[artinfo] Critical Point of View: A Wikipedia Reader

[Geert Lovink]

INC Reader #7

Critical Point of View: A Wikipedia Reader
Geert Lovink and Nathaniel Tkacz (eds)

For millions of internet users around the globe, the search for new 
knowledge begins with Wikipedia. The encyclopedia's rapid rise, novel 
organization, and freely offered content have been marveled at and 
denounced by a host of commentators. Critical Point of View moves 
beyond unflagging praise, well-worn facts, and questions about its 
reliability and accuracy, to unveil the complex, messy, and 
controversial realities of a distributed knowledge platform.

The essays, interviews and artworks brought together in this reader 
form part of the overarching Critical Point of View research 
initiative, which began with a conference in Bangalore (January 
2010), followed by events in Amsterdam (March 2010) and Leipzig 
(September 2010). With an emphasis on theoretical reflection, 
cultural difference and indeed, critique, contributions to this 
collection ask: What values are embedded in Wikipedia's software? On 
what basis are Wikipedia's claims to neutrality made? How can 
Wikipedia give voice to those outside the Western tradition of 
Enlightenment, or even its own administrative hierarchies? Critical 
Point of View collects original insights on the next generation of 
wiki-related research, from radical artistic interventions and the 
significant role of bots to hidden trajectories of encyclopedic 
knowledge and the politics of agency and exclusion.

Contributors: Amila Akdag Salah, Nicholas Carr, Shun-ling Chen, 
Florian Cramer, Morgan Currie, Edgar Enyedy, Andrew Famiglietti, 
Heather Ford, Mayo Fuster Morell, Cheng Gao, R. Stuart Geiger, Mark 
Graham, Gautam John, Dror Kamir, Peter B. Kaufman, Scott Kildall, 
Lawrence Liang, Patrick Lichty, Geert Lovink, Hans Varghese Mathews, 
Johanna Niesyto, Matheiu O'Neil, Dan O'Sullivan, Joseph Reagle, 
Andrea Scharnhorst, Alan Shapiro, Christian Stegbauer, Nathaniel 
Stern, Krzystztof Suchecki, Nathaniel Tkacz, Maja van der Velden.

You can download the pdf for free here:
http://www.networkcultures.org/_uploads/%237reader_Wikipedia.pdf