Despite neutral point of view and tralala, Wikipedia is political.
In a way, not taking a side is positioning in itself.
% Values, Lessig! --> check copyright blogpost
% think about what values we embed in what systems and how; --> Lessig (and also Do Artifacts Have Politics)
%Summary
The present thesis just lay the ground work for future edit filters research.
I gave an initial overview and summarised/showed/pointed out interesting paths/framework for future research (syn!).
% TODO Refer back to title! Who is allowed to publish? Who decides?
%Outlook
According to the Wikipedian community people adding references to Brazilian aardvarks or <inser-another-hoax here> preferably shall not publish at all.
Edit filters are not the ideal mechanism to deal with this type of disruption:
they can warn editors adding information that their contribution does not contain any references (or outright disallow such contributions), but that was pretty much it. %TODO look into all filters tagges as "hoaxing"
However, what edit filters can do more effectively is prevent someone from moving XXX pages to titles containing ``ON WHEELS'', thus sparing users the need to track down and undo these changes, allowing them to use their time more productively by for example fact checking unverified edits and thus (syn) reducing the number of aardvarks and increasing the overall credibility of the project.
It is impressive how in under 20 years ``a bunch of nobodies created the world's greatest encyclopedia'' to quote Anrew Lih~\cite{}. %TODO verify how big is Wikipedia and whether it's the biggest collection ever.
This was possible, among other things, because there was one Wikipedia to which everybody contributed.
As the project and its needs for quality control grew, a lot of processes became more centralised. %TODO verify
It is, at the end, easier to maintain power and control in a centralised infrastructure.
However, centralisation facilitates not only the contribution of everyone (tm) towards a common goal–creating the world's biggest knowledge database, but also control.
It is not an accident that at the very introduction of the edit filters extension, critical voices expressed concern that a large scale censorship infrastructure is being installed. %TODO cite!
If there were multiple comparable projects, you had to censor all of them in order to silence people.
The debate is not trivial/petty/insignificant: whose knowledge is entered and who decides what is knowledge worth preserving.
It is more relevant than ever: the European Parliament basically voted the introduction of upload filters on the Internet just couple of months ago. %TODO give more details on Copyright directive
Despite the famous neutral point of view and tralala, Wikipedia is the first go-to source of information for a vast quantity of people all over the world today.
As such it is distinctly relevant for the shaping of public opinion, and inherently political.
Artefacts do have politics and it is up to us to decide what values we embed in the systems we create. %TODO refine
% Refer to the rumour about gendering filter on German Wikipedia
\begin{comment}
Special attention: following edit filters from DE Wikipedia:
and 197: "amerikanisch -> US-amerikanisch ([[WP:RS\#Korrektoren]])"
"Korrektoren sind besonders gebeten, sich an die hier vereinbarten Regeln zu halten. In Fällen, in denen verschiedene Schreibweisen zulässig sind, werden Korrektoren um taktvolle Zurückhaltung gebeten: Es ist kein guter Stil, in einer schlüssig formulierten Passage eine zulässige in eine andere zulässige Schreibweise zu ändern." from \url{https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Rechtschreibung#Korrektoren}
Both are log only filters;
and it's a political fight
%In a way, not taking a side is positioning in itself.
% Values, Lessig! --> check copyright blogpost
% think about what values we embed in what systems and how; --> Lessig (and also Do Artifacts Have Politics)
%"Most people try to help the project, not hurt it. If this were untrue, a project like Wikipedia would be doomed from the beginning. "
%(comes from assume good faith?)
...
...
@@ -46,7 +68,7 @@ editors"
* Think about: what's the computer science take on the field? How can we design a "better"/more efficient/more user friendly system? A system that reflects particular values (vgl Code 2.0, Chapter 3, p.34)?
\begin{comment}
Alternative approaches to community management:
compare with Surviving the Eternal September paper~\cite{KieMonHill2016}
