Hi all...I'm a new subscriber to this list. I just learned about
Wikipedia for the first time a couple of weeks ago and think it's an
impressive new step in the evolution of the web as an information
commons. I have some thoughts about directions in which I think it
could be taken further, and I hope that some people here could offer
your reactions and advice.
I'll begin by giving some particulars that explain my personal
interest in Wikipedia, after which I'll touch on ways that my
specific interests might have more general relevance.
I edit a publication called "PR Watch" (www.prwatch.org) that
monitors deceptive and manipulative public relations campaigns. My
particular interest in Wikipedia stems from my long-standing desire
to develop an information base about PR firms, PR campaigns and
deceptive PR front groups -- organizations that claim to represent
some public interest while actually serving the agenda of a client or
industry whose sponsorship of the organization is often hidden. For
example, the APCO PR firm set up a front group called "The
Advancement of Sound Science Coalition" (TASSC), whose stated mission
was to promote science-based decision-making about public health
policies. In reality, TASSC was a front group for the Philip Morris
tobacco company, whose primary mission was to attack the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency's risk assessment of secondhand
cigarette smoke.
A number of organizations, including PR Watch, have tried over the
years to develop databases, printed directories or other systems for
tracking PR campaigns, front groups or industry-sponsored "think
tanks." Typically, however, these efforts have run up against
limitations of time and staffing. There are thousands of think tanks
in the United States alone, with new ones forming all the time and
ever-changing personnel. Awhile back we added a section to the PR
Watch web site called the "Impropaganda Review" that serves as a
"rogues gallery" of a few notable examples, but the Impropaganda
Review remains in what Wikipedians might call the "Nupedia stage of
development." We've developed a handful of articles, but nothing
approaching a comprehensive directory. Rather than attempt the
impossible task of trying to expand the Impropaganda Review all by
ourselves, it seems to me that the Wikipedia model would be a great
way to invite the world at large to contribute.
There are, however, a few issues with this idea:
First, the nature of the work we do at PR Watch is inherently
controversial. Not everyone would agree with our characterization of
TASSC as an "industry front group," and I'm wondering if attempting
to develop an open-source directory of information on controversial
topics could succeed.
Second, the type of directory I'm interested in developing requires
the imposition of a bit more structure than Wikipedia imposes. Each
organizational profile in the "Impropaganda Review" contains the
following sections:
* A general description
* Personnel
* History
* Funding
* Case studies
* Contact information
* Related information resources
It isn't possible to obtain all of that information about every
organization (for example, some groups don't disclose the identity of
their funders), but I would want to strongly encourage contributors
to try to follow that framework.
Thirdly, I think it would be ideal if the information I want to
develop could be structured as a relational database. For example,
there would be a separate article for each ORGANIZATION, but also a
separate article for each PERSON, with a many-to-many relationship
linking the two categories. In other words, each article on a person
would include a list of the organizations with which that person has
been affiliated, while the article on an organization would include a
list of all its related personnel.
That's my basic concept. Now, here are my thoughts that might be of
more general relevance to Wikipedians:
(1) The Wikipedia model could be applied to a number of other uses if
the software could be modified to support something that users
experience as "relational databases of structured objects." Right now
users experience it as a non-relational database of ONE type of
object, namely an "article." The ability to insert hyperlinks to
other articles provides a quasi-relational capability, but it's not
truly relational. If, for example, I put a hyperlink in the "Leon
Trotsky" article that points to the "Mensheviks" article, the
software doesn't automatically create a corresponding link pointing
back from "Bolsheviks" to "Leon Trotsky." For certain types of
knowledge databases, it would be nice if the software could be
configured to do this automatically. Moreover, the structure of each
"article" is entirely free-form, and many knowledge databases try to
impose some sort of structure. For example, scientific articles are
typically structured to include an abstract and footnotes in addition
to the main text. If the Wikipedia software could be configured to
impose this sort of structure on individual articles, it could be
used to host a number of valuable, specialized knowledge bases in
addition to the general-purpose encyclopedia for which it was
designed. Moreover, that information could be extracted in a variety
of formats for different presentations. A database of "people," for
example, could be sorted in different ways according to different
fields, such as date of birth or city of residence.
(2) Supporting this sort of relational database structure may also
become important as Wikipedia continues to grow. One of the great
virtues of Wikipedia is that it supports collaborative synthesizing
and summarizing of information. Most of the information in
Wikipedia's articles can be found elsewhere on the web, but doing a
"Google" search often forces users to wade through mountains of
irrelevant information before they can find what they're looking for.
As the number of articles on Wikipedia continues to grow, the sheer
volume of information may also become daunting for users. Comments
are already being made to the effect that there are "too many
articles" about certain topics, and suggestions are being made to
split off certain topics into separate "sister" wiki projects such as
a Wikiteer (gazetteer) or a Wikipediatlas. However, creating separate
sister projects also leads to information fragmentation and
redundancy. If the Wikipedia software could support structured
information objects in addition to simple text articles, it might be
possible to encompass a number of "sister" projects as parts of a
single whole, while letting users decide what types of objects they
are looking for. For one user, it might be a general-purpose
"encyclopedia"; for another, a "gazetteer" (an encyclopedia of
locations); for another, a "who's who" (an encyclopedia of people).
Anyway, those are my thoughts for the moment. I'd appreciate
feedback, and especially advice on how I might go about starting a
Wikipedia-style open source information base on PR firms, PR
campaigns and front groups.
--
--------------------------------
| Sheldon Rampton
| Editor, PR Watch (www.prwatch.org)
| Author of books including:
| Friends In Deed: The Story of US-Nicaragua Sister Cities
| Toxic Sludge Is Good For You
| Mad Cow USA
| Trust Us, We're Experts
--------------------------------
Wikipedia for the first time a couple of weeks ago and think it's an
impressive new step in the evolution of the web as an information
commons. I have some thoughts about directions in which I think it
could be taken further, and I hope that some people here could offer
your reactions and advice.
I'll begin by giving some particulars that explain my personal
interest in Wikipedia, after which I'll touch on ways that my
specific interests might have more general relevance.
I edit a publication called "PR Watch" (www.prwatch.org) that
monitors deceptive and manipulative public relations campaigns. My
particular interest in Wikipedia stems from my long-standing desire
to develop an information base about PR firms, PR campaigns and
deceptive PR front groups -- organizations that claim to represent
some public interest while actually serving the agenda of a client or
industry whose sponsorship of the organization is often hidden. For
example, the APCO PR firm set up a front group called "The
Advancement of Sound Science Coalition" (TASSC), whose stated mission
was to promote science-based decision-making about public health
policies. In reality, TASSC was a front group for the Philip Morris
tobacco company, whose primary mission was to attack the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency's risk assessment of secondhand
cigarette smoke.
A number of organizations, including PR Watch, have tried over the
years to develop databases, printed directories or other systems for
tracking PR campaigns, front groups or industry-sponsored "think
tanks." Typically, however, these efforts have run up against
limitations of time and staffing. There are thousands of think tanks
in the United States alone, with new ones forming all the time and
ever-changing personnel. Awhile back we added a section to the PR
Watch web site called the "Impropaganda Review" that serves as a
"rogues gallery" of a few notable examples, but the Impropaganda
Review remains in what Wikipedians might call the "Nupedia stage of
development." We've developed a handful of articles, but nothing
approaching a comprehensive directory. Rather than attempt the
impossible task of trying to expand the Impropaganda Review all by
ourselves, it seems to me that the Wikipedia model would be a great
way to invite the world at large to contribute.
There are, however, a few issues with this idea:
First, the nature of the work we do at PR Watch is inherently
controversial. Not everyone would agree with our characterization of
TASSC as an "industry front group," and I'm wondering if attempting
to develop an open-source directory of information on controversial
topics could succeed.
Second, the type of directory I'm interested in developing requires
the imposition of a bit more structure than Wikipedia imposes. Each
organizational profile in the "Impropaganda Review" contains the
following sections:
* A general description
* Personnel
* History
* Funding
* Case studies
* Contact information
* Related information resources
It isn't possible to obtain all of that information about every
organization (for example, some groups don't disclose the identity of
their funders), but I would want to strongly encourage contributors
to try to follow that framework.
Thirdly, I think it would be ideal if the information I want to
develop could be structured as a relational database. For example,
there would be a separate article for each ORGANIZATION, but also a
separate article for each PERSON, with a many-to-many relationship
linking the two categories. In other words, each article on a person
would include a list of the organizations with which that person has
been affiliated, while the article on an organization would include a
list of all its related personnel.
That's my basic concept. Now, here are my thoughts that might be of
more general relevance to Wikipedians:
(1) The Wikipedia model could be applied to a number of other uses if
the software could be modified to support something that users
experience as "relational databases of structured objects." Right now
users experience it as a non-relational database of ONE type of
object, namely an "article." The ability to insert hyperlinks to
other articles provides a quasi-relational capability, but it's not
truly relational. If, for example, I put a hyperlink in the "Leon
Trotsky" article that points to the "Mensheviks" article, the
software doesn't automatically create a corresponding link pointing
back from "Bolsheviks" to "Leon Trotsky." For certain types of
knowledge databases, it would be nice if the software could be
configured to do this automatically. Moreover, the structure of each
"article" is entirely free-form, and many knowledge databases try to
impose some sort of structure. For example, scientific articles are
typically structured to include an abstract and footnotes in addition
to the main text. If the Wikipedia software could be configured to
impose this sort of structure on individual articles, it could be
used to host a number of valuable, specialized knowledge bases in
addition to the general-purpose encyclopedia for which it was
designed. Moreover, that information could be extracted in a variety
of formats for different presentations. A database of "people," for
example, could be sorted in different ways according to different
fields, such as date of birth or city of residence.
(2) Supporting this sort of relational database structure may also
become important as Wikipedia continues to grow. One of the great
virtues of Wikipedia is that it supports collaborative synthesizing
and summarizing of information. Most of the information in
Wikipedia's articles can be found elsewhere on the web, but doing a
"Google" search often forces users to wade through mountains of
irrelevant information before they can find what they're looking for.
As the number of articles on Wikipedia continues to grow, the sheer
volume of information may also become daunting for users. Comments
are already being made to the effect that there are "too many
articles" about certain topics, and suggestions are being made to
split off certain topics into separate "sister" wiki projects such as
a Wikiteer (gazetteer) or a Wikipediatlas. However, creating separate
sister projects also leads to information fragmentation and
redundancy. If the Wikipedia software could support structured
information objects in addition to simple text articles, it might be
possible to encompass a number of "sister" projects as parts of a
single whole, while letting users decide what types of objects they
are looking for. For one user, it might be a general-purpose
"encyclopedia"; for another, a "gazetteer" (an encyclopedia of
locations); for another, a "who's who" (an encyclopedia of people).
Anyway, those are my thoughts for the moment. I'd appreciate
feedback, and especially advice on how I might go about starting a
Wikipedia-style open source information base on PR firms, PR
campaigns and front groups.
--
--------------------------------
| Sheldon Rampton
| Editor, PR Watch (www.prwatch.org)
| Author of books including:
| Friends In Deed: The Story of US-Nicaragua Sister Cities
| Toxic Sludge Is Good For You
| Mad Cow USA
| Trust Us, We're Experts
--------------------------------