Pete Forsyth @PeteForsyth@mastodon.oeru.org

Stigmergy (n): The effects of one action stimulate the next action, by the same or another agent. Great word describing much of what happens in Wikipedia, where discussion is secondary to interaction. Thank you @Downes for sharing this term with me. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stigmergy

Check out all the newspaper articles #OpenEd18 people wrote!! Very impressive...I had much less success getting participants in that very conference to edit wiki several years ago. Kudos to Amy, Katie, Bonnie. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Newspapers/Meta … cc @mackiwg @cogdog @actualham @Downes

Substantial privacy policy published months prior to commencing publication by The Markup:
"…we don’t sell, barter, give away, rent, or permit anyone outside …to use or access your personally identifiable information (PII) or non-PII." Also, NO COOKIES.
https://themarkup.org/privacy.html

Request for Wikimedia folk with programming skills: We could use a bit of help creating a tool to measure our progress in the Newspapers on Wikipedia project. (& if we can solve it, I think it'd be a nice tool for various other wiki projects.) Take a look? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)#WikiProject_request_for_technical_assistance

Looks like the Chinese sites Baidu and Tencent QQ (two of the world's top 10 sites) do not have any "trackers" according to the Ghostery Firefox extension. Surprising...does anybody know anything about use of tracking cookies in China?

The Newspapers on Wikipedia project, which I've been working on for the last few months, just got a nice writeup from Middlebury College:
"Students Join Wikipedia Effort to Help Verify Local News Sources"
http://www.middlebury.edu/newsroom/archive/2018-news/node/593355

#Wiki people I have found on #Mastodon:
@mackiwg
@joshuagay
@eloquence @johari
@tommorris
@Greg
Who else am I missing?

Any tips on how to find local community on #Mastodon? Specifically Portland, Oregon...but general tips welcome too. #Portland search turns up nothing for me. @brion @eloquence

"We hold people with power to account. Why not algorithms?" New from the Guardian.

As @eloquence put it recently, the feedback loop is nonexistent. The people tinkering with the algorithm are utterly detached from the guy whose car is hanging over a cliff.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/sep/17/power-algorithms-technology-regulate

Danah Boyd (@zephoria on Twitter) published a piece about how journalists need to become more like hackers. She has good things to say about trust and scale, and about strategic amplification, and generally not playing into the hands of trolls. But I do think she skips an important point about bias. We have no basis for trusting Big Tech to be unbiased. Big Tech is not journalism. It's early in the piece; she calls out bad actors who allege bias. But how can we counter? https://points.datasociety.net/media-manipulation-strategic-amplification-and-responsible-journalism-95f4d611f462

@eloisa Hi, please add me to "Open Education" and "Distributed Networks" #Trunk (If you ever start a list for "Wiki" or "Wikipedia" or "Journalism" I would like to be on those as well.) Thanks!

Discussion with @Downes about Wikipedia and OERu has reminded me of this interview I did at the first OERu Anchor Partners meeting, about the intersection of informal learning communities like Wikipedia & formal educational institutions. I think OERu is well positioned to play "institutional ambassador." How have things progressed since this 2013 meeting? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oGGvdPXcnzo

@eloquence Hi -- glad you found me here. It was your suggestion that got me on Mastodon, but I couldn't (easily) find you!

Wikipedia was designed to battle "fake news" from the start. It's not a coincidence that it's avoided the kind of criticisms leveled at other "top 10" web sites. Its core values have served it well: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-wikipedia-dodged-public-outcry-plaguing-social-media-pete-forsyth/

Glad to find this OERu community, hope I'm not crashing (I'm not currently involved in a course). @mackiwg and anybody else...I'm currently seeking Wikimedians or wiki folk who might be able to help with a Wellington, NZ Wikipedia edit-a-thon next month...any suggestions?