Fun with Wikipedia

I’ve looked at 3 Wikipedia articles, well looked behind them, and was pleasantly surprised by what I saw. I guess Wikipedia isn’t so shady after all.

1) Chief Joseph: He was the leader of the Nez Perce tribe who fought a brief war in 1877 with U.S. army forces. Most of the discussion rested on whether or not some facts were right or not, but there was a nice discussion on whether it was appropriate to describe his followers as a band or not. The article’s history is short, only one page of revisions stretching to 2004.

2) Since he was a leader of part of the Nez Perce tribe, I figured I would check their history. Not a short or long article. The discussion centered around a few items, most of them how to effectively spell and pronounce the tribe’s name and various names of leaders. There is a worry that Nez Perce is actually a derogatory name for them. The history of this article is much longer, stretching some 500  entries from just 5 weeks ago to 6/1/2005.

3) The Nez Perce had friendly relations with the Lewis and Clarke Expedition of 1803-6, so I jumped to that article.  Very long and intricate article. Even longer discussion, ranging from sexually transmitted diseases the men got from Indian women, crimes the men were convicted of in court marshals, whether or not Lewis was in love with Clarke, unfairness towards American Indians, and complaints about the article needing work, more treatment towards a variety of things, anger towards those who come onto the article to deface it, and discussions on how that can be controlled. There were some passionate debates in this discussion. It was much more animated than the other two articles. The history was extremely long as well, going all the way to early 2004.

I plan on looking at the discussion tabs more often now when I go onto Wikipedia.

Next blog post will have me fleshing out my project ideas a little more.

Website Critiques for 9/29 Class

The Animated Atlas of African History: I give this one a 3 out of 5 because it has a nice flashy design that shows promise, but it took me too long to figure out how exactly the site worked. Because of this, I don’t think many would stick around to play with the site, unless it was for a school assignment.

The Battle of Adwa – Scholarly Non-Fiction Media in the Digital Realm: This gets a 1. There is hardly any information on the page, and even though the design is nice and orderly, the lines pretty much run together, etc, there is hardly any info. Looks like this website was never finished

The Carolingian Canon Law Project: This gets a 2. I like the idea of the website, but when you search, the texts that come up are in Latin. Yes they are written in Latin, I know, but a translation would be nice. Just because I was raised in Catholic schools for 13 years does not mean I can read Church Latin.

China Beat Blog: I like this one. It gets a 4. I think it was easy to navigate, I can find previous blog entries, and there are plenty of links to click on. Only drawback is it is a very long page. Should probably take posts into the archives sooner.

Digital Harlem: Everyday Life, 1915-1930: I also liked this one, so it gets a 4. The map layover is really cool. I’m a big person n maps, and love how it is used to show exactly where events occurred that are chronicled in the website. I like how I can se crime, social activities, people, and places on this maps with explanations. Very well done.

Eastern Michigan University Digital Textbook: 1. It didn’t load.

Envisaging the West: Thomas Jefferson and the Roots of Lewis and Clark:This geta a 5. I like how you get the choice of the type of website you can see it in. The navigation is very simple. Just 3 main sections. Love the links to primary souces concerning the opening of the West. The interactive maps were excellent.

Euclid Corridor History Project: I gave this one a 4. I liked the design. Looked just like a subway map. Easy to navigate, lots of pictures and short stories of Cleveland’s history. I think students would enjoy this site for a class.

H-German 2.0: I give it a 3. Lots of good information. Too much text. Not enough visual/audio/video.

Historia I Media (Historiaimedia.org): Gets a 1. I can’t speak Polish.

History Engine: This one also gets a 3. I did not like how on the homepage an engine taking so much space did not have interactive buttons I could click on to navigate through the site. I believe this would have made it better.  But I like the idea of having students submit work. It will get some to become interested in the profession early which is always good. Hopefully it is well-maintained so that only good scholarship and writing is featured on the site, in a mannr that is equivalent to a student’s age.

“History of the 20th Century” Project: It get’s a 1 because it won’t let me in the site. Boo for passwords.

The Imaginary 20th Century: This one receives a 4. It’s awfully text-based, but there are lots of links to help scholars receive grants, scholarships, how to be a member, and the other services that this group provides.  I like how there are a great deal of advertised events.

The Indian Woods: At the Crossroads of Three Cultures: A 2. This site sucks. Only text, I don;t like the colors, and there simply is not a lot of information.

Invincible Cities: 4. The art is stunning. I like how his intro is 20 pages long, but you can click through slides of it as long as you wish. I like the layout. Flashy, but not too flashy. Hopefully he expands it like he wants to.

Jewish Digital Narratives: 4. i like how it can connect to social networking sites. That’s different. Lots of visual media. That’s the way it should be.

Le Projet Esternay: 4. Good contrast. The documents have been translated into English from the database. Otherwise it would be a 1 or 2.

Libraries of Early America Project: 4. Lots of good information. They have the libraries of famous early Americans. I don;t know where else I would find it, and it has links to what they had so you can buy it or read it for yourself.  I like the group talk feature also.

Look Back Maps: Another map-related site, like the one from Harlem, but in San Francisco. This one isn’t as comprehensive, so it only gets a 4.

Malaga Island: A Story Best Left Untold: Radio and photo documentary. It’s different. I like the layout, and the contrast, and the colors. Lots of visual media. Sad story. I’d give it a 4.

Origins: Current Events in Historical Perspective: I’ll give it a 3. It’s interesting, a nice design. Though it’s too text-based.

OutHistory.org: I like it. I’ll give it a 4 or 5. I’m a bit biased though. But I like how it’s a wiki, which will let members of the gay community add to it. I’d be afraid of people writing homophobic things on the site, and don;t know how well that can be controlled.I might try to write some items on it myself.

PhilaPlace, a Neighborhood History and Culture Project: 1, because it hasn’t launched yet.

The Rethinking Timelines Initiative: Another map site. I like the idea. Good looking site. Needs more examples of these interactive maps. 2-3.

Scholarship and Segregation: Web-Based, Rich Media Access to the “The Negro in American History by John Hope Franklin”: 1, no text.

Shays’ Rebellion and the Making of a Nation: From Revolution to Constitution: 4. I like this part of history. I like the artwork. I like the blue background, and the fact that there are only 7 items to choose from in the main menu. It’s the kind of site I’d like to design.

How Do You Stop Shenanigans at History Websites?

I’m doing some of the readings for next week, and this is a question that keeps popping up. We are supposed to look at Wikipedia to examine how the site operates in regards to its history pages. I’m also reading an article by Jeffrey Schnapp, called “Animating the Archive.” In one section, he says that archives called “Archive You” (well, it’s a concept, really) can be made where users can come in and help tag, categorize, label, and write descriptions for objects added to the online archives to let them be completed sooner. But for both of these sites, how are you supposed to make sure someone does not write something wrong or even offensive. I know I’d be pissed if someone wrote racist things on a page describing an African mask from Zimbabwe in a database just because they can and desire to.

So how do you prevent this? You can have people monitoring pages like Wikipedia does, but even so, things can and invariably do slip through the cracks. You can kick users off who violate the terms, but in a system that involves a database of thousands upon thousands of items, someone can write something that goes undetected for weeks and months if it is large enough.

I guess you can develop software that calls BS on things, but I don’t know how you’d go about developing and implementing that sort of thing. Maybe with keywords that can be added by the owners and administrators of websites that flag an entry immediately for future eyes to examine.

Anyone else have some ideas?Because this is something that has to be addressed as the History Web grows.

Until then…

Shenanigans

I have a project

I’m not going to comment on the readings. Instead, here is a summary of what my project is going to be.

I study American Indian history. So I want create a comprehensive website dedicated to a specific tribe/nation. I found the website for the Saux/Fox nation, located in Oklahoma.

My website will be very interactive, and will be made for those who belong to the tribe and for others who wish to learn about the tribe. I’m going to have several tabs on the side, and these will include History (a comprehensive page for the history of the nation), People (Biographies of famous tribal members, and bios of the current leaders and famous people of the tribe), Artifacts (photos and descriptions of artifacts relating to the tribe’s past), council (highlighting the governing council, how to contact it, how it functions, etc), community (events going on in the community, how to get services like health, school, employment, etc and a very important section that will be like the artifact section, but will include objects used in day-to-day life. Say you click on an image of a drum. It will upen up a new window, and will have a description of the drum. Then you can click on a video player and it will show how the drum is used while a member of the tribe narrates what is going on. This can be repeated for every item in the database.)

I’m sure there will be other tabs and items that I can put up, and I don’t know what the homepage should be like, but at least I’ve got an idea of how things should come together. I’ll have to keep in mind that some objects are not for the general public, or that some should not be viewed by men or women, so I might need to set up a username/password interface for certain items that can only be accessed by members of the tribe. It should be a good project!

Which came first?

My post this week will discuss the article “Which Came First?’

It was very interesting, centering on two photographs taken by a dude named Fenton during the Crimean War of the “Valley of the Shadow of Death” One had cannonballs strewn about the road, and the other had them mostly in a gully next to the road. These two photos caused quite a bit of controversy because many thought he might have taken the photo of the balls in the ditch first, and then moved them along the road to make the scene more dramatic. This led to charges that he was in it to make a name for himself and the details didn’t matter, that he was a coward, etc ad nauseum.

The author sets out to try to figure out which photo was taken first, and even goes to the actual place in Crimea where the photo was taken to collect visual evidence. Many theories abound, including one that said British soldiers moved them to reuse them in their own cannons between photo shoots. As it turns out, he and a collegue use digital technology to make the case that the photo with the balls in the ditch was second because of a simple explanation…Gravity. That eventually the balls on the road would roll down into the ditch, leading to a “Duh” moment for the author and for me too.

But how does this relate to our class. Well, it’s simple really. They used digital technology to look a the photos, playing with the resolution, looking at light and shadows, etc to try to understand every bit of information that they could get. Eventually they saw that between the so-called “OFF” and so called “ON” photos, several rocks moved in the same direction by roughly the same distance relative to their size.  The cannonballs had done precisely the same thing. They all moved in a downhill direction. This proved to the author and his colleague that the force of gravity was in play and that it was what had caused the cannonballs to move, and therefore the first photograph taken was the one with the cannonballs off the road, instead of on it, just as many scholars had previously believed, although for different reasons than they had originally surmised

By using computers, they could do much more to examine the photographs than they could just by looking at the photos themselves on a tabletop. This could have implications for history because more photographs could be examined for many reasons. These include to see if they are forgeries, at preserving them in a digital record for posterity, and seeing if there are famous people in them that were not noticed before (Hey, who’s that guy in a top hat in this dusty photo in my attic? Is that Abraham Lincoln!? Kaching!) I’m sure there are many other ways that technology can be used with older photographs, but I can;t think of any right now, and I’m sure I will learn what they are.

This was a very interesting article, the best one that I read this week. I’d have more to say, but it’s getting late, and my boyfriend has his birthday today, so it’s time to celebrate.

I’m just playing with the features of the blog, so for your viewing pleasure…

Lev Manovich

So, I have finished Manovich’s book, “The Language of New Media,” and boy was that a hard book for me! I’m not used to dealing with computer technology. Well, that’s not true. I use it all the time. I just don’t understand how it works, except that I point and click, and things happen.

I don;t really know how i am supposed to react to the book. Instead of giving some sweeping analysis of the book, I think I’ll just stick to commenting on a few passages of it. Call it laziness, but it’s what works for me this week.

So, let’s get this ball rolling!

Page 34: “…computer characters can display intelligence and skills only because programs place severe limits on our possible interactions with them. Put differently, computers can pretend to be intelligent only by tricking us into using a very small part of who we are when we communicate with them.”      I thought this was a pretty good analysis of how computers operate.  Computers only can do (right now, it seems) only what we tell them to do. Their intelligence is limited to what we give them, and they are not capable of evolving and creating new intelligence for themselves.

Pg 42: “new media objects assure users that their choices–and therefore, their underliying thoughts and desires–are unique, rather than preprogrammed and shared with others.” I think this was also accurate. We all simply need to just look at how users of Facebook/Myspace can customize their pages to include whatever objects they want in them. No 2 pages are alike, just like no 2 people are alike. It shows just how unique everyone is.

Pg 64: “In the 1990s, as the Internet progressively grew in popularity, the role of the digital computer shifted from being a particular technology to a filer for all culture, a form through which all kinds of cultural and artistic production were mediated.”     I bet this guy would love YouTube.

Pg 124: “New media objects are rarely created completely from scratch; usually they are assembled from ready-made parts. Put differently, in computer culture, authentic creation has been replaced by selection from a menu.”      While this may be true, I think that the New Media has also allowed for a more democratic nature to media, because now individual users can use all these objects at their disposal to create projects, movies, etc on their own, some of which can become very popular. You just need to go to YouTube and see videos created by everyday people that have thousands and millions of hits on the site.

Pg 268-73 is the last that I want to comment on. It centers on the idea that a websurfer is a modern day flaneur, who roamed the crowds of Paris in the 1800s, forgetting each face just after he saw it. The issue for me is that I don;t forget a website just after looking at it. I might not be looking at it anymore, but that does not mean that I immediately forget what I was looking at. I don;t forget a news story right after I click on an online health article. It just does not happen. So while I understand the point that Manovich was creating when he discussed the flaneur and the web surfer, it does not mesh 100%.

As for summing up the book, I liked it. It was hard to follow at times, but good for an introduction. We will go over it in detail in class, and I look forward to it because I’ll most likely come away with a firmer understanding after listening to all of your views on it.  I can;t help but wonder if he will release a version of this book on its 10th anniversary to comment on the rise of broadband, youtube, facebook, and a host of other networking sites and technologies. Until then, I will just have to wait and see.

New media is changing how society orders its information, and it is clearly changing society itself, just as cinema and photography did in the 19th and 20th centuries. Though the effects probably won’t be understood until long after we are all dead. Now that I’ve ended this post on a happy note, it’s time to celebrate the end of summer.