PinnedRise of the UnderdogAlthough it is more powerful than it has ever been, Wikipedia is reliant on third parties who are increasingly ingesting its facts and severing them from their source. To survive, Wikipedia needs to initiate a renewed campaign for the right to verifiability. This article appears in the book “Wikipedia@20: Stories…Wikipedia19 min readWikipedia19 min read
Published inEthnography Matters·Jan 19, 2016What does it mean to be a “participant observer” in a place like Wikipedia?Originally published by Ethnography Matters in 2012, I’m republishing this post for the reboot of Ethnography Matters this month. Since this time, I’ve published my PhD research about Wikipedia and am in the process of writing a book about the reconfiguration of authority and expertise in the age of crowdsourced…Wikipedia5 min readWikipedia5 min read
Jan 19, 2016The story of a Wikipedia AFD (Article for Deletion)In late 2011, I was in Nairobi working as an ethnographer for Ushahidi when I heard news of Kenya’s army invading Somalia. After interviewing local Wikipedians, I found out that the Wikipedia article about this story was being nominated for deletion on Wikipedia because it didn’t meet the encyclopedia’s “notability”…Kenya5 min readKenya5 min read
