refute: simply take a look at 100 random articles from Wikipedia, and see what those articles looked like a year ago, two years ago, three years ago. The level of increase in quality is dramatic across the board. That isn't to say that Wikipedia is yet "ready for primetime" -- it isn't. But if you're going to say that Wikipedia is _getting worse_ instead of _getting better_, I'm going to ask you to prove it. >> There are now enough serious incidents of false and defamatory >> information in Wikipedia biographies to warrant prohibiting this as a >> reference source in universities and university-level professional >> schools. The same is true of inaccurate or false assertions in many >> articles. I would say it a different way: Wikipedia (and Britannica) ought to have been prohibited as a reference source in universities and university-level professional schools all along. This is what I tell students who write to me whining that they got an "F" on their paper for citing Wikipedia. :-) But what I would say is that there are encouraging signs that within another year or two, Wikipedia may have finally reached a quality level such that it might become satisfactory as a citable source in some cases. >> The problem with Wikipedia is not that the Wiki system MAY develop a >> solid and reliable reference work, but that in the current form, it >> DOES NOT. It is as easy to change an article for the worse as for the >> better. Actually, it is quite difficult to make an article worse. Yes, you can do it for an instant, but the overall process is such that bad changes tend to be reverted to older versions. Since all past versions are kept forever (except for those deleted for legal reasons of course) it is trivial for the community to restore an article to it's former glory in the event that some edit war leaves it in a worse state than before. This is routine, and this is a core part of the Wiki process. > If enough of us prohibit Wikipedia as a reference source in our > courses, programs, and schools, the message will eventually get > through. Of course there's a much easier and faster way to get a message through. You could just email me. :-) We're very very eager to hear from researchers with good ideas for improvement of our processes. Our goal is quite simple: Britannica or better quality. Everything else is more or less secondary. A lot of people assume that our current _process_ is our _end in itself_. That is not true. Our current process is only the _means_ to our _end_. It has always been changing, with very careful tweaks and alterations to preserve what works and eliminate what doesn't work. That process will continue until I get what I want, and believe me, it is not possible to out-elite me on what I consider to be accurate and neutral information. One of our most important community members put it this way the other day: Wikipedia is now like the first early releases of Linux which made it (barely) usable for the first time as the kernel of an operating system. As such, it was for the first time able to attract enough users to build the processes to make it into the world-class kernel that it is today. Realism about the current weaknesses of Wikipedia is critical, including realism about how much better it has already gotten, and how eager the Wikipedia community is to continue that trajectory of improvement. --Jimbo

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Reference sources and research
by Ken Friedman 06 Dec '05

06 Dec '05

Dear Andrew, This is too sharp a rule for me. I have no objection to reference books as sources. One can often find useful bits of information, definitions, pointers, and references that add dimension to articles and papers. This is especially true of specialized reference works. For example, in working through issues in philosophy of design where I try to develop a sense of meaning and consensus on terminology and issues, I often use Mautner's Dictionary of Philosophy, and occasionally the superb philosophy articles from the now on-line edition of The Catholic Encyclopedia from the early 1900s. Reference books serve a valuable role in scholarship and even in original research. Simply repeating the text in a reference book is not research. Using information judiciously to advance an argument is part of research, and reliable reference sources are one place to look. This is precisely why reference books should be reliable. Yours, Ken -- Andrew Lih wrote: Wikipedia should be treated no differently than any encyclopedia in this respect - you can't use it as a source. That's been true for me ever since junior high school. As someone who has been involved with the project for many years, I still tell my students - don't cite it as a source, or you'll be marked down. -- -- Ken Friedman Professor of Leadership and Strategic Design Institute for Communication, Culture, and Language Norwegian School of Management Design Research Center Denmark's Design School email: ken.friedman(a)bi.no

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Re: [Air-l] Wikipedia warning -- Wikipedia is not a reliable information source
by Andrew Lih 06 Dec '05

06 Dec '05

On 12/5/05, Bram Dov Abramson <bda(a)bazu.org> wrote: > On: > >I have informed my students that they may no longer use Wikipedia as > >a reference or source on papers in my courses. I urge you to consider > >a similar statement. While Wikipedia may be a useful first step in > >seeking information, I no longer accept it as a credible source. > >Therefore, I advise students to look further when a project requires > >a reliable source. Wikipedia should be treated no differently than any encyclopedia in this respect - you can't use it as a source. That's been true for me ever since junior high school. As someone who has been involved with the project for many years, I still tell my students - don't cite it as a source, or you'll be marked down. > Recently I've been discovering Wikipedia, and my thoughts had run in a > different direction. Has anyone integrated Wikipedia into their > courses, not as a source, but as a destination? Are there courses out > there where students are being asked to *update* Wikipedia? I've been doing so for the last few years: http://edition.cnn.com/2003/TECH/internet/08/03/wikipedia/ For a complete list see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:School_and_University_projects -Andrew Lih University of Hong Kong

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Wikipedia warning -- Wikipedia is not a reliable information source
by Ken Friedman 06 Dec '05

06 Dec '05

Dear Colleagues, This letter is a suggestion that you address the problem of bad information in student papers from an increasingly poor source: Wikipedia. Wikipedia is not getting better. It is getting worse. One reason for this is the apparent case that the status of Wikipedia as a much-used reference resource makes it the target of opportunity for hoax efforts that would never enter an edited reference text. There are now enough serious incidents of false and defamatory information in Wikipedia biographies to warrant prohibiting this as a reference source in universities and university-level professional schools. The same is true of inaccurate or false assertions in many articles. The problem with Wikipedia is not that the Wiki system MAY develop a solid and reliable reference work, but that in the current form, it DOES NOT. It is as easy to change an article for the worse as for the better. Nearly any university student today has access to a decent library and good on-line reference texts. In addition, anyone willing to search a bit will also fine outstanding SIGNED references sources by major scholars in many fields, as well as useful albeit older versions of respected references source no longer covered by copyright. The current scandal concerning a false and defamatory biography of Robert Kennedy aide and friend John Siegenthaler (see below) and similar recent cases lead me to conclude that Wikipedia has no way to prevent problems like this from happening. This is made worse by the fact that Wikipedia is an automatic flow-through resource for other on-line sources. Wikipedia is unacceptable as a research tool. I have informed my students that they may no longer use Wikipedia as a reference or source on papers in my courses. I urge you to consider a similar statement. While Wikipedia may be a useful first step in seeking information, I no longer accept it as a credible source. Therefore, I advise students to look further when a project requires a reliable source. Use of Wikipedia by students and researchers is an important validation mechanism for Wikipedia. If enough of us prohibit Wikipedia as a reference source in our courses, programs, and schools, the message will eventually get through. When it does, Wikipedia will find an appropriate way to monitor contributions. If they do not, the reputation of Wikipedia will sink to that of another crank web site. Yours, Ken Friedman The Siegenthaler case in the New York Times and USA Today via Yahoo: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/04/weekinreview/04seelye.html http://news.yahoo.com/s/usatoday/20051130/cm_usatoday/afalsewikipediabiogra… -- Ken Friedman Professor of Leadership and Strategic Design Institute for Communication, Culture, and Language Norwegian School of Management Design Research Center Denmark's Design School email: ken.friedman(a)bi.no

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Re: [Air-l] Wikipedia warning -- Wikipedia is not areliableinformation source
by Rowin Young 05 Dec '05

05 Dec '05

> if one of my students handed in an essay with only references to the Encyclopedia Britannica > I would be deeply unimpressed. Apologies, I should have said: "if one of my students handed in an essay with only references to the Encyclopedia Britannica OR WIKIPEDIA I would be deeply unimpressed" rowin

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Re: [Air-l] Wikipedia warning -- Wikipedia is not a reliableinformation source
by Rowin Young 05 Dec '05

05 Dec '05

I assumed that older versions of articles could often be found on the wayback machine (http://www.archive.org/)? I'm prepared to be proved wrong :-) I think the main reason I use it is because I love the name 'wayback machine'... I've found this a really interesting discussion. I taught until about a year ago, in Scottish and English literature and linguistics, and at both 'traditional' universities and via distance learning - had to give up because my 'main' job requires too much travel for me to be able to commit to teaching at regular hours. I was always quite pleased when I saw a student struggling with - for example - a stylistic feature, and providing a definition referenced to wikipedia on which they based their answer: to me it showed that they were at least attempting to provide a basis for their interpretation, and is exactly what we tell them to do in exams: 'If you're not sure what the question's asking, provide your interpretation of it as the starting point for your answer'. Yes, it would have been better if they'd been able to reference the dictionary of literary terms I referred them to, but it's not their fault that the library wouldn't stock it in that fiscal period, or that funding cuts meant that opening hours were cut so that the times when it was open was when the student was working to make up for their lack of funding... but that's a whole different can of worms :-) But I can think of at least two reasons why wikipedia was acceptable in the context of the courses I taught. Firstly, the students were mostly using it for basic facts such as the definition of alliteration or (for students who took an historicist approach to literature) details about the life of an author or the cultural context in which s/he was working. I do think that wikipedia is sound on the fundamental facts of such topics, and like other people who have contributed to this thread I use it myself for learning the basic points of an issue before I go and follow up points of interest in more detail elsewhere. Secondly, because the nature of that subject is so focused on individual interpretation and the production of original analysis (and because the course teams were increasingly canny about minimising opportunities for plagiarism), there isn't any room for a student gaining many marks by simply regurgitating information from another source. In response to the original poster, whose field is, I appreciate, very different to mine: if one of my students handed in an essay with only references to the Encyclopedia Britannica I would be deeply unimpressed. I encouraged any of my students who attempted to use the internet to support their research. All three universities, particularly the distance learning uni, offered superb access to academic resources via Athens, but students were hugely reluctant to use them: I don't know whether that's because they lacked understanding of how to access them - which I doubt, given their levels of IT literacy - or because they were aware that they lacked the academic background to be able to discriminate between good and less good sources: I'm sure that every academic on this list will have seen material published with glowing peer reviews and through the best academic resources with which they have violently disagreed! I did encourage my students to restrict their searches in google to site:ac.uk, which at least imposes a vague attempt at quality control over what they accessed. If anyone has any statistics for the use of google scholar, particularly within the uk, i'd be really interested in hearing about it. Apologies for the overlong and banal post; it's my annual contribution so please feel seasonably towards me and don't flame me too much :-) rowin Dr Rowin Young eLearning Research Fellow University of Strathclyde ________________________________ From: air-l-bounces(a)listserv.aoir.org on behalf of Jeremy Hunsinger Sent: Mon 05/12/2005 19:16 To: air-l(a)listserv.aoir.org Subject: Re: [Air-l] Wikipedia warning -- Wikipedia is not a reliableinformation source actually this is fairly easy to solve and is solved by all the current citing practices of online materials. when one cites online materials, one is always supposed to give date and if appropriate time of access in the citation. on wikipedia, you can then go to the history and find that particular version of the article, or if it has been moved to archive, you could request it. On Dec 5, 2005, at 1:59 PM, Tom Erickson wrote: > This has been a very interesting discussion. Nobody has mentioned > what seems to me to be the biggest problem in using Wikipedia as a > source: the fact that its articles are not stable. Since, obviously, > articles can and do change over time, simply citing an article would > seem insufficient, as the content may change. > > It is interesting that the Wikipedia's design does not make it easy > to do a citation that will continue to point at the version actually > used. If one clicks on the history tab (for "past versions of this > page"), one sees the history list and can copy those URLs. And in > fact, contrary to what the flyout text for the history tab suggests, > the history page also contains a URL for the current page, so in fact > one could cite the specific instance of the article with something > that would presumably act like a permalink. It seems to me that, for > courses where Wikipedia citations are permitted, that this might be a > good discipline to follow, as it foregrounds the issue of the > stability or lack thereof of knowledge. > > --Tom > -- > ------------------------------------------ > Tom Erickson > IBM T.J. Watson Research Center > Email: snowfall(a)acm.org (preferred); snowfall(a)us.ibm.com(IBM > confidential) > http://www.visi.com/~snowfall/ > > > > > _______________________________________________ > The air-l(a)listserv.aoir.org mailing list > is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org > Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http:// > listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org > > Join the Association of Internet Researchers: > http://www.aoir.org/ Jeremy Hunsinger Center for Digital Discourse and Culture () ascii ribbon campaign - against html mail /\ - against microsoft attachments http://www.aoir.org The Association of Internet Researchers http://www.stswiki.org/ stswiki _______________________________________________ The air-l(a)listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/

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Re: [Air-l] Wikipedia warning -- Wikipedia is not a reliable information source
by GTa3411203＠aol.com 05 Dec '05

05 Dec '05

I have found that Wikipedia entries are good starting points for conducting research on emerging trends. For example, I am currently writing a paper on the emerging trends to use mobile devices (PDAs, smartphones, tablet computers, MP3 players) and wireless networks to support learning in workplace and educational settings. I have found Wikipedia entries to be an invaluable resource in assisting me with pulling together the evolutionary processes associated with the emergence of the various mobile devices and associated practices. My approach in using this source of information in support of research is to triangulate available information to other sources, those that skeptics would consider as being reputable publications (newspapers, trade publications, academic journals, books). I also encourage students to use this same approach when considering using a Wikipedia entry as reliable source of information. I co-teach an on campus course where students do collaborative learning activities each week to construct knowledge about a given topic. At the completion of the activity, I ask students to report out to others, in a large group setting, key insights gained from the interaction. I might have them share information orally or in writing, using the blackboards or whiteboards in a room or easel-size Post-It notes and colored markers. This activity could easily turn into one where students could create new or build upon existing Wikipedia entries. I would use this approach in teaching this group of students but have limitations with regard to access to computer and Internet resources that are necessary to support the integration of this activity into a face-to-face classroom setting. I could modify the approach so tasks would be completed as t ake-home assignments but this goes against personal teaching values. I teach students from the constructivist perspective and place high value on students constructing knowledge in collaboration with others, with guidance from me as opposed to the other way around. -- Gail ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Gail Taylor, M.Ed. Human Resource Education Ph.D. Student Educational Psychology Teaching Assistant University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

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