Cyberlaw: Difficult Issues Winter 2010 - User contributions [en]

Presentation

2010-01-21T21:00:49Z

Vbaranetsky: /* Discussion Questions */

Hello — we are Amanda, Bruno, Franny, Hector and Yosuke of the Cyberlaw: Difficult Problems course. Feedback from people who use and are familiar with Wikipedia/Wikimedia is an extremely important part of formulating our proposed solution, and we thank you for your interest and contributions. We only ask that you direct your comments and input to the other [[Future of Wikipedia]] pages, and allow us to use this Presentation page to create our final class presentation. We look forward to hearing from you!

= [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eaADQTeZRCY Professor Wikipedia says …] =
[[Image:Professor.jpg|100px]] [Warning: contains mild profanity.]

= General public view of Wikipedia's biggest problem [Yosuke] =
* we were trying to reach a segment primarily outside of Wikipedia editor community
* common themes in the responses we received
* majority of responses indicated content issues were the biggest problem

[[Image:Mturk01.jpg]]
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[[Image:Mturkpie01.jpg]] [[Image:Mturkpie02.jpg]]

:'''CONTENT:'''
::''1. Too many people are writing/editing the same article.
::''2. Limit the number of people who can work on one article at any given time, and lock down good articles that shouldn't be changed, or only give access to writers/editors that are trusted.

::''1. Some of the information presented is false.
::''2. A suggestion is to make the material go through a process where it is checked by individuals before it is posted.

::''1. A lot of the information is false or inaccurate.
::''2. Have editors that check information before it is published.

::''1. it is not considered a reliable source by educators
::''2. prove that the information is reliable so students will be able to use it for academic reasons

::''1. The biggest problem with Wikipedia is that not all of the information is legitimate. Wikipedia is not a good source for papers and some of the information is false. Anyone can post information there.
::''2. You can solve the problem by having a team collaborate on user's information before it is posted.

::''1. The biggest problem is its trustworthyness. I'm never sure that I can trust the information on wikipeida.
::''2. This can be fixed by being more careful about putting in citations.

::''1. I think Wikipedia's lack of total credibility is its biggest problem. Many entries lack citations verifying the accuracy.
::''2. I think the problem can be solved by finding editors to check the accuracy of the entries made by people.

::''1. I think too many big information on a given topic. Information that is unnecessary for a common man.
::''2. Wikipedia can be made short perhaps a link for "advanced reading" given seperately and only the basic information in the main page.

::''1. The grammar and sentence structure is often wrong or confusing.
::''2. Use grammar check and make people edit the texts.

::''1. The biggest problem is some of it is more opinion than fact.
::''2. A way to solve this is just to have the writer mention facts, and not on opinion or speculation.

::''1: The biggest problem is that most of the articles lack references and professionalism.
::''2: One solution is not to allow just any user to edit or create an article with providing good and "quality" references first, and then having a professional to look over the article and make sure it meets high quality standards before being published.

::''1. I think the biggest problem with the current Wikipedia is that quite a few things, such as medical terms or conditions, are either not even listed or only have a very, very basic explanation.
::''2. I think you can solve those problems by working on collecting & posting more detailed information about topics you only have a brief description of or that there is currently no information about on the site.

::''1. non expert opinion of explanation about subjects which looks like an expert explanation.
::''2. just do a simple test before letting people to post articals

::''1. I believe there is some inconsistency in the correct knowledge about topics.
::''2. This could be changed by having more experts on topics reviewing the information before it is posted.

::''1. I think the biggest problem is that anybody can submit information, and there is no real way to verify if the information is even correct or not.
::''2. Wikipedia needs to start really investigating who is submitting information and makes sure that correct information isn't tampered with.

::''1. In many articles recent updations are not clear in wiki.Sometimes wrong informations are given or outdated informations.
::''2. Make a team for checking the article ,they can create updations if needed.

::''1. Not peer reviewed.
::''2. Have professionals review articles before posted.

::''1. Extreme left wing bias, as well as failure to monitor those who have extreme bias. The Climategate scientist who edited hundreds of articles in Wikipedia and wiped out all mention of the Medieval Warm Period and anything that included discussion of other causes of global warming (such as solar activity or continuation of human deforestation as agriculture advanced) were removed.
::''2. Allow those who report slander and abuse to have the editor's changes removed. Allow those who have credentials in their field to have a higher value in their edits than general off the street users.

::''1. People write things that aren't correct or accurate on Wikipedia.
::''2. To solve the problem, Wikipedia can hire professionals to verify all information posted on Wikipedia.

::''1. Unverified informatioin.
::''2. Require the production of the reference to support the information's accuracy.

::''1. There is no standard level education or research ability to those who edit it.
::''2. Allow only those who can provide necessary abilities and pass tests and reviews by wikipedia standards.

::''1: GIVING THE UNWANTED MORE INFORMATION TRY TO REDUCE THE INFORMATION
::''2: SHORT THE STORIES INTO THE IMPORTANT LINES ONLY WHICH CAN HELPS US TO SEE THE MAIN POINTS

::''1. The biggest problem with Wikipedia is also its greatest strength - its inclusivity in that anyone can amend add information. A lot of people think that, therefore, the information on the site may not necessarily be accurate, and may even be deliberately misleading. For example : dates of death given for people who are still alive.
::''2. All information should be centrally vetted for accurate content. This should be highly publicized.

::''1. The length of the content, the huge history sections and irrelevant information.
::''2. Cut back on the history and the unneeded text sections, paraphrase.

::''1. Wikipedia describes every concept in a detailed manner; sometimes it is so deep that is confusing to layman.
::''2. This problem could be solved by adding pictorial representation of the data and also by using simple words and sentences.

::''1. Not articles on every person subject
::''2. Not everyone will write articles. Let people suggest articles that should be added, then hire people to write articles on the suggested subjects.

::''1. Anyone can edit the information so the content is unreliable.
::''2. Have a screening procedure by which people have to sign up, state credentials and a method of verifying them and be given a password in order to change or add information.

::''1. Wikipedia lacks in depth articles. Only the basics are available in many cases.
::''2. Could you link it with Google search's database somehow to get the specific result ?

::''1. Incorrect information
::''2. Restrict editing to qualified professionals in that field

::''1. The biggest problem of current Wikipedia is the absence of the staff. There are no persons from Wikipedia that have to verify authenticity of articles and correct misspellings. Wikipedia is a community-based website and that is not great.
::''2. You can solve the problem by hiring a couple of persons that can verify and correct the articles before they are stated on Wikipedia.

::''1. The biggest problem is that you can't confirm the information on there is true.
::''2. Things need to get approved and there needs to be constraints as to who can post

::''1. Whichever page you open , you have and "edit this page" and then "save this edited page" . If required anyone can edit it which can be used for actual editing the contents or otherwise prank.
::''2. I would want "edit this page" and contents to be saved in the page be given to a proper Moderator who can change the details in Wikipedia rather than allowing one and all without any proper control.

::''1. False information here and there.
::''2. Not much else you can do than increase moderation.

::''1. The fact that one still can never be completely sure if the information is correct or unbiased.
::''2. Hire historians, unbiased group to proof everything

::''1. Wikipedia has user edited information, which can sometimes lead to false information in an article. Wiki does check people's work but it may take some time before false information is removed.
::''2. To solve this problem, Wiki should have users go through a screening process before being allowed to add/edit an article.

::''1. Too little information is the problem
::''2. Provide more information on certain topics that have little information will make a huge difference

::''1. I THINK THAT WHEN IAM SEARCHING SOMETHING WIKIPEDIA DO NOT GIVES THE ORIGINAL DATA RELATING TO TOPIC
::''2. U CAN SOLV T THROUGH A BRIEF SURVEY AND STUDY ABT THE PROBLEM

::''1. Some articles seem biased
::''2. More oversight before changes are added/submitted

::''1. I think that it is extremely important to solve the problem of accuracy within the articles. This leads to Wikipedia not being a permissible source for any academic purposes.
::''2. There should be a kind of IQ test before editing is allowed. In fact, limiting editing to registered users only would be a huge step in the right direction! Good luck!

::''1. N/A
::''2. need to edit people postings information whether its is 100% real or not.

::''1. Infromation is too accurate. Sometimes only opinion of the writer is represneted. Some dates, facts may be fake.
::''2. Represent neuteral opinion. Correspond regrading dates/facts to paperback encyclopedias, they are more accurate.

::''1. the information shown in wikipedia for some particular data may not be true.that is there are false information.
::''2. it can be solved by studying more about those and putting the right information

::''1. I think the biggest problem with Wikipedia is a lot of people don't trust the validity of the answers found there.
::''2. In order to solve this problem you need to have accredited sources that provide the answers to the questions asked on the site.

::''1. The content was not updated.
::''2. Please review at least 1 month.

::''1. The biggest problem is accuracy of articles. Who knows what is fact and what is opinion.
::''2. Solving the problem can be partially done by stating Wikipedia does not guaranty the accuracy of an article.

::''1. The realiability of the information is still not where it needs to be. I have found that the information that can be found in Wikipedia is usually fairly reliable, however the website does have a reputation for having things that are not entirely true or correct.
::''2. I feel this can be solved is there are more articles on Wikipedia that are certified by professionals in the area or subject and that can vouch for the truthfulness of the information provided.

::''1. I think the biggest problem with Wikipedia is the fact that they don't have a link available on major sites such as google or yahoo.com. Therefore, making people are less likely to use it.
::''2. We can solve that problem by providing a link to Wikipedia on sites such as yahoo, google, msn, and maybe even on facebook. The website of Wikipedia itself is excellent and very useful to everyday life. They should just make it easier to access it.

::''1. Readability.
::''2. Hire people like me to implement ABC's, accuracy, brevity and clarity!

::''1. The information given isn't always accurate. I am a college student and as a rule we are banned from using Wikipedia as a source for our papers.
::''2. The problem can be solved by ensuring that the information is correct.

::''1. Sometimes the stubs have no information
::''2. request that the stubs actually have at least a link to a site or something

:'''VANDALISM AND ATTRIBUTION:'''
::''1. The biggest problem is people can use anonymity to vandalize Wikipedia in both blatant and sneaky ways.
::''2. The best way to solve the problem is to ban anonymous edits and require a verified email address. This preserves the fundamental principle of allowing anyone to edit because anyone can get a free yahoo or hotmail account and use it to register. But it will deter a lot of the vandalism because signing up for a free email account and then registering a Wiki account is more trouble than it's worth if your intent is to vandalize (and get banned quickly). But if you want to make legitimate contributions, going through the process one time is only a minor inconvenience.

::''1. People vandalising pages or putting unsourced information.
::''2. Only allowing trusted members to add content or edit information on wikipedia's pages

::''1. The ability for someone on a local computer to mess around and change words on the site.
::''2. Make the user register to post comments instead of just letting them post it. As for as myself concerned Wikipedia is on the right path and if somebody feels any hardship it will gradually be eliminated.

::''1. Sometimes you cannot trust the person who gives the information it provides.
::''2. The solution here is to have a background of the person who gave the information in Wikipedia.

::''1. People putting in information that is not correct, when they know it's not correct, but because they think it's funny/amusing.
::''2. Require information be checked by a second person before it's put into an article.

::''1. The biggest problem with Wikipedia is that anyone can edit it.
::''2. I think that those who edit the information on the site should have some sort of qualification and it should be subject to review before being displayed.

::''1. Wikipedia is open to have their definitions being changed and there have been charges that some of the definitions have been hacked and manipulated by people that want to have their version of an event validated on Wikipedia.
::''2. The solution might be to have a review panel to look over disputed items or complaints to see if the definition is valid.

::''1. Too much vandalism and unreliability of information.
::''2. Allow only registered members to edit/create pages. Make sure those registered members are confirmed through CAPTCHA, email, etc. And have more experienced moderators assigned to different categories to check page edits.

::''1. The biggest problem is that anyone can post whatever they want to the pages.
::''2. Have some way to fact-check the information before it is posted to the pages would solve the problem.

::''1. We are never sure the information are accurate.
::''2. Let members of Wikipedia Vote for article's accuracy and display on site the result out 100% (with number of votes).

::''1. There is no real control of who or what is posted.
::''2. There needs to be a "review" standard before items are published. I love to use wilipedia.

::''1. Malicious editing / reversions.
::''2. Require approval for edits e.g. at least 3 people should agree.

::''1. People can input incorrect information.
::''2. Have a review process before info is accepted

::''1. The major points of criticism of Wikipedia, an online encyclopedia, are the claims that the principle of being open for editing by everyone makes Wikipedia unauthoritative and unreliable (see Reliability of Wikipedia), that it exhibits systemic bias, and that its group dynamics hinder its goals.
::''2. There are quires, reams, bales of controversy over what constitutes notability in Wikipedia. somebody will sort it out.

::''1. The biggest problem is that any one can post information on a a subject that's not totally accurate or totally false information.
::''2. Needs a authenticate the information that was put on Wikipedia. Example a professional or some one that can do this.

::''1. There's no way to guarantee if the information is correct.
::''2. Have more reliable sources.

::''1. Quality control. While some entries are great, quality varies widely. Some articles are written by experts in the area, and while this is great, they're understood only by other experts. Then there are the articles that get vandalized constantly.
::''2. Assign admins specifically to different topics. This also means that they can concentrate on one area that they enjoy instead of worrying about the whole wiki.

::''1. The fact that information can be edited to easily.
::''2. Tighter security restrictions on who can edit/add what

::''1. There is too much information of questionable veracity.
::''2. Check the credentials of people posting/editing articles.

::''1. People vandalizing the articles, i.e chancing numbers presented in statistics and facts on various pages
::''2. Each revision should be voted on and checked by others before being shown to the public

::''1. That any one can change anything.
::''2. Have a stricter set of guidelines on who can edit what.

::''1. The biggest issue with Wikipedia is that anyone can edit the information.
::''2. I believe you could allow only people that work for the company or professors from colleges with proof of their work to be able to edit the pages. That way people wont go on and change things just to be funny.

:'''SEARCH AND TECHNICAL INFRASTRUCTURE:'''
::''1. The biggest problem with Wikipedia is not being able to find the meanings to an given subject.
::''2. The solution is to make details more simpler for others to understand so that it will be easier for users to find the answers that they are seeking.

::''1. The main problem is answers are scattered.
::''2. By ordering it we can solve it.

::''1. Using javascript (extensions/UsabilityInitiative/*) causes certain browsers (Mozilla 1.7) to crash.
::''2. Re-write scripts so that they work.

::''1. in my point of view all the answers given by the Wikipedia is perfect. but the arrangement of all answers is not attractive.
::''2. for avoid this problem please make some attraction back round and tabulation usage also must. thank you.

::''1. if we try to search anything in wikipedia means its taking much longer time to load the page than othersites.
::''2. you can increase the bandwidth of the site,thus making it a fast one

::''1. The problem is we need seperate search Engine for all fields.
::''2. plz create an search Engine about all the fields.

::''1: In terms of search pages, if doesn`t find any match it is not even bringing any related topics to its users.
::''2: In cases of not finding any match for search result, it can atleast mention linked search result thru someother search websites.

::''1. PAGE LOADING TAKING LOT OF TIME IN WIKIPEDIA when compared to Google.
::''2. Please make the site in such a way that page loads quickly

::''1. The loading time are too long in some busy time such as 7-10 PM
::''2. I am not sure is the problem appear due to the network company or the Wikipedia. if the problem due to the Wikipedia's system, i think it should improve that problem to build a new system which have better quality system.

::''1. It loads slow. Wherever I have been around the world wikipedia always shows up near the top in search results but I avoid it because it's slow.
::''2. Use all that money that was recently collected and buy more capacity for the site.

::''1. There are too many results, and some of them are not matched with the actual search results. for eg -- zuerich = zurich.
::''2. A proper keywords search should be used, that matches word to word.

:'''GOVERNANCE:'''
::''1. Wikilawyering is the most frustrating part of working on Wikipedia. A casual user like me is easily intimated when more experienced members invoke seemingly obscure Wikipedia policies.
::''2. Simplify and reduce the number of Wikipedia policy pages.

:'''USER INTERFACE / WEBDESIGN:'''
::''1. Color of the website is boring.
::''2. changing the layout is the only solution

::''1. It needs more color.
::''2. Having a new logo might help this problem.

:'''MISCELLANEOUS:'''
::''1. Funding
::''2. Offer a premium upgrade with fuller content, additional resources (eb.com, hoovers.com, amazon.com, bankrate.com, *.edu, *.gov, *.org), integrated video with real-time RSS and twitter feeds. Set the price at something low to entice those who want the upgrade as easy as saying "yes". I recommend no more than $1.99/month * 1,000,000 users the first month = $1,990,000. This would alleviate Jimmy from having to beg 3 times a year for help and would immensely improve the quality of the information. mechturk@ymail.com

::''1. I feel there is no problem in the current wikipedia. Everything is fine and we get solution for everything for everything from Wiki.
::''2. Its better give a link on everypage of wiki for a feedback, that makes to improve the wiki better.

::''1. the big problem about wikipedia is that there is no mailing and chat options with the people who have submitted notes. we people sometimes have problem with notes, so we want to solve our problem. the second problem of wikipedia is that the grammar and words are not simple so only US and UK people can easily understand because its their own language. but its somewhat hard for other language people to understand it.
::''2. so make grammar and words simple for people to understand.

:'''OUTTAKES:''' [[Image:clapperboard.jpg]]
::''1. There aren't pictures of enough marvel comics characters.
::''2. Put more pictures up.

::''1. Global warming is the biggest problem of current Wikipedia.
::''2. It can be solve by growing more trees

::''1. I could not find any problem on Wikipedia. Many times, i am read Wikipedia frequently.
::''2. N/A

::''1. There is absolutely nothing wrong with Wikipedia! Please donot try to "fix" something that is not broken!!!
::''2. N/A

::''1. The current Wikipedia has nothing wrong with it. Wikipedia doesn't have problems to solve.
::''2. N/A

::''1. I think there is no problem in the current Wikipedia. It is a very good source of information.
::''2. N/A

::''1. I think Wikipedia is perfect.
::''2. N/A

= Analysis of other problems considered [Hector] =

== Introduction ==
It might border on banality for us to repeat many of the important criticisms of Wikipedia (and indeed some of the less important criticisms). Nevertheless, we here try to sketch out areas of concern, and in some parts, our rationale for not so pursuing. Several sources provided us with different categories and examples of Wikipedia's criticisms: JZ's book, Wikimedia's [http://usability.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page Usability Initiative], Wikipedia's [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump Village Pump], the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Policies_and_guidelines Policies and guidelines] (which implicitly draw attention to the small and large frictions that can develop within the community), and the enthusiastic critique from commentary such as the [http://wikipediareview.com/index.php?showtopic=28144 Wikipedia Review].

== Picking Our Battles ==
=== On God-Kings and Governance ===
Problems along this vein include:
*The odd status and power of [http://cache.gawker.com/assets/resources/2008/03/jimbobling.jpg Jimbo Wales], a "God-king who may or may not be able to act unilaterally" (JZ 141)
*The reliance on consensus, not on democracy
*The curious nature of a ''highly'' developed collaborative project, which has very wonderfully developed a governance structure and a form of constitutionalism. The level of development, however, can be a hindrance to reform, given the Wikipedians' strong devotion to the project and once more the need for consensus.
For purposes of the project, our group decided that we weren't about to kick out Jimmy, and the Wikipedians themselves as well as other media do a decent job at pointing out his previous [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimbo_wales#Controversy controversies]. Furthermore, the open and consensus-based nature of the Wikipedia project has resulted in very strong and thoughtful (though at times idiosyncratic) arrangements such as the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Five_pillars Five Pillars] that guide the activity of the encyclopedia.
How can we ride on the strengths of such internal machinery while injecting new sources of strength? We believe that the strength, vibrancy, and growth of the Wikipedia community could bring new avenues of improvement.

=== Contradictory Missions? ===
This broad, rather generative project was kick-started with an outrageous idea and clever, new (for 2001) web-publishing software. Other than a few key initial nudges (as well as the code behind the structure), the community was left to fill in the gaps on its own. Some of the resulting kinks include:
*The Inclusionism vs. Deletionism debate
*An interpretation of the banner project as an attempt to compile An Online Encyclopedia or The Sum of All Human Knowledge
*The stark differences in the vision and execution in the different language Wikipedias. (Compare the English and German sites)
Much has been written regarding the inclusionism/deletionism debate, from the popular media to the depths of obscure Wikipedia discussion pages. As strongly as some of us (Hector) may feel one way or the other (why exclude valuable information about minor Star Wars characters?!) about the matter, adding another voice to the shouting match would probably not settle most of the disagreements.

=== Quality===
Our visiting friends from the Wikipedia Review were quite keen to correctly point out the differences between '''perceived''' and '''actual''' accuracy within Wikipedia. And indeed, different challenges are at hand in allaying the different concerns of different readers, who might be using Wikipedia to
*study for a med school exam,
*learn more about their Senator,
*write a 6th grade history paper, or
*write an Associated Press fluff piece about quality concerns in Wikipedia.
Currently, the most powerful tool in Wikipedia's arsenal against vandalism and inaccuracy is its editing base and the large number of eyeballs the community provides. Once again, the health and growth of the Wikipedia community are vital factors, as are the current policies regarding sources, references, and neutrality. We think that good solutions can tap into the project's very strengths here.

=== Issues in Education ===
When schools and colleges express concern over their students using or possibly misusing Wikipedia in their academic work, Wikipedia's own response has generally taken the mildly surprising form of acknowledging its limitations and underlining its proper use as a tertiary source. Even so, this tertiary source is one that dominates many a student's initial research paths and quite often ends up being the only source consulted. [http://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Bookshelf_Project See Bookshelf Project]

Another manner of addressing this problem can be to engage the students to collaborate with the Wikipedia project themselves. In doing so, they might learn more about an assigned topic (given the increasingly stringent requirements of relevance and citation within Wikipedia), learn more about collaborative projects more generally (with the rules, benefits, and pratfalls of such a subculture), all the while helping with Wikipedia's overall aims of further compiling human knowledge.

Various articles and even Wikipedia pages document how others have scratched at this possibility. While our own group's proposal is not directly about classroom participation in the Wikipedia community, we think that our concerns with streamlining certain forms of community participation could easily be ported towards more specific pedagogical implementations.

=== Identity and Growth of the Contributing Community ===
*Wikipedia could be considered both an encyclopedia and a movement
*Some have brought attention to rates of editorship
*Wikimedia wrestles with the question of membership in the Community
*What distinguishes a user from being a reader, casual editor, or experienced editor?
==== Barriers to Entry====
*What are some of the (many) reasons that a new user can be discouraged from editing?
*Note the Wikipedia Community's own [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:NEWBIES concerns], comprehensively addressing ways to make the newbies feel more welcome.
==== Financial Sustainability====
*We are punting this to Bridgespan

== Honing In ==
=== Interaction with the Community-Centric Nature of Wikipedia ===
* As it stands, Wikipedia does have a constitution, albeit a bit more like England's constitution
* What improvements could be consistent with Wikipedia's strengths, while providing forward-thinking alternatives?
* A choice to work within the hilarious environment that is a consensus-driven open collaboration
=== Regarding Deliverability ===
* Considering the reams of electronic text that have been written on the topic, we decided that a simple, ''actually'' implementable solution might fare better
* Wikipedia is quite open and quite dynamic. But one does get a sense that the experienced editors rule, with added clout stemming from knowing the levers and style of the community.
* Can we suggest a perspective or solution that can dovetail with the aims of the present ''and future'' Wikipedia community?

= Wikimedia and Bridgespan's initiatives [Franny] =
== ''Wikimedia Usability Initiative'' - the studies ==
[[image:Usability.jpeg|150px]]
:[http://usability.wikimedia.org/wiki/Usability_and_Experience_Study Usability and Experience Study]
:[http://usability.wikimedia.org/wiki/Usability,_Experience,_and_Progress_Study Progress Study]

== Overview of Bridgespan involvement with Wikipedia ==
[[image:Bridgespan.jpeg|300px]]

- [[Image:Wikistrategy.jpg|200px]] initiative
- approaches and perspective on wikipedia and its problems
:- think of Wikipedia as a movement in addition to a non-profit organization under the direction of a board
:- [http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Emerging_strategic_priorities emerging strategic priorities]
- grassroots efforts and duplicative smaller initiatives are helpful; efficiency is not main concern

== Our preliminary analysis ==
:Key problems:
::1. Quality and reliability of content (e.g. factual errors on Wikipedia lowers the reliability and credibility of its content)
::2. Wikipedia's editor base is decreasing (existing editors are losing interest and it is difficult to recruit new editors)
:::* Deals with issues of:
::::- community
::::- motivations
::::- outreach and public relations
:* Must reach out to user base outside of Wikipedia's community; How does that user base perceive Wikipedia and its problems?
:* What demographic are we reaching out to? how will we reach that demographic?
:* Utilizing crowdsourcing techniques to highlight factual inaccuracies? How can we harness [http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/cyberlaw_winter10/Talk:Future_of_Wikipedia voluntary contributory energies]?
:* Organization and filtering techniques will make it easier to match factual inaccuracies with editors (new or existing) willing and able to make corrections

= Proposed Solutions =
== FireFox browser extension [Amanda] ==

'''PRODUCT SPEC:'''

Wikipedia Educational Browser Extension
[http://www.slideshare.net/amandapey/wikipedia-group Browser Spec Images]

'''WRITTEN DESCRIPTION:'''

This browser extension serves many purposes: first, it is meant to facilitate the identification of factual errors within Wikipedia by creating a user-friendly way to catalog the errors using Wikipedia's taxonomy - which you can find under the open task bar in this link <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Community_portal>, second, it provides an inroad for new potential editors to interact with the site through micro-contributions and build familiarity with Wikipedia process, third it teaches users to do not completely rely on the text he/she is reading and to point him/her to which areas need contribution [?], fourth, it would also work as a way to bring the discussion page to the surface, teaching them to "discuss before editing".

What to Build (Description) â please forgive the non-technical nature of this spec. We are happy to provide additional information including more views if needed.

After the user installs the plugin, there should be a logo in the bottom right corner of the browser and an entry added to the âtoolsâ bar of the browser.

We imagine the interaction as follows:

When the user spots an error, he or she can click on our logo in the corner of the browser or click the entry in the Tools menu and a small window will pop up from the bottom of the browser (see below image for basic window design). Then, he or she would highlight the text that contains what the users suspects to be an error. The text would be auto-pasted into the text box. Then the user can add commentary and additional references. After the user adds commentary on the error and clicks submit the two text fields will be sent to two places â our database and a landing page where the accuracy flags will be delivered in real-time.

Moreover, the script would allow the user to see, if he/she desires which areas of the text are highly controversial and had many people commenting on them. This would be made by attributing hotter colors to more disputed/commented paragraphs and lighter colors to the others. This functionality is inspired by [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stet_%28software%29 this tool] developed for the purpose of revising the GPL licenses.

The text should disappear from the two boxes and instead be replaced by a popup dialog box that says âthank you for your contribution.â

== Implementation - First steps ==
:1. Name application
:2. Reach out to Mozilla community to build proposed FireFox application extension.
:3. Work with Wikimedia/Bridgespan to incorporate landing page and application with Wikipedia.

== Suggestions from Mozilla community [Bruno] ==

*Use [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stet_%28software%29 Stet] to highlight controverted parts of the text
**[http://gplv3.fsf.org/comments/gplv3-draft-4.html#gpl3.verbatimcopying.0.0 Example of this tool]
*Advantages:
**raise awareness of controversies in each article;
**bring the discussion page to the surface making the user more acquainted with the idea of reading that information critically
*Problems:
**How to integrate past discussions in the software database?
**How to get people to use the tool?

= Other solutions we considered [Bruno] =
==Beta Versions==
*Inspired by the open source community production system: decentralized production and semi-centralized control over the (semi) final product
**Wikipedia has been discussing this idea in the context of biographies of living persons
*Advantages:
**Reduced vandalism and increased accuracy in articles
**Establishment of a culture of discussing/reviewing articles before pushing them live
*Problems:
**How to deal with the eventual backlog of edits to be approved? This would only be solved by also increasing the number of "power editors"
**How to determine who is promoted to this higher level?

==Campaign to encourage users to "donate" edits==
===Objectives===
*Convert users into editors
*Focus on underdeveloped articles that could be identified with the tool described above
*Introduce newbies to Wikipedia's writing style and rules

==Strengthening relationship and partnering with secondary school systems (Franny)==
*Plugging in landing page to school system
*Lesson plan

= Discussion Questions =
1) How do we keep this tool from being an invitation to massively and scrupulously edit only topics like the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taylor_swift Taylor Swift] article?

2) What should we name our application?
:* Wiki Peer Review
:* WikiNation; WikiWorld
:* Our Wikipedia
:* Wikipedia For Life (W4L)
:* Wikipedia Wizard

3) Compare the average discussion happening in a Wikipedia [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Taylor_Swift talk page] and one happening on a [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pb-K2tXWK4w Youtube video]. Which one is better?

4) Might it be worthwhile to be able to click on a piece of a wikipedia page and find out who added/edited it? (Craig also suggested that a reputation system might be worthwhile)
: for example, [http://wikitrust.collaborativetrust.com/screenshots screenshots from WikiTrust]
: for an example of a "reputation of edit" issue on Wikipedia, see [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mzoli's mzoli] (a page added by [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Wales Jimbo Wales])

5) What about a pop-up, after someone has been for a while in Wikipedia, asking for help? A sufficiently user-friendly mechanism could nudge the user into disclosing her/his areas of expertise, and then show stub pages or redlinks accordingly.

6) Journalism Schools are going through a major transformation as their profession is currently being brought into question itself. For example, Columbia School of Journalism recently invested in the Tow Center to focus on Digital Journalism. [http://www.journalism.columbia.edu/cs/ContentServer/jrn/1165270052298/JRN_News_C/1212612063557/JRNNewsDetail.htm See Tow Center]. That stated, in addition to Frannie's point about incorporating your platform into a school requirement - I wonder what about approaching Journalism schools. This really would be a great way to get free labor from the professionals that share almost all of Wikipedia's most fundamental goals - especially its 4 pillars.

Day 8 Predictions

2010-01-14T01:20:38Z

Vbaranetsky: /* Due Process Defaults */

For those who aren't familiar, here are [http://creativecommons.org/dmca/ Creative Commons'] and [http://www.google.com/dmca.html Google's] explanations of DMCA Notice and Takedown Procedures, one example of Due Process online

==Should there be Due Process Online==
It seems like there should be, though I can't predict where the folks from Google believe it should come from. On the one hand, you might think that Google is "just" a company, and their due process obligations are not greater than those of any other private entity who effects your life: i.e. send a letter to the complaint department and pray. At the entire other end of the spectrum, you might think that Google is such a critical point-of-control online that the government should have no problem regulating them in areas from copyright to even their handling of search results and their imposition of the death penalty. My guess is that Google believes itself to be in the former, "leave-us-alone" pile.

It's great how the website with the article on the Google death penalty was filled with mostly internal links, which I'm guessing are intended to raise its Google rank.

As it is, Google and other service providers like facebook are a black box. In the Death Penalty article it seemed that a site could be given the death penalty without even knowing it had done something wrong. Clearer guidelines are needed and more open and transparent procedures for resolving cases. Our guest is unlikely to be receptive to imposing additional procedure and transparency, given the extra burdens that would place on Google, but maybe an appeal to the "Don't be evil" side of the company would help?

==Due Process Defaults==

There are at least two default possibilities for due process of takedowns on the internet: (1) Due process afforded before takedown (default on), and (2) take down immediately upon request and afford due process to restore the content (default off). Google will probably take the stance that (2), default off, is a more appropriate standard for internet due process. Since internet content can do a great deal of harm in a very short period of time, it makes sense to take it down immediately (after someone has complained that it might be harmful information) and create a process by which the uploaded can ask that it be restored. That way the damage of offensive content is mitigated, but could not be unilaterally censored. (also, this process probably does the best job of limiting the liability of companies like Google, YouTube, etc). I think one of the biggest problem companies such as Google face is however that after summary proceedings, which in Europe can take more than 3 months after the lawsuit was filed, the procedure on the merits can take years and years (up to 6 or even more years), so it takes too much time until the case comes to an end (unless parties are willing to settle). Another problem are the huge damages (imposed on a daily basis in case of non-compliance) that are imposed very easily and run up very quickly. I would like to hear the thoughts of the guests on this.

:The counter argument to the above is that this cripples the generatively of the internet. If anyone can request that content be taken down which web companies must comply with, it would be possible for anyone to (at least temporarily) gag the production of new content. A better compromise might be to require that the requester make some showing of who they are and how they will be harmed (at something resembling a probable cause standard) before web companies must comply with such a complaint.
:Due process is needed for the protection of the party against which actions to be taken, and in the interest of public notice. According to Facebook terms of service, an account will be disabled if it is found to repeatedly infringe other people's intellectual property rights. Here a due process is needed to disable an account on Facebook. How many times does "repeatedly" refer to? Who have the final say on this "infringement" of other people's intellectual property rights? Hope to hear more from our guest on their practice to deal with this, and how they balance between the alleged owner of the right and the one against whom the action to be taken.

It would also be interesting to hear how different companies have complained and whether any of them have slayed the Giant - known as Google. Have any ever threatened back or been able to have some worthy leverage against Google?

==Google and China==
Although today's class isn't about this topic, it's hard to believe it won't come up. It will be interesting to hear whether the Google guest will have a response to Jason's concern that Google disengaging with China will allow unscrupulous actors to dominate the world's biggest internet market, and that Google, even if it had to make compromises, could do more good than evil by working inside China.
:Yes, The voice of "Google in China" not "Google China" is around for a while. It will be interesting to hear how Google will do business in China if it finally decided to pull out. This will have a huge impact on not only the internet users in China, but also the resellers and strategic partners of Google China.

:I think there is some connection between the Google-China news and today's topic. From a macro perspective, what kind of due process should be given to Google (or any other type of Internet service provider) before the decision is made to force them to withdraw? Today's speaker should have some good insights into Google's experiences with Turkey to might help us understand what the coming fight with China may look like. Another thing to consider with regard to today's topic is whether there should be (if any) due process afforded to China itself - by releasing the publicity statement, Google is essentially making wide allegations against (presumably) the Chinese Government - does this raise due process concerns? Was this the best or only way to handle it? It certainly got the world's attention, and I do find it doubtful that China would have responded in any other way.

Day 6 Predictions

2010-01-12T04:11:08Z

Vbaranetsky:

Daniel: Our guests will probably discuss at length the challenges that Dispute Finder and most web-based cooperative tools bump into while attempting to harness input from virtual crowds. I guess they will talk about Dispute Finderâs design difficulties, such as costs and trade-offs (between precision and recall, between user-friendliness and number / quality of features, etc). Theyâll most likely also summon stories from the interviews discussed in the document we received, perhaps to illustrate content-layer problems with measurement of "information sources reliability"; usersâ misunderstandings / trouble with logic operations; and group biases.
I would love to hear their views on the [http://courses.ischool.berkeley.edu/i256/f09/lectures/RobEnnalsGuestLecture.ppt proposed use of Turks] to improve the database of disputed claims and arguments, as well as on the current biases of the disputed facts / arguments presently listed by the software.

:Jason: I predict that there will be a good deal of discussion of what Daniel calls the "user-friendliness" aspect of these tools - and I hope there is, because it's critical. Specifically, what is the necessary ratio between DisputeFinder or Herdict "passive users" and "active reporters" to make a project successful? I say this because both Herdict and DisputeFinder look somewhat sparsely-populated for them to be maximally-useful right now. For example, Herdict is [http://www.herdict.org/web/explore/country/CN;jsessionid=4A2D95D3EB7A8F96B073DE77D3654D53 reporting] that 2 Chinese users have reported YouTube as inaccessible. How do I interpret that? What percent of people who might know about and like Herdict in China are reporting back to Herdict? We know that Wikipedia is successful in spite of the fact that only a very small portion of readers become really regular editors - but Wikipedia is also one of the most visited sites in the world. I hope we discuss what strategies these organizations are employing to build participation for these more niche offerings. [[User:Jharrow|Jharrow]] 18:20, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

:Reuben: When Daniel talks about the challenges of web-based cooperative tools, my first thought is about the challenge of a achieving a critical mass. I poked around with Dispute Finder for just over an hour this morning and during the entirety of my browsing the New York Times, Washington Post, Miami Herald, and Slate I only came across one disputed claim. No offense to America's news media, but my guess is that what I read is more disputed than that, but that there just aren't enough people trolling the news sites and adding claims to the dispute finder database for the service to actually be that helpful yet. Jason's point about passive users versus active reporters is important. I too would like to hear about how to reach a critical mass and how many active users are needed in order to have a useful service. I'd also like to hear about the potential for users to participate in a more passive manner - notwithstanding the privacy issues, if Herdict could just monitor my browsing and automatically send a report whenever I come across an inaccessible website, something akin to a Last.fm for my click stream, the data would seem to be much more complete than simply recording whatever I choose to report. Never underestimate the laziness of the average person. My prediction is that our guests acknowledge the shortcomings in their current offerings while remaining optimistic about the possibilities of community based technology. [[User:ReubRodriguez|ReubRodriguez]] 18:49, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

:Amanda:Totally agree with Jason and Reuben here on hoping to hear Daniel's definition of what it means to have "critical mass." This is a huge challenge in much of the UGC world - how many people you need to really establish credibility, and at what point you start to become relevant. Attracting users is probably the largest hurdle I can think of for any site that relies on user content - so how they do it and what strategies have worked would be very helpful.

::Ramesh: I agree with Reuben on the usefulness of Dispute Finder and Herdict. While Wikipedia (and Yelp, and a few other sites) show that sometimes, you can get useful content for free, that's not always the case. DisputeFinder didn't find many disputes when I did my regular scan of news websites, even when reading articles on topics like medical marijuana and same-sex marriage. It seems like applications like DisputeFinder and Herdict would be better if they were more automated -- if DisputeFinder automatically attached itself to controversial terms, and especially, as Reuben suggested, if Herdict was not based on self-reporting.

:: Franny: I agree that a threshold level of dedicated trusted users (see Vicki's comments below) resolves many problems. I hope our guests will discuss the strategies used by DisputeFinder, or any other website initiatives dependent on a large and broad variety of user input: (1) to attract that user base; and (2) to cope during the interim period while they continue to try to attract that user base. For example, I wonder to what extent DisputeFinder has considered building in redundancy as a means of increasing the accuracy of its results (to borrow a strategy from CrowdFlower), or perhaps some combination of automation and redundancy.

::Andrew: I hope the discussion of how to achieve critical mass focuses as much on instilling/spreading an ethos as it does on ways to automate the DF system. Tools don't work without the accompanying human motivation: the wiki architecture is awesome, but (see our Predictions pages) they don't necessitate anything about a page's structure, and that's where the Wikipedian ethos steps in. No matter how passive DF/Herdict eventually allow their users to be, those users will (probably) still have to take the first step of registering, installing the plug-in etc. To do that, they have to be persuaded of the importance of the problem the tools are meant to address. Until the supposed echo chamber, "daily me" effect of Internet discourse becomes a mainstream concern, DF will not be a mainstream tool.

::Sheel: I agree that critical mass is a huge issue, but I think validity is more of an issue; Reuben's description of his searches on the NY Times infer that many statements that most of us would claim to be disputed are simply not being caught by the program. I think DisputeFinder, while trying to make its technology stronger, should focus on instituting some sort of citations for all the information it crawls. In other words, whether the statement is 'disputed' or not, the plugin should (perhaps in the form of clickable footnotes), find citations for them; these can be links to 'valid' websites, scientific papers, press releases, etc. I'd be interested in asking whether DisputeFinder thinks it could move into the citation space and expand its scope. [[User:Style|Style]] 02:35, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

:Tyler: I completely agree with above thoughts about Herdict and DisputeFinder needing to collect a critical mass of users before becoming useful. This seems to echo the idea that wikipedia was not useful for its first several years because it did not possess a critical mass of articles. However, I think there are some differences because individual pieces of wikipedia could become useful before wikipedia as a whole in that individual articles could become independantly useful before wikipedia became as comprehensive as it is today. I don't see that Herdict or DisputeFinder have the same capability to be useful while scaling because they require users to explicitly decide to install plugins and begin using their services before any benefit can be gained by that user. Wikipedia was able to gradually grow in prominence as users occasionally found information on wikipedia that they wanted through web searches. I am wondering if Herdict or DisputeFinder can take advantage of automated solutions to increase their seemingly as-yet sparsely populated databases? For example, could web crawling robots be used to identify at least some inaccesible sites with the expectation that this list could then be pruned by users rather than expecting it to materialize entirely by user submissions? Could DisputeFinder use a web crawling robot, in conjunction with sophisticated text parsers to begin identifying at least some topics that clearly involve dispute? I expect and hope that the guests will discuss some strategies for increasing the datasets of their projects to the point that they can obtain their critical mass of users and data more quickly. [[User:TylerLacey|TylerLacey]] 19:49, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

::Michael: In terms of achieving critical mass for utility, herdict seems to have an additional challenge to wikipedia and DisputeFinder. When users make contributions to wikipedia or DisputeFinder, the information they provide remains useful indefinitely (for the most part). Herdict, on the other hand requires constant updating. This is entirely possible (as twitter and facebook demonstrate), but it reflects an additional challenge. I would be curious to hear if there is any data to determine what the different requirements of such different sites would be. [[User:Mfeld|Mfeld]] 23:19, 11 January 2010 (UTC)
:: I'm also wandering whether DisputeFinder might face the same problem as Wikipedia as the the composition of the DisputeFinder community (if there is one?). Do the guests have only clue on who the people are that are flagging certain statements? Do these people reflect the different composition of society?

:: Daniel: Tyler has a great point here, so maybe we should ask if the Dispute Finder team has thought of an interesting dispute to explore well enough in terms of paraphrases / arguments, so that users could experience the full potential of the software and then be lured into becoming frequent contributors. [[User:Darbix|darbix]] 01:22, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

: Yosuke:One of the biggest problems in the internet is the trustworthiness of the articles. DisputeFinder is attacking this problem directly, so I'm very excited to hear what is going on there. As you pointed out here, there are few users and it is hard to say it's really useful right now, but I guess the critical mass is coming around the corner. For example, social bookmark webservice users (like diggers) could begin using DisputeFinder, because they like to comment on the issue in the meta-pages. Personally, when Japanese version of the DisupteFinder has launched, I'd love to install it. [[User:Yosuke|Yosuke]] 03:16, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Emily:
Dispute Finder bears an inherent flaw: individuals, not algorithms, decide whom and what to trust for information. Consider the watch on your wrist. If your watch starts to get the time wrong, you might try to fix the watch. You hope and pray your watch starts giving you accurate, dependable information because you like your watch. You might even love your watch. But, if it continues to betray your trust, and the people in your trusted circle insist your watch is wrong, you give up. You decide to trust a new watch, but your new watch will probably be reminiscent of your old watch with respect to personal taste, experience, and preferences. Most people are intuitive enough (though they donât necessarily convert insights into complex conclusions about source x versus source y) to know that 120 seconds of live, relatively unedited sound on Fox News Live or MSNBC Dayside is less likely to contain factually accurate information â even if relatively unimportant, like the location of a fire, or the total number of casualties in a mass shootingâ than a compulsively edited, fact-checked tome in the Sunday NY Times magazine, the Economist, or the New Yorker.

Article 3.5 of the Dispute Finder document, âDetermining Trustworthy Sources,â seems a bit absurd. It actually acknowledges the marketability challenges of its own software: âUnfortunatelyâ¦the sites people actually trust are often those that share the personâs own point of view.â So, again, what is this software and what, really, is the point? Segway into âCross-cutting themes.â Save the world. How? Is Dispute Finder intended to help people sue other people for libel? Richard Jewel (now deceased) had a reasonably compelling case. Thatâs probably why he successfully sued (for libel) every organization, from CNN, to NBC, to the NY Post. All settled. He collected from each of them. But Richard Jewel didnât need help from Dispute Finder. Richard Jewel had a case.

Cross-cutting themes: âChange the technology, save the world.â Okay, why not? Isnât there something else smart people at Intel and UC Berkeley could be doing to make the world better? Last November, the New York Times produced an alarming story [http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/29/us/29foodstamps.html] about the food stamp program in America(ânow expanding at a pace of about 20,000 people a day.â) Also no shortage of children in custody. Last December, the New York Times obtained â and reported on [http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/14/nyregion/14juvenile.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=new%20york%20family%20court%20juvenile%20department%20of%20justice%20youth&st=cse]â a âconfidential draft reportâ prepared by a task force appointed by NY gov David Paterson: âNew York Stateâs current approach fails the young people who are drawn into the system, the public whose safety it is intended to protect, and the principles of good governance that demand effective use of scarce state resources.â Story also says the situation was so bad that the DOJ, at one point, was threatening to âtake over.â

So, if Intel is interested in contributing, how about addressing real problemsâhelping real peopleâ that could affect real, collective societal change and improvement? Children and education seem like obvious places to start. Basics like hardware and mentors could go a long way. Children in poverty struggle with range of issues, including asthma, low self-esteem, obesity, and depression. Consider children in places like the South Bronx (Jonathan Kozolâs children [http://www.amazon.com/Amazing-Grace-Children-Conscience-Nation/dp/0060976977]): allocation of resources in places like this (and/or lower-middle class communities), especially from companies like Intel, could change lives; give voices to people from whom we do not often hear.

Interested to hear thoughts on Internet privacy, though I'm not sure adults have an expectation of privacy anywhere [http://gawker.com/5444885/facebooks-mark-zuckerberg-on-your-erased-privacy-these-are-the-social-norms-now] on the Internet. If you want privacy, don't put yourself on the Internet. Finally, on the subject of online harassment, if we accept that the Internet is a public place, to what extent is it acceptable to regulate online communication, including but not limited to comments deemed 'offensive' on blogs?

: Lien: Although this is not the subject of today, I do believe we can still exceptations about privacy on the net. It is not because this is a difficult issue and the level of privacy goes down as more and more people also post personal information about others on the net, that we cannot have expectations anymore. The same is true for the regulation of online communication, it is not because the Internet is a public space, that even public speech cannot be regulated in one way or another.

Predictions. Guests will be nice. Class will be nice. Hope to hear more about Dispute Finder's business model.

Tyler: I would like an explanation for why the contributor of a disputed claim on DisputeFinder needs to provide a link to an article that illustrates the opposing point of view. If there are no article, isn't it still valuable to identify a claim as disputed, especially since this could break DisputeFinder's dataset building-process into two parts? I could enter a disputed claim without a link to another source and then another user, once alerted to the potential dispute could track down and enter the article. I see the argument that an issue is not actually in dispute if there is no contradictory reports of it, but I wonder if an entry into DisputeFinder should be enough to create a "dispute", rather than requiring a link. I agree that even a blog post outlining the opposing point of view would be more helpful than a "dispute" without any link, but I'm not sure that it should be a requirement. Today I entered a disputed claim as "Works prepared by amazon mechanical turkers are considered works for hire under the United States Copyright Act" to see if DisputeFinder would highlight portions of our wiki (which does not currently have any disputed claims, according to DisputeFinder) but I was stalled when it asked for a link to a web location outlining this dispute. Should I have entered the page on this wiki where we discuss the issue? I hope that the guests discuss this aspect of the DisputeFinder process. [[Special:Contributions/68.65.169.179|68.65.169.179]] 20:11, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

:Tyler: Another question that came up during my lunchtime discussion of DisputeFinder with some of our classmates: is there a practical way that DisputeFinder could leverage the existing collection of topics that wikipedia has flagged as a "point of view" or "non-neutral" to boost DisputeFinder's database of disputes?

: Elisabeth: Actually, I tend to think the need to cite an article is a useful safeguard. It mirrors Wikipedia's rule that contributors can't do original research, and I think it exists for the same reason: to keep spammer-activists from simply flinging their views into these trusted systems. It's just to easy to go around labeling hundreds of things as disputed. Now, you could just go write a wiki on Amazon Mechanical Turk and then cite to it on dispute finder, much as anyone can publish an article on SSRN and then write a Wikipedia page, but it does provide some measure of protection (it stopped Tyler). One alternative solution is for DisputeFinder to flag in a lighter color, or a different color, claims that are marked disputed but have no article support.

Victoria: I completely agree with the former point that DisputeFinder's success is dependent on gaining a critical mass of end users. In addition to the need for more users, I think the platform is very trusting of the end users themselves. DisputeFinder allows for a lot of users to subjectively claim anything is disputed even when it begins to reach the absurd. EscapistMagazine.com posted in June 2009, "the 2009 Iran Presidential election was rigged," "Global warming does not exist" and "Recycling is good for the environment" were disputed. Although theoretically the idea of a marketplace of ideas works - without the appropriate robust marketplace DisputeFinder becomes a caricature of the truth-seeking function of free speech.

:Michael: I am interested to hear the speakers from DisputeFinder describe why they believe the simple knowledge of a dispute is socially valuable. The extent to which a statement is disputed seems like it would be more valuable. I'd be interested to hear if our speakers expect to include a scale of dispute to their software, such as that used in Herdict (the different colored sheep).
:I predict that DisputeFinder will view one of its most difficult challenges to be determining the trustworthiness of sources. Unlike CrowdFlower, DisputeFinder may not be able to simply use agreement as an accurate rubric for which user-supplied links are trustworthy and which are spam. Since the nature of the site is to highlight disagreement, it doesn't seem possible to use user agreement as the benchmark of useful data for their service. I would be interested to hear what DisputeFinder uses as its criteria for determining which data is reliable (meaning non-spam). [[User:Mfeld|Mfeld]] 23:39, 11 January 2010 (UTC)
:: Elisabeth: I'm not sure why a crowd-voting system isn't appropriate--after all, people on both sides of a given debate can vote up sources they consider most trustworthy--but I'd be interested to hear how our speakers think it has worked.

Juan: I'm interested in hearing their thoughts on the collection of disputed claims. As the material mentioned, most people who were interviewed are interested in applying Dispute Finder to particular areas that affect them. Thus, how will they collect data for areas not that popular or useful to most people, especially there are no other incentives to encourage claim creation. I guess building up community as wikipedia or herdict did might be one solution. The question is how this community can be built up. Also, I kind of feel Dispute Finder overlaps with the search services provided by Google and other search engines. If people are interested in one topic, they can always use Google or other search services to find the corroborations or objections on it. By determining trustworthy resources, can I say Dispute Finder sort of limited the available resources to people? To me, "trustworthy resources" is more like a subjective concept, everyone can has his/her own trustworthy resources. Is there a need to have a website telling us which resource is trustworthy, especially the site itself said it is a difficult tradeoff to determine the trustworthy resources.

Sharona: I totally agree with everyone's comments about the lack of a critical mass, and I would be curious to hear how they think they could theoretically gain one. Would people actually be drawn to this the way they are to edit wikipedia pages? Is it simply a matter of a marketing strategy? Another question I had while reading the website and the other document was regarding the phrase "trusted source." Who defines that? The users? What if people start claiming that what DisputeFinder may deem "unreliable" is a trusted source in their view? Who will stop them, and will that be antithetical to DisputeFinder's ethos?
: Hector: Indeed, I'd be interested to see the demographics of DF's users (considering a perception of skeptical/activist internet users based out of Berkeley)

Emily: Sharona, not sure anyone needs to "stop them." Even a cursory search for articles on the Internet citing "Dispute Finder" suggests this thing hasn't picked up much steam: 0 results in google news; 1 at NYT.com (but the story was produced out of the recently launched Bay Area blog!). Curious to hear if others, including guests, have responses to your "marketing strategy" question.

Elisabeth: looking at all of our readings together--on Dispute Finder, new.net, and Herdict--makes me think about how we're creating an increasingly atomized web, where users have remarkably different experiences in the Internet space. It's not just that people are accessing different content. Some people are passively consuming stories from CNN, others are carefully sculpting an information diet from RSS feeders and DisputeFinder trusted sources, and still others are contributing to all different kinds of tasks, from tracking filtering around the world to working on SETI. Even "contribution" work can be active or passively happening in the background (Wikipedia is active; SETI is background, and DisputeFinder and Herdict are active now but could be passive if some of the tech suggestions above are implemented). Extensions like Readability and the popularity of mobile phone browsers make the web look totally different for different users, and if new.net takes off, it won't even be interoperable between ISPs! The question of "how we interact with the internet" thus will become even more complex as the user experience splinters even further. And so (dragging this mediation back to class), I would like to hear how Herdict and DisputeFinder see their audiences. Is the vision global acceptance? Or is it a critical mass large enough to get the job done--to identify most blocked sites and most disputes claims--and specialized use only by those who are particularly interested in the topic?

: Elisabeth: and one theme that connects all of these services is the need for active users. How do we foster a culture in which people think they have a responsibility to contribute to the web (beyond even contributing pure content), instead of just using it?

Lien: Although there aren't any guests of HerdictWeb, I think it would be interested to see on the website as to why a certain site is blocked. Sometimes, there might be legitimate reasons of a government to blog a certain site. In Belgium, e.g., a site that indicated what the exact address is of people convicted for paedophilia, was blocked by the government for privacy reasons.

: Bruno: actually there is [http://www.herdict.org/web/about someone from Herdict], although he is not exactly a guest ;)

Bruno: Achieving a critical mass of users is really essential for such kind of projects. In order to scale up participation a project manager should be concerned about what are the motivations for users to participate and focus the initial marketing strategies on certain groups to which the project can be more appealing. Just like the experience of our wiki has shown, as well as Wikipedia's experience also seems to corroborate, initial participation tends to become an example for future participation. In this sense, I would be curious to learn whether the analysis of users participation to this moment would reveal the existence of an identifiable group(s) to which outreach efforts should be focused and whether there has been an activity directed at community building.

Day 6 Predictions

2010-01-11T21:44:08Z

Vbaranetsky:

Day 5 Predictions

2010-01-08T02:58:30Z

Vbaranetsky: New page: Victoria: My prediction is that the speakers are going to be extolling the virtues of Wikipedia and explaining that although the site has gone under some transformations it is still a vibr...

Victoria: My prediction is that the speakers are going to be extolling the virtues of Wikipedia and explaining that although the site has gone under some transformations it is still a vibrant force. I would concede that I think it is. Most people I know still immediately turn to Wikipedia for a quick run down of a topic or an answer to a quick question. However, as time moves on the site is becoming less innovative and more standard. I would like to ask them about their understanding and personal experiences in trying to keep Wikipedia young. Moreover, having read that 85% of the contributors to Wikipedia are male I'd specifically love to ask Phoebe whether she feels that the articles are written from the male gaze and lack the other gender's perspective.

Day 4 Predictions

2010-01-07T18:01:17Z

Vbaranetsky:

Amanda: I am very interested to hear Chuck's take on the relationship between the government, large corporations like Microsoft, and the defcon-attending hacker community (like the L0pht group mentioned in the Wired article). Is the government receptive to both groups? I imagine the relationship specifically between the hacker community and the government can become tense because the interests of both groups is not exactly aligned and is sometimes conflicting. Have they been able to successfully work together around a common threat like cybersecurity? While I imagine the government often tries to recruit from the hacker community, and I'm interested to hear where they draw the lines legally as far as subversive behavior within the hacker community (ie do they bend the rules for the sake of potential advances in cybersecurity?).
:Of course there are great advances yet to be made in the relationship between white-hat hackers and corporations like Microsoft. Skepticism abounds from both sides for obvious reasons, as well as entrenched interests and preconceptions based on past interactions ("Hackers are simply criminals", or on the other side "Microsoft is The Man").

Vickie: I'm going to dovetail from Amanda's comment and say that I think Chuck is going to speak more specifically about the ID program he was talking about the other day as a possible solution to cybersecurity. Just as in the Wired article - identification solves a large percent of the problem, mostly through accountability. However, this seems too Orwellian for my blood. Unlike a passport that is shown in person - a computer ID is never going to be checked person to person. The computer will always be the intermediary. Moreover, this type of program may deter people from doing things on the Internet that they normally would do - if it wasn't anonymous. Visit certain political sites, fetish sites etc. etc. At what point is our fear balanced by our need for an Internet that is not being surveyed.

Hector: Some of Chuck's points from his remarks on Tuesday that stuck with me most were the strengthening of internet identification and alternative networks that use something else than TCP. I hope that he elaborates on the possible applications of the latter.

Day 3 Thoughts

2010-01-07T17:40:11Z

Vbaranetsky:

Tyler: I am wondering if the terms in AMT's conditions of use that works prepared by turkers are to be considered works for hire would be considered valid. My initial instinct is that it would not necessarily be so.

: To paraphrase, the Copyright Act defines a work for hire as (17 U.S.C. 101):

* 1) a work prepared by an employee within the scope of his or her employment
** The factors to make determination were listed in the CCNV v Reid case (790 U.S. 730, 1989)
*** The two most important factors are provision of employee benefits and tax treatment (from Aymes v. Bonelli, 980 F.2d 857, 1992)
* OR 2) a work specially ordered or commissioned for use as a contribution to a collective work if:
** 1. category: is one of:
*** part of a motion picture or other audiovisual work
*** a translation
*** a supplementary work â adjunct to a work made by another author
*** a compilation
*** an instructional text â systematic instructional activities
*** a test
*** answer material for a test
*** an atlas
** 2. intent: if the parties expressly agree in a written instrument signed by them that the work shall be considered a work made for hire
must fit into one of the 8 categories to be a contracted work made for hire (p132)
Most work produced for HITs would not seem to fall into either of these categories.

::Michael: I think many works produced through HITs are going to be considered compilations or collective works. Certainly David's Sheep or 100 Dollar Bill are compilations so long as they are taken as a whole. Even in any attempt to monetize the individual elements, the Turk Participation Agreement states that any works which cannot be considered works for hire are assigned to the requester. (full text copied below)

::Section 3(a): "As a Provider, the Requester for whom you provide Services is your client, and as such, you agree that the work product of any Services you perform is deemed a "work made for hire" for the benefit of the Requester, and all ownership rights, including worldwide intellectual property rights, will vest with the Requester immediately upon your performance of the Service. To the extent any such rights do not vest in Requester under applicable law, you hereby assign or exclusively grant (without the right to any compensation) all right, title and interest, including all intellectual property rights, to such work product to Requester." [https://www.mturk.com/mturk/conditionsofuse The full policy can be found here.]

::Jason: Michael just sort of stole my mojo - I was about to say a similar thing - but Tyler, I guess I too don't see why you think HITs are not works-for-hire under test 2. Take the book about cats: it seems to me that Bjoern specifically ordered those stories for his compilation, which would fall under the rule. I guess there could be a problem of asymmetry if both parties need to know that they work is being commissioned, since in many cases only the commissioner might know what it's being used for. But given the Mechanical Turk terms of service that Michael reproduces above - which probably constitutes a "written instrument" - I think the Turker would be hard-pressed to argue that he had zero notice, even if he didn't know specifically what his work would be used for.

:::Andrew: I think there's certainly enough wiggle room in the words "specially ordered or commissioned" to support a claim that the AMT contract does not effect WMFH status, at least in some cases. Take the cats book: When it was ordered, Bjorn himself didn't know what he was going to do with the cats when he got them. How could he argue that he had "specially ordered or commissioned" them for that compilation at the time of the contract? More generally, I think the 'meeting of the minds' aspect is more important than Jason suggests, given that it's the basis of so much doctrine in contract interpretation. That is, I think it's an open question whether a task which the performer does not know to have a certain purpose can be said to be "specially ordered or commissioned" for that purpose with regard to the written instrument.

::Sharona: While I agree with Jason and Michael that this is probably a work made for hire, do you think this may run into contracts of adhesion problems? Or, do you think if the average turker was aware of what his "original" (after all, to be copyrightable, it must be original) work would be used for, he would have agreed to the Participation Agreement? Does it matter?

::Tyler: To follow up on my original thought, I agree that an argument could be made for HITs to be WMFH, but I see big problems with the "specially ordered or commissioned" language as Andrew mentioned. Also, I'm not sure mention in the terms of service would qualify as a written instrument signed by both parties.

Victoria: I think what bothers me most about Ub. Hum. Comp. through tools like Mechanical Turk and re-Captcha is the lack of transparency. I think a lot of the fear about these programs - that lead to the Iranian hypo stem from a lack of transparency. The task master is not required to say what the micro task is for. However, what I found to be a fascinating comment last night in response to this came from Bjoern. After publishing the cat book he said he asked a test group if it was OK to publish the book without asking first. Bjoern reported that the Turkers seemed to be OK with it. I wonder if it is just the non-Turkers (like myself) that have a problem with the lack of transparency and dream up these dystopic problems.

Secondly in addition to transparency I have a problem with the micro-tasking. Although Aaron's artwork is completely beautiful - Crowdflower kind of makes me feel uneasy at times - especially when thinking that it could eventually be tapped into on an IPhone app during a person's idle time and that a security guard is doing it while he is supposed to be engaged in surveillance. By making the tasks so short and small Turk infuses money-making into every aspect of life. It makes everything a cost-benefit analysis. Should I go to the beach and read a Magazine or make money. Should I stand in line and think about what I have to cook later or make money? Should I spend time with my family or make money?

Day 3 Predictions

2010-01-06T21:04:33Z

Vbaranetsky:

Daniel: My guess is that three issues will be focused:

1- ''labor rights'' â workers in UHC are not attached to a safe work environment, do not receive any fringe benefits, health care, etc., and as of yet there are no unions for Turks and the like. It is quite easy to see homeworkers as nonworkers, and to build [http://www.missconceptions.net/downloads/mturk-pca09-web.pdf digital sweatshops].

2- workersâ new ''expectation of complete anonymity'', that go way beyond privacy demands in regular work environments. Hopefully ethical issues concerning this faceless workforce will be discussed, as well as its potential identity and community feelings (taking into account that, unlike bearers of [http://www.iab.net/about_the_iab/recent_press_releases/press_release_archive/press_release/pr-061009-value formal jobs], UHC workers have shifting numbers, not social security ones). Still on this topic, I expect debates about people willing to perform otherwise shameful tasks, and about the opportunities for children, sick or unfit workers in general to work / be worked.

3- the ''use of UHC for complex, creative tasks'', analyzed in conjunction with a look at the economics of commoditized labor pools. Resulting discussions could examine quality control and its costs, and [http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1357054.1357127 proper design], necessary to unleash [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQ3Q6Y6Ylqo creativity] and demand more than repetitive, boring tasks from fellow anonymous humans. On that note, it is nice to see that, as scientific experiments with Mechanical Turks [http://experimentalturk.wordpress.com/ become more popular], academic attention is drawn towards the problematic incentives in the platformâs most common setting (low payment + repetitive tasks), which encourages Turks to finish HITs as fast as they can, [http://experimentalphilosophy.typepad.com/experimental_philosophy/2010/01/looking-for-subjects-amazons-mechanical-turk.html at the expense of proper comprehension of the tasks].
: Andrew: Since at least some of our guests tonight are "creatives", I hope to hear some discussion about the relationship between full-time freelancers and websites that crowdsource complex, creative tasks (e.g. Worth1000, [http://www.istockphoto.com/index.php iStockPhoto]). At a Berkman lunch last spring, [http://crowdsourcing.typepad.com/ Jeff Howe] cited a [http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1122462 study] that showed only 4% of iStockPhoto sellers derived their primary income from the site. As the site and its peers begin to dominate the market for stock photography, what happens to the livelihoods of those who depended on stock photography for a living? Protectionist worries like this parallel those about outsourcing more generally and are vulnerable to the same counters about progress and efficient markets; I hope some of those arguments play out tonight.

My wish list for the session: discussions of solutions / tools such as [http://turkopticon.differenceengines.com/ Turkopticon], a Firefox application designed to identify and expose âshady employersâ.

Ramesh: I predict that the founders of human computing websites will be more focused on the technology and potential of the websites and may have a blind spot for the legal issues that may be raised by UHC (applicability of minimum wage and other laws) while as law students, we may naturally focus on the legal issues implicated.

Alternatively, perhaps the founders of UHC websites will see them simply as a continuation of current trends, especially the increasing numbers of contractors in the labor force of large companies and governments and the outsourcing of call-center (and increasingly higher-skilled) jobs overseas. Does UHC present any problems that are different from the current trends? What role can employment and labor law play in a world where increasing numbers of workers are "independent contractors" or even Mechanical Turks? Will technology re-enact Lochner?

Franny:

Given the guest list, I diplomatically disagree with Daniel (and agree with Ramesh) and would expect these guests to address the positive potential and advantages of human computing applications into business, arts and culture, as well as the benefits available through this new type of labour force with built-in autonomy. As libertarian as I may be in my views, I agree with Daniel that there is a real possibility that UHC can develop into a last resort for unskilled workers to earn income in order to survive. I just don't think that the negative aspects will be the focus of today's session.

I would also be interested to hear our guests' thoughts on whether UHC can be applied to tasks in which sensitive information is involved, and if so, how could private content be protected?

:Jason: Totally agree with Franny here. I was at first somewhat surprised that in the talk that Lukas gave at TechCruch 50 there was zero discussion of any of the legal aspects of this (no one asked, "Um, do you have to withhold taxes from the workers?" or "What if it turned out that someone was a child?" or "Won't your business model be ruined if it turns out you have to pay taxes for not providing health insurance to these people?" or anything along those lines) - but, of course, I forgot that I'm a law student and that's not the lens through which they are viewing this technology. Faced with a room of (mostly) lawyers, these questions will obviously come more the fore than they were there, but I suspect that the considerable advantages and potential of this type of work will dominate the discussion.

Juan:

By doing quality control and tracking the quality history of workers, Crowdflower moves one step closer to a real employer. How will it and other human computing websites deal with labor law issues, such as employment relationship, jurisdiction conflict, non-compete agreement, anti-discrimination, disability, leave time, wage and hour requirements, and etc. Also, building up workers' career path, balancing between monitoring and privacy intrusion, disclosing information for workers to evaluate the moral value and giving them the opportunity to opt out, shall be new problems in the cyberspace. Besides, this paid work on-line may have an impact on those contributions without payments. How will we address this issue to make sure people will have incentives to embark on free works.

Another thing I want to hear is whether UHC will develop verticals like the traditional industries. How will it develop those verticals not suitable for on-line outsourcing per its nature?

Sharona: I agree with Franny and Ramesh - I think the speakers will generally focus more on the positive contributions these types of sites can offer - the innovation from crowd sourcing, the efficiency, the specialization - and less concern over the legal issues. One thing I would like to hear is whether they think these tasks will continue to be performed by US residents, or how quickly they will also be outsourced to English speaking (or non-English speaking) people across the world looking for menial labor especially. Another thing to consider is how or if people could actually make a career out of doing tasks online, or whether it is just something to supplement another job. How will things like health benefits or insurance policies come into play for these kinds of workers?

Yosuke:
I agree with the majority opinion, I think guests will not really focus on negative aspects of ubiquitous human computing, such as potential problems of child labors in developing countries, as JZ stated in [http://yupnet.org/zittrain/archives/21#41 this paragraph in his book]. While I guess they will address some amazingly positive aspects of UHC.

Vickie: My guess here is that the "creative types" as Andrew called them are going to be psyched about the creative potential of mechanical turk but less satisfied by the "mundane tasks" that are fueled through the programs (as stated by Aaron Koblin in this video http://vimeo.com/3199933). I believe Koblin and Hartmann are not going to be happy to hear as much about CrowdFlower. Koblin, specifically said in his presentation in this video that he limited the amount of times his contributors could use HITs for his art projects. Unlike CrowdFlower Koblin isn't looking to use Turkers as steadfast blinded workers. He seems very conscious of all the Marxist qualms with the program.

Day 2 Predictions

2010-01-06T00:17:32Z

Vbaranetsky: /* Chuck */

= Mark =

Sheel: Cisco, with its involvement in China's Golden Shield Project and $16 Billion investment (http://www.socialfunds.com/news/article.cgi/2825.html), doesn't want to have to deal with issues of human rights that might diminish ROI. Notable quote from article and 2008 testimony: Chandler said, "Cisco does not customize, or develop specialized or unique filtering capabilities, in order to enable different regimes to block access to information." My guess: Mark Chandler will affirm this statement tomorrow, but the real reason is that following the GNI principles would be a poor business decision and CISCO isn't willing to make any sacrifice.
: Elisabeth: we might push back on the idea that this would be a poor business decision, and solicit Cosson and Hope's opinions. Yahoo and Google have faced real backlash for their actions, and GNI serves as something of a safety net against that backlash. We could also ask Chandler if he can imagine how GNI could be structured such that it would be worthwhile for Cisco to join--it would be interesting to see if what he says matches up with what Cosson says GNI needs to do to recruit new members.
:: Andrew: I doubt Chandler would be cynical (frank?) enough to respond this way, but Cisco may be shielded from the kind of "PR risks" that Yahoo/Google/Microsoft face, since their products and services reside below the content layer and are less intuitively understandable to the general public. Along these lines, I hope to hear some discussion about the sources of contention between stakeholders at different architectural layers. How do differences in the type of actions governments request from these companies translate to materially different policy preferences, given the extreme broadness of the principles at issue?
:: Hector: I agree with Andrew and wonder whether Cisco will go to lengths to emphasize the hardware-side of its products/services. This may be a more palatable version of JZ's "gun's don't kill people" framing: "Look, we provide hardware and the software interfaces that are infinitely customizable." Such an argument works only to the extent that the products/services are general-use (generative?) and the extent that CISCO is '''truly''' removed from any immoral end-use.
:: Michael: I think Mark will lean on the fact that Cisco provides hardware. The current constituents of GNI (Micosoft, Google, and Yahoo) exclusively provide services and software which only have a limited range of customizable options. Cisco's products, on the other hand, can be customized for myriad purposes. Unlike the "guns don't kill people, people kill people" fallacy, Cisco's hardware products have a wide variety of applications and are designed specifically and primarily for a number of innocuous purposes and can only be transformed into destructive tools with significant input by the consumer/user. So then Cisco probably has a specific problem with the final bullet point under "Responsible Company Decision Making" of the [http://www.globalnetworkinitiative.org/cms/uploads/1/GNI_-_Principles_1_.pdf GNI Guiding Principles] which requires that companies use their best efforts to force clients or customers to conform to these rules. It could be a seriously onerous burden on hardware providers to say that they must force customers in other countries to abide by American/European concepts of ethical uses of that equipment, and even more onerous to consider punishing Cisco when its products are used in violation of such standards.
: Jason: I doubt that he will emphasize ROI and the need to make money to a group like ours - or, at least he won't explicitly mention his company's desire to make billions of dollars. Instead, I suspect that Mark will emphasize the need for more Internet infrastructure in developing countries, and the uncertain effect of the GNI in terms of continuing to do business everywhere. He would be right about that need - see, for instance, the Internet density map [http://www.chrisharrison.net/projects/InternetMap/medium/worlddotblack.jpg here]. So he can ask us rhetorically, "What is Cisco supposed to do? Don't you cyberlaw students want people in China and Southeast Asia and the Middle East and Africa to get online, too? If so, those countries need our hardware - and we can't choose who runs their governments!" And you know what? If he says this, he will have a very, very good point.

Daniel: I believe Chandler will provide his professional - and hopefully personal - account on the role CISCO plays in [facilitating / enabling / providing neutral tools] to allow for "different regimes" to control their nationals' internet experience. Cosson and Hope will probably dedicate more time to in depth discussion of two issues: involvement of industry actors other than the GNI founding members and the types of incentives that are needed for that, including legal alternatives and public exposure of "do some evil" firms. Also, given that we will not have representatives from Google and Yahoo, these companies are likely to figure prominently in the examples of events, actions and concessions to be avoided.

Sanford Lewis: I predict that Mr. Chandler will not discuss in very much depth the extent to which external stakeholder and stockholder pressure has shaped company policy, unless he is prompted by student questions to discuss this.

Lien: The GNI principles are so general and an "implementation / repetition" of international standards. If a certain company (for whatever reason) does not want to join the GNI, this company still has to comply with these standards. To play the devil's advocate, does joining the GNI change anything in reality or is it just a good thing to join because of the company's image and reputation? Furthermore, the concept of the GNI (sort of self- regulation) is a very American concept. European companies are not very familiar with this kind of approach. The GNI might be a good starting point for a company to obey to certain principles. However, the privacy principles are so broadly written that, if a company would follow these principles, it would still not comply with European Privacy legislation. Why would an European company then join the initiative and do all the effort (e.g. audit, ...), knowing that it would still not comply with European legislation?

:Elisabeth: I also wonder how true it is that these are "international" standards, rather than American or American/European standards.

Michael: I expect Mark will point out that GNI's primary focus seems to be providing guidelines for instances in which a government or other entity makes direct requests of a company for information (ID of a dissident) or to take certain action (block certain functions of software), but that these values are inapplicable to much of what Cisco does. Cisco is likely less concerned with such direct inquiries and more concerned with customers altering its devices to accomplish bad objectives. The kinds of hardline, direct guidelines that GNI will likely promulgate to address issues that would apply to governments' direct inquiries to Microsoft, Google and Yahoo would be very difficult to apply to companies like Cisco who provide heavily customizable software. In fact, any steps Cisco might take to prevent consumers from using its products to violate GNI rules would, itself, violate the rule encouraging freedom of expression by the consumer of such products. (of course the easy response to this might be that all of these are, a fortiori (had to throw some legal speak in here somewhere), reasons that companies like Cisco should be a part of the conversation to create rules that will be more generally applicable.

Ramesh: I wonder if Mark will agree with the distinction I tried to draw below between removing content that's objectionable to governments and providing private information to those governments to find dissidents. It seems like Cisco's technologies could be used for either; does Mark think both are acceptable forms of behavior?

= Dunstan =
Tyler: I believe Dunstan will try and draw a distinction between situations involving two types of countries. The first type is countries with laws in accordance with GNI principles but that are not enforced or poorly enforced. The second type is countries with laws that on their face are violative of GNI principles. I hope Dunstan will discuss strategies that corporations should use for situations that arise involving both types of countries and the different approaches that GNI stakeholders can collectively take to preemptively forestall problems in each of the two types of countries.
: Daniel: It would be great if we further explored the (blurring) division between these two country-types. Was Google's first move in the negotiation with Turkey - accepting to block videos insulting AtatÃ¼rk, but only within the country's limits - OK under the GNI principles? How much can a country legitimately curb freedom of speech, according to the GNI framework? IMO, its diplomatic language allows for an "American" interpretation, but also for an "European" one and perhaps others even more restrictive.
Reuben: I'd be interested in hearing how BSR's involvement with the GNI was different than corporate social responsibility projects in other economic sectors and how that speaks to the uniqueness of ICT and these issues.
: Ramesh: I'd like to hear Dunstan draw distinctions between two types of conduct that often seem to be conflated in this area -- removing content at the best of governments (Google.cn) vs. providing private information to governments that can lead to the arrest and prosecution of dissidents (Shi Tao). The first seems like a necessary step to take for companies to conduct business in countries with different laws, while the second seems to raise much more serious ethical issues, as the company is actively helping repressive governments search out and persecute dissidents. I suspect that Dunstan may draw this distinction, as perhaps companies, both inside and outside the GNI, think there are serious differences between the two types of conduct.

= Chuck =

Tyler: I expect Chuck to express frustration that more corporations have not signed up for GNI and identify some specific reasons why he thinks GNI has so far been unable to recruit any additional corporations from the initial roster of three (Yahoo!, Google, Microsoft). I also hope that Chuck discusses what preparations Microsoft has made to allow GNI auditors access the sensitive Microsoft information.

::Michael: I expect that Chuck will express some level of understanding that many companies are still reticent to join GNI in its infancy before there are any real tangible benefits (especially for smaller companies). But I also expect that he will express some optimism that more companies and organizations will begin to join as GNI matures and proves itself.
::I would like to hear how Chuck thinks abiding by GNI guidelines might affect smaller companies. If such companies refuse to give foreign governments the information they request, could a boycott of services by that country's government have have a disastrous effect on a smaller companies bottom line?

Sharona: Along these lines, I would be interested to hear how he thinks he could make newer, especially significantly smaller, companies joining GNI feel a part of the team. As the wiki primer points out, the people at Microsoft, Google and Yahoo have worked together for years to create the foundation of GNI, and it will be hard for additional members to feel they can make a contribution without feeling like second class citizens. Even though Chuck will likely say this can be overcome by a feeling of inclusiveness and democratic collaboration, I would push back to see how willing they would be to re-imagine some of the core tenants of GNI in order to fit the needs of other types of companies.

Juan: As a stakeholders unite, GNI is supposed to have more flexibility and accommodation than its legislative alternatives, such as GOFA. With this flexibility, how will it attract new members in China, such as Baidu (www.baidu.com, the market leader of search services), Kaixin network (www.kaixin001.com, the most popular social network website in China, which is a knockoff of facebook), Tudou (www.tudou.com, the biggest video site mainly serving local videos) and etc. Facing with a very powerful government, I doubt they will have an incentive to join the GNI.
Another question is what is the role of GNI? If company challenges the government request, government would not buy it, what actions would company be supposed to take? Will GNI interface with government? By challenging the government request, the company may be punished by government, either directly or indirectly. Is there any benefit for the company to take the risk?
Will GNI work for China? Can it enlighten Chinese government to change its position on human rights and free expression?
Should GNI have multiple standards on human rights protection in different countries, since different countries have different views on human rights.
: Lien: Good point. I believe we should indeed ask the question to all speakers whether the GNI is not a typical American way of approaching issues, that might not work that easily in other continents.

Reuben: With regards to the relationship between Chuck and Mark, I think that while Chuck will make statements supporting the GNI, he is unlikely to challenge Mark or CISCO to join. I'd also expect Chuck to express some reticence in allowing auditors too much freedom to access sensitive information.

Victoria: I suspect that Chuck will applaud the movement already made by GNI and that it creates a safe space for companies like Yahoo!, Google and Microsoft since they come to some form of a consensus it gives them a feeling that they have reached a Best Practices Guide - that has been steered by enough people that it is ethically correct. However, I'd like to know more about whether these companies have stepped into an inappropriate role by creating GNI. In essence, these companies are acting as law makers - and yet they have not been elected. . . by the US let alone the international community. Should there be more checks on GNI? Should their be conversations with elected representatives from countries? Do they ever feel nervous about their place in this rule-making position?