[artinfo] CPOV: SECOND WIKIPEDIA RESEARCH CONFERENCE

[Geert Lovink]

Critical Point of View: Second international 
conference of the CPOV Wikipedia Research 
Initiative

Date: 26-27 March 2010

Location: OBA (Public Library Amsterdam, next to 
Amsterdam central station), Oosterdokskade 143, 
Amsterdam

Organized by the Institute of Network Cultures 
Amsterdam, in cooperation with the Centre for 
Internet and Society in Bangalore, India.

Website: www.networkcultures.org/cpov

Discussion List: 
http://p10.alfaservers.com/mailman/listinfo/cpov_listcultures.org

Wikipedia is at the brink of becoming the de 
facto global reference of dynamic knowledge. The 
heated debates over its accuracy, anonymity, 
trust, vandalism and expertise only seem to fuel 
further growth of Wikipedia and its user base. 
Apart from leaving its modern counterparts 
Britannica and Encarta in the dust, such scale 
and breadth places Wikipedia on par with such 
historical milestones as Pliny the Elder's 
Naturalis Historia, the Ming Dynasty's Wen-hsien 
ta-ch' eng, and the key work of French 
Enlightenment, the Encyclopédie. The multilingual 
Wikipedia as digital collaborative and fluid 
knowledge production platform might be said to be 
the most visible and successful example of the 
migration of FLOSS (Free/Libre/Open Source 
Software) principles into mainstream culture. 
However, such celebration should contain critical 
insights, informed by the changing realities of 
the Internet at large and the Wikipedia project 
in particular.

The CPOV Research Initiative was founded from the 
urge to stimulate critical Wikipedia research: 
quantitative and qualitative research that could 
benefit both the wide user-base and the active 
Wikipedia community itself. On top of this, 
Wikipedia offers critical insights into the 
contemporary status of knowledge, its organizing 
principles, function, and impact; its production 
styles, mechanisms for conflict resolution and 
power (re-)constitution. The overarching research 
agenda is at once a philosophical, 
epistemological and theoretical investigation of 
knowledge artifacts, cultural production and 
social relations, and an empirical investigation 
of the specific phenomenon of the Wikipedia.

Conference Themes: Wiki Theory, Encyclopedia 
Histories, Wiki Art, Wikipedia Analytics, 
Designing Debate and Global Issues and Outlooks.

Confirmed speakers: Florian Cramer (DE/NL), 
Andrew Famiglietti (UK), Stuart Geiger (USA), 
Hendrik-Jan Grievink (NL), Charles van den Heuvel 
(NL), Jeanette Hofmann (DE), Athina Karatzogianni 
(UK), Scott Kildall (USA), Patrick Lichty (USA), 
Hans Varghese Mathews (IN), Teemu Mikkonen (FI), 
Mayo Fuster Morell (IT), Mathieu O'Neil (AU), 
Felipe Ortega (ES), Dan O'Sullivan (UK), Joseph 
Reagle (USA), Ramón Reichert (AU), Richard Rogers 
(USA/NL), Alan Shapiro (USA/DE), Maja van der 
Velden (NL/NO), Gérard Wormser (FR).

Editorial team: Sabine Niederer and Geert Lovink 
(Amsterdam),  Nishant Shah and Sunil Abraham 
(Bangalore), Johanna Niesyto (Siegen), Nathaniel 
Tkacz (Melbourne). Project manager CPOV 
Amsterdam: Margreet Riphagen. Research intern: 
Juliana Brunello. Production intern: Serena 
Westra.

The CPOV conference in Amsterdam will be the 
second conference of the CPOV Wikipedia Research 
Initiative. The launch of the initiative took 
place in Bangalore India, with the conference 
WikiWars in January 2010. After the first two 
events, the CPOV organization will work on 
producing a reader, to be launched early 2011. 
For more information or submitting a reader 
contribution: 
http://networkcultures.org/wpmu/cpov/reader/.

Buy your ticket online at: 
http://networkcultures.org/wpmu/cpov/practical-info/tickets/ 
(with iDeal), or register by sending an email to: 
info (at) networkcultures.org. One day ticket: 
¤25, students and OBA members: ¤12,50. Full 
conference pass (2 days): ¤40, students and OBA 
members: ¤25.

More info: www.networkcultures.org/cpov. Contact: 
info (at) networkcultures.org, phone: +3120 
5951866