The following is a blog-best-effort transcript of danah boyd in Brisbane on the 6th August 2007. This is not a verbatim transcript.

This blog post, and Flickr images by Nick Hodge are licensed under the Creative Commons License:

Mark Pesce

sharing reinforces social bonds

people are sharing all the time. (eg; funny picture of self on flickr.com)

another page, eg from wikipedia

John Gilmore: the net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it

You can negotiate your privacy. it won’t help; eventually someone will come over the barrier

wiki.markpesce.com  hairball of personal information in our world.

example: mother’s maiden name issue. because of the banking security.

Biggest threat to privacy isn’t the gov’t, it isn’t corporations. it’s your friends

Jennifer Wilson, Head of Innovation, NineMSN

9msn. what are people doing with mobile, online

“generation-C” empowered and always on. 13–27 behaviours

don’t wear a watch

swedes: click-and-go

community/connected/creative/content

network 50–80 people. est 150. core network, can manage relationships in head

digital public spaces: communities are as relevant online, as offline

offline meatpace for online communitiies (twitter meetup eg)

increasingly we travel to meet up with digital communities that have formed

relationships online are as important as any other

we trust the networks we build in ters of recommendations, advice support

29 jobs, 5 different industries. change often

see right to grow as people and employees important

expectations on job/career advancement. companies 20–28, search for more money and career progression. personally strong, confidence. sense of entitlement in a world of full employment. digital industry movement expectations

mid April-June; facebook grew +93%

note, concept of facebook as an alien term.

people will move when their friends, > 23.  ego and self is more important myspace. 17–18 responsibility/life stages — facebook.

facebook has overtaken linkedin in Australia (number of members)

why is community relevant, commercial perspective. people will make decisions 29% no relationship, 71% they will get from network social network.

Why mobile:

Generation-C, own they phones. computer = control by others, phones = yours. most intimate of device.

SMS is the largest data applications on the planet. 1.8b users send SMS

37% of the planet have them. 35% are 3G. As SMS to 2G, Social networking 3G.

3.45b social networking on mobile is going to be big, big, big

moko UK, AU mobile community. alpha users, like all communities. freaks/geeks/queers as alpha users. 92,000 stats per country per day. 100% moderated. chat site telstra, afl. every MNO (mobile network operator)

yourTime: what’s on. user reviews. etc.

jumbuck chat on nearly every carrier in the world. jumbuck island, SL/habbo online. 73minutes per day.

mig33 app; run network from java app on your phone. data over voice. packet model rulez.

bluepulse: designed bluetooth; widgets, buddies, place. have a room. flickr/yahoo/etc/msn IM — run from within bluepulse.

bluetooth: 6degrees, signed up bluetooth; connected. generation-C ringtones, music, videos. wildfire.

podmo: bluetooth discovery. (nb: this whole world is out there. i can see why people hate closed iphone.and I don’t get  the cool stuff. time to go back to nokia, I reckonz. Email sucks. too much work and formal stuff. need to get cooler than that! (I’ve ignored all email 2 day. twittered some)

Bluetooth is the new black. Generation C. SNS are the killer app for 3G

Panelists:

Kristian Simento, St Peters Lutheran College

Elliot Bledsoe QuT/CC AU

Jennifer WIlson

danah boyd

Kristian: internal networking, no external blog that he knows of. myspace user. 6 months. joined because friends are there. peer pressure. 1 hour a day, as he is a moderator for the school. people who are joining in the school are actually from the school. legitimate: not saying something bad about the school. ensuring the digital face of the school is good.

social context: just remove it? include moderators removing the comment, and emailing the sender. most don’t post again.

(nb: he’s a digital censor, he works for the hegemony!)

Elliot: online editor, 4thousand. 900 subscribers from the 5th issue. Brisbane part of 3thousand.

email is about external people through an official pathway. myspace/facebook etc.

Question: Spam: Is it compromising SNS

- Jennifer: facebook friends more genuine in facebook vs. myspace.

- danah: spam taking off in different ways. myspace friend requests; phishing requests on myspace. now facebook apps that are spam. its an arms race. no one likes it, but it happens. massive spam increases in SNS as the target becomes larger.

- Jennifer: not that much SMS spam in AU due to charging arrangements; bluetooth spam (eg: dubai) where bluetooth apps are great.

- danah: turning off SMS in the US because of charging arrangement.

- elliot: what is spam? myspace example; useless stuff from their friends that is spam.

Question: attracting generation-C into teaching

- jennifer: recruitment: migration in commercial is different. great age divide. digital and media is a sexy industry. want to transfer prior to skills gathered.

- jennifer: generation C are time tolerant. but expect everything.

- danah: US different; paylevels. career. recc book “Generation Me” rise of narcissism with teens. want it now, they deserve it. how the data plays out, psychologist pov. self esteem movement took people further along than their skills. US skills shortage; no jobs for the working class is a different issue. balancing the belief that you are wonderful vs. skills building.

- elliot: digital technologies in the classroom; research — comes from ambiguous legal framework. teachers. eg: copyright. raft of new legislation. Elliot talking about digital technologies with creative stuff. defamation issues.

Mark Pesce: where stuff is banned in the classroom, you leave the 21st century. nb: hurrumphs in room from teachers.

- kristian: ooh, there are kids who only use wikipedia for their information. going back to the sources. look deeper. points out errors in brittanica and wikipedia online.

- danah: what to do with “keep out sign” on classroom. books are not always true, either history is taught by the winners in a mainstream narrative. Paradigm of rote learning is old school. kids should not be passive accepters of truth, should search it out themselves to do this. must be producers of knowledge. are teachers needing to change?

- elliot: mistakes in wikipedia; all students should be taught to question and analyse the information as it is presented to them.

- danah: experts have a particular view of knowledge. democratising knowledge is upsetting the knowledge cart. not formal qualifications — but many can contribute. Contributing is more important.

Question: how do we manage these multiple online identities

danah — identities — we cannot separate our digital/offline identities. blogging for 10 years. skill to be learned to understand the context. we cannot create walls as easily as we could. people are really drilling into the information are stalkers. cannot erase the past, but can write and write that update the opinions. evolving publically is important. the current is the most important.

elliot — cannot keep roles separate; I am who I am. no longer wearing hats. cannot deny the google history; just gotta keep adding to the google. young people are collapsing the barriers and walls. creating division is from external force. (parent safe myspace, non-parent safe myspace) old generation badder at this.

jennifer- multiple identities online; 4–6 online for years. multiple channels and streams of information. younger generation understands compartmentalisation of their identities.

elliot — different mediums to express different identities. SecondLife identity is different to other places..

mark — email/IM voice

danah — different audiences, different facets of who you are. not multiple identities. different roles. just like real life. search tools can collapse these in surprising ways. language fingerprinting in search engines. visual media searching, etc. doesn’t mean a personal crisis. searchability is continuing

Question: 20yrs from now elliot and kristian are going for federal parliament seat. Parents are up in arms about for their future.

elliot: more representative representatives.

mark: question of trust.

danah: in the future, reality we understand it looks like. will the data really haunt us. (nb: lack of transparency worries me) danah fears those who are 16 now and they think they are going to be president some day. we learn from mistakes, opinions, discussions, conversations etc. people are not static, they evolve. they move on.

Question: healthcare workforce, students: skills usage/learning

elliot: stuff already exists in a different wrapper. technology filters into the workforce over time.

mark: organisations that don’t accept SNS will be out-competed by those that do embrace these.

danah: control of information, transparency is important. why aren’t teachers putting their stuff like syllbus closed? open it up. 66% messages are public wall. default public, private when necessary. this workforce comes from a default public paradigm.

elliot: if you can’t say it publically, why say it? is advocate of public open education.

Question: teaching to write essays; better skills of communications, better than essays.

kristian: teachers must help the students critical analyse their work. and why their work was not good enough.

elliot: new ideas are hard

danah: how many have created a 5 paragraph paper. not 1000 words! standardised ed checkboxes killing education. synthesize, thesis, defend. adapt. don’t just regurgitate, educate. what are we trying to teach when we teach writing? what is debate in a secondary oral society

(close)

This blog post, and Flickr images by Nick Hodge are licensed under the Creative Commons License:

1. Where are geeks/freaks/queers now?

• gay men still on friendster
• tribe.net / myspace for “freaks“
• geeks whatever is the coolest newest thing. twitter etc.
• segmentation: US split based on class lines; danah mentioned media taking the wrong perspective of her recent postings
• world where the culture is of celebrity to get out of current “class“
• in AU, split more on age

2. where are those who are not online?

• 93% US teenagers have internet access (of various speeds/feeds/modes)
• 7% know what it is, but are restricted (eg: evangelicals in US)
• the digital divide is method of access (school/library only)
  • hyperconnected, basic, (and a few others)
  • evidence that with connectivity, digital society has reduced young gay suicide
  • (danah noted: doing ethnographic studies, worried about kids with no friends, online or offline)
  • hanging around with friends is important; SNS is US/English based vs. mobile culture (nb: mobile phones now advertised with myspace logo in AU on the weekend)

3. Virtual Worlds

• immersive virtual worlds such as WoW, gamer sites: another place to hang out with friends (more WoW than SL)
• Second Life: educators watching educators watching educators…
• SNS when kids use it for fun
• “is this technology something general users use?”

4. Libraries in myspace, OK?

• most teens know that you exist
• when non-profits/politicians/etc are there, but they need to converse, not just be there. need to digitally shake hands
• some people in the SNS will use the link as a marker

5. Addicted to MSN/WoW (what to do with kids “addicted”)
• online is a place to interact with friends, and avoid schoolwork. this has been common for many generations where homework existed
• WoW/MSN is hanging out with their friends
• more worrying are those who have no friends
• problem deeper than “the technology” if there is no communication and understanding
• question on how society acts in the “digital street” to look out for kids who need help.

6/7. SNS, use within schools?

•  works when teachers respond online, not just “appear”
• remember, SNS is for fun/friends. not school work
• engage in the conversation, don’t be judgemental.
• worst thing is forcing “deception” where kids create shadow indentities — are we forcing kids to do this?

8. Generation “Y” in the workplace

• lifestages; online vs offline; and use of SNS changes when life interferes
• mobile; out and about greater importance with professionals who are not at their desks
• email is NOT social; its work. it’s hell. spam, parents, corporate emails etc
• IM is the new email. more important than email. Phone is a jarring interruption

9. Property/ IP holding back?

• remix generation; kids mixing pointers (URLs) rather than base content
• ownership is interesting in a world where copying is easy

10. education: in schools, cyberbullying etc == ban on access to SNS

• kids route around censorship; proxies, etc. ask them how they do it
• mobiles change the ground rules
• teachers must push back

11. future of SNS?

• mobile
• 10 years all this will be natural and therefore calmed down
• embrace the new digital publics.

The following is a blog-best-effort transcript of danah boyd in Brisbane on the 6th August 2007. This is not a verbatim transcript.

This blog post, and Flickr images by Nick Hodge are licensed under the Creative Commons License:

10:00am start. Rec’d tag, http://blogs.educationau.edu.au/feed/

new policies, 68yo PM use youtube.com to announce policies (nb: cheaper than full advertisements, but same commentary = cheap). Software alone doesn’t fix stuff. its about good teachers (true)

explosing of flickr,myspace,facebook,youtube: self publishing: live work and learn?

Intro danah boyd: expert on social networks. yahoo, tribe, google. online identities, communities, how people represent themselves online and to each other.

Generation MySpace

History of social networking, why big, interesting

Why youth are using these sites

education: thinking about, how used and applied.

Social network site: 6degress: 1997, flittered away

Hundreds emerged for many

Networked publics: publics in a networked society. eg: parks, civic places. SNS online publics.

usenet first of the networked publics; first hierarchy. geeky space. eg: comp.lang.perl. create networked publics. interests outside computer stuff.

social norms; in hierarchy, talk related. rec.pets.cats.  Ruptured by spam, not geeks.

alt.tastless invade rec.pets.cats » attack; spoilers: Harry Potter. ruining social expectations of another group.

people fled usenet to mailing lists (yahoo! groups) mailing lists have moderators, kick people off. vouching via email address. not as public as usenet. what are the rules?

web=? community, conversation, commerce?? tech boom, crash. things got worked out.

rethinking through on blogosphere based people, based on “friends” — who are you friends, audience is. not on common interest, about people.

different narratives on web2. companies use as label. is it technology? business? make us feel better of the crash.

web2 is about reorganising the web around people, friends.

friendster; earliest days of web2. web geek make greater than match.com; better version. more purposeful.

3 key earlier adopter domains: self-describes geeks/freaks (eg: burning man) / queers. They thought it was their site. 20–30 somethings, not working, jobs clicking on the web. negotiatiing the narrative of friends. concept of play.

technology reflects the values of the creators: deep desire on friendster to get as many friends as possible. someone become icons — burning man, ali g (blogger culture). friending them to make them bigger. more fake characters. harvard university. jesus with a baseball bat. artistic : salt and pepper, love letters. people didn’t have jobs.

friendster: whack-a-mole, rid of popularity game, fake characters. kill the fun. technical difficulties: outside US, friendster still around.

myspace: people who friendster didn’t want. kicked off friendster, rock bands — onto myspace.com. no kicking off. features around music; indi rock music — appeals to young crowds. 21+ indi band followers, down the ages. 18yo 16yo 14yo. ignore younger because they don’t SNS.

Cool in LA region, worked down. teenagers where there as a place to hang out. If you are not on myspace you don’t exist (late 2005) everywhere else in the world, mobile phone.

myspace US == mobile phone outside.

55% online us teens 12–17 have a profile; 70% girlds 15–17. using to hang out with friends they see every day.

social networks,. not meeting people, its communicating to your network.

profiles: unique URLs, age/sex/location. made up as its fun.

friends list: public list of people I care about, and I hope care about me and listen to me.

wall/testimonial: conversation to the (wall ==write all) friends

myspace: copy+paste, make it loud and obnoxious. like the bedroom. same feeling, personal expression of self. who is the audience. remix culture, says who you are.

SNS where people hang out. shooting the shit, dealing with status. done in different environments (park, malls) for many years. friends to gather in a larger collection.

properties online different to physical space. in 20s, the pub. hung out, came together. have important values.

what properties: 4 key

persistence: what you say sticks around. ephermeral publics, vs. for ever.

searchability: where are the teenages. searchable. all sorts of audiences, parents, teachers, bosses.

replicability: copy-paste, original/modified? teenage breakups online. gets out of he said/she said game. eg: IM text into blog. who got the final say. delete someone as friend. not being in control. bullying. 3 way calling, bullying example

invisible audiences: assumptions, education, context: visible audience. no idea who is recording, and where it will go. context: adjust what we are saying based on context. society instructs us. to break the rules, we’ve got to know them. mediated environments control how we converse.

teenagers: invisible audiences, social scripts. how to speak to the unknowns. generation growing up and dealing with stuff that only celebrities and famous people had to deal with. everyone is famous for 15 people. myspace. Top 8 passive/aggressive social acceptance.

performing to people you know, this is how it will effect you.

high schools: age segregation from 1930s. deeply culturally embedded in the US. mentors friends 2 yrs around their age. No good reason to interact with people older than you.

US, other english speaking world: age segregation.

US, children are locked in doors. hypercontrolled. few places to chill. fear of abduction. communities don’t exist in suburbia. no places to hang out. primary socialisation, at homes. parents regulate; parents are responsible. tension between teenages and adults. kids locked down.

“mum doesn’t let me out, so I am on myspace” — hang out on myspace

sexual predators: evidence shows not a real issue; teenagers: want to go somewhere their parents are not. (ref danah’s site)

teenagers: deception so not searchable. technology put in place to be really easy searched. comp.lang.perl vs alt.sex.bondage

privacy: having control over who has access to your data. those of have control of teenagers, leechers etc.

pretend like it doesn’t exist doesn’t work. How do we deal these kinds of publics.

education of youth: not how they learn about maths and history. how to deal with social works. they have a public life; with confidence, willingness to make mistakes.

mistake: ban these sites in english speaking. they are evil. we don’t understand them, so they are wrong. broad data doesn’t reflect this.

how do we rethink this. they are publics, different architectures. request to teachers: learn from the students. they can teach you unbelievable things. youth populated.

why is this important.

we want our youth to be civically engaged. to be civically engaged, need to be public.

US: civic life, age segregated: not a part of civic and political life.

must be socialised in the public life; not tranditional civic lecture, what is happening now. negotiating publics. only school/after school activities. why do people outside their school matter.

US young people written out of immigration protest: teen based a few days later, March 2006. walk to civic space. IM/phones. 15000 LAX alone. Adults covered: “skipping school”.

Must engage: they understood that their parents were going to get kicked out of the country.

Sep2006: newsfeed in facebook. in-SNS out-rage 700,000 college kids joined a group to make a statement; company 72 hours to implement a feature. Users say its unacceptable. newsfeeds stayed, by privacy added. political activity (ignored)

public/private: privacy doesn’t look the same anymore. education around this: rather than saying they are bad because they are public. one assumed youth had no public face/no public life. now they need to know what is public/private

companies questioning how we deal with this new public.

proposals: profile, how would you feel if? situational role playing on profiles. there is no write/wrong/easy/hard answer. what is the consequence of what you are doing (editor: I like this)

visual literacy to understand degrees

everyday space mirrored and magnified. some good/some bad. offline problems, online problems. a reflection.

digital street outreach. why are we looking online only for tagging/grafitti get kids into trouble?

why are we not helping kids in their online streets?

SNS are not good tools for educating. Politicians. not even doing a good jobs. not engaging.

Not used in the classroom; education around them.

Blogging good tools. public/private tensions. essay that everyone in class can see. how about everyone in the world. education paradigm. what is your audience.

Wikipedia. US/AU ban it. its terrible. its bad. teens told its bad, but they using it? why are we not using this in schools for public knowledge.

Israeli/Palestinian conflict; wikipedia; thinking about different views and voices. Talk: page, history. who is invested in this process. Educators understanding these technologies.

education students on who knowledge is produced. I am not hte only voice on this matter?

rethink what public life is about.

one is information, information access.

its about community and communciation.

socialising teens into adult life; education is more than what is a standard model.

Flickr Group for all images.

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The following is a blog-best-effort transcript of Jimmy Wales in Melbourne on the 27th April 2007. This is not a verbatim transcript. This post is purely a transcript of the conversation, not the opinion of the author.

This blog post, and Flickr images are licensed under the Creative Commons License:

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 Australia License.

With Mark Pesce

Mark intros Jimmy again. Been a long day.

Casual conversation. Peer productions, peer questions.

Mark will ask 2 questions, then alternate.

Q: Getting over the hump of initial people

JW: 5–10 people make a wiki committed to coming in and checking up. Fee for entry is 5 committed people. eg: swahili language wikipedia; Sanjo from Tanzania. started on it. Wrote first 75 articles. Blogged+emailed. slowly built a community. Taken off. Past 1000 article threshold. One person passionate. Doing the social stuff.

Successful wiki greater than the content, its all the social phenomenon that’s important.

Its leadership, and persistence. Leadership: phrase : servant leadership, idea, lead the community not by general Command+control; following the community. Role in coaching, guiding.

Another example, wikia: furry. About subculture of furry about people who like to dress like animals. More of them than you can imagine. Furry wiki started quickly, within first first month (greenreaper). First month 100 editor. 30–40 regulars. 5–10 admins, Whole community in the world. (editor: now I’m scared). Needed a place to make it happen. (editor: more evangelism for wikia)

Thank you for not email around word documents, do it in a wiki.

Q: This trip, in South Africa and India. First world and third world country schools. Wikipedia and Education> what is it becoming in the 21st Century

JW: is a traditionalist in the manner of schooling. Kids using computers, technology, peer learning: extremely valuable: teacher-student relationship: 1:1 There is something special: technology NOT competing with teachers. Free up time for teachers. Standing in front of a classroom doing your own video: you can be replaced.

In many universities: huge 300 people lecture sessions: not valuable; get most entertaining professor: teacher value is 1:1 real time diagnostic assessment. Sit down with an individual, not mass classroom. Routine learning done in other ways.

Daughter embarrassed him Cambodia/Kampuchea 6 years old. Spinning the world around. Home schooling. Individualized instruction. (editor: hurump from audience)

Q: Andrew Wilson: Managing Fire in Vic Gov’t Use of technology in a multiple-stakeholder world.

JW: remove the tight hierarchy; wiki is more than just the software; its the social side. Removal of voting for editorial decisions. Getting people from diverse backgrounds and choices, listening to all people, 70/30 voting ignores 100% of the 30%‘s input. That’s not good.

Must be broad community support.

JW: Watch the old movie, 12 angry men, premise: murder trial. Set in Jury room. Beginning from nearly all convict; then picking apart each of the individual arguments. By the end of the film, vote to acquit.

When a wiki is working well, and healthy, process/group : one person can change the world. Wiki a great tool for structuring how the argument is placed. Forums = flame war, wiki is much more collaborative. Consensus document needs to survive: need to find something that all agree on.

Q: Mark, rebuilt copyright regime rebuilt from scratch

US, copyright law, by default everything you write is under copyright. Now essentially universal. Done just before the internet became “big”. Now you have to do more stuff to make something into the public domain.

Think of the lots of stuff that they don’t care about copyright; it is by default. The hampers our ability to share. Can be done casually with a statement.

JW: let’s have regime where there is no default copyright.

Some people have moral rights/economic rights to retain copyright.

How long should it last? Copyright has extended to absurd lengths. Not driven my organsiation, done by movie industry. Long life IP assets. JW’s view is “it doesn’t care”. So, Disney = 200 years that’s fine; collateral damage in other spheres.

Now, its one size fits all. Recent AU ruling copyright of a design of a boat was functional not artistic. Different act for design protection (from newspaper article). Good idea: multiple options. Beneficial for software: life+90 years?? reasonable. Software author? Life of the computer. Economic life of software less than 90 years; Old version of Excel into the free software movement to make it better.

After a short of period of time, re-register and small fee — lets many things fall into public domain by default. Many pieces that are economically feasible; eg: put into wiki world.

Current process is arduous, tracking down the rights.

JW: Patents: Software patents are a bad idea. No opinion of drug industry. In software industry, patents are defensive rather than offensive. Patents on the web restricted to 6 months. (editor: JW’s opening bid on time, that’s all) Patents are a real threat to wikipedia vs. copyright. With patents, violation: not sure if you are violating it (submarine patent). Interesting political issue

Q: APRA: Opinion. 3–4 Tb of server on songs. From teenagers. Is it a mute point in regards to copyright as the younger generation.

What is fair use? JW has no opinion on how music performers are paid, distributed.

JW buys from iTunes. Technology is going to make sharing easy; “cassette tapes and video” is going to kill companies. Record and timeshift, has been fought against by content creation industry.

DRM is a stupid idea, cf: Steve Jobs, Publishing Company. Getting in the way of ease of use for users.

Q: Mark; everyone will be famous for 15Mb. Bio-page, has something he doesn’t want. JW dinged for editing own page. We can edit our own page, community will fix. Too much truth?

JW: biographies of living people is the toughest question. cf; Queen Victoria, she’s dead so she doesn’t care about her wikipedia entry.

So, how do we deal with biographies of living people? Thoughtful manner, sensitivity. Talk page vs. yell at you.

Not everyone is about whitewashing page. Solution is to become a more open, public person about your life. Famous people, certain things are known — narratives grow around these stories, but only a part of the real story.

Jimmy Wales want to sail around the world. He has an interest in it. Not on his wikipedia.

Wikipedia is powerful of google.

Others are so “over” the internet: they don’t care. More and more articles, less and less famous people.

Discussion now is what level of notability for wikipedia entry.

There are biography guidelines. danah boyd huge impact on her field. cf. being notable for being on Foxnews vs. academic work. Watching the debate on seeing if you should be deleted.

Worse than finding your are unimportant; but also talk about deletion. Mechanism for blanking from external view.

Categories are problematic. Tag there or not. Nuance in text, cannot in category. Criminals for instance. Who should be there or not? Politician caught driving DUI. Some will categorise as criminal. Its binary on/off. Tricky. Categories are provocative.

Q: Mark, pleasure to spend a week with JW. JW, Brian Balendorf, Tim Berners-Lee: low ego people. Ego beat out of you?

JW: early incident in wikipedia in Spanish; dispute over impression JW was going to put advertising in Wikipedia. Opponents were tricking people. JW overly combative. Violated the first rule of wikipedia, assume good faith. Need to explain yourself.

Don’t have an argument with someone for the point of the argument, but in a different

Brian: introduced to Richard Branson as “the person who freed the internet from Microsoft”, JW says its true.

In open source world, win vs. right.

Cannot be a boss and be a jerk. Companies won’t survive. With high level people, they can be jerks, and the employees will survive. With volunteers its different; you have to be as nice as possible.

del.icio.us search for all blog posts from Jimmy’s Trip

The following is a blog-best-effort transcript of Jimmy Wales in Melbourne on the 27th April 2007. This is not a verbatim transcript.

This blog post, and Flickr images are licensed under the Creative Commons License:

This
work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 Australia License.

After-lunch Panel Discussion

Gary introduces Mark Pesce: VRML. Author 5 books, “How Technology is Transforming our Age”

Also on New Inventors, 2003–2006 AFTRS.

Mark: The Inconvenience of Truth: Mark Twain quote in relation

Peer data, with peer data.

Lots of ways of generating knowledge

21st century: what’s you know become who do you trust

Systems of knowledge generation: compare and contrast the outcomes.

Simple word: kangaroo: wikipedia, first para clear and concise. Taxonomist, zoologist. Gold standard. Wikipedia’s authoritative voice is collaborative. Wrong fix it, look at history, look for bad data. Distributed authority.

Britannica: second paragraph, go online to buy full license. 72 hours of going online: servers collapsed based on demand: higher bandwidth, servers etc. 1999 — consistently lost money in 1999. Behind a wall, $6.99/month — not a distributed authority. Elites control access to the editing of data.

Other ways to do peer production. Citizendium (sp?), attempting to contact Mark. Attempting to differentiate. Seems like a community of recognised experts. Its out there and interesting.

“After the flood” : stated neutrality of wikipedia was socialist secularist claptrap: wikipedia, conservapedia. Trustworthy encyclopedia. Origins section based on creation science. Process of production same as wikipedia, but outcome is different. Truth, justice and beauty does not come from just sharing.

Uncyclopedia; (lots of LOL) Friggen Hugh Mouse == kangaroo. Themes that show up, its funny. Wikia purchased it. Another kind of knowledge/peer production. Comedy. Cool.

Medicine, can’t leave it up to mere mortals. Top Headlines example. LOL (missed screen) Peer produced medicine. April Fools example. http://whoissick.org/ peer produced epidemiology  Who is reporting sick in google maps.  Where is this one going. Really interesting

“All knowing is doing, and all doing is knowing.”

Education is changing massively due to knowledge, not just the pure IT.

Knowledge > Elites know knowledge is power, and it subverts the hierarchy. Special interests are also in play. Knowledge sharing, and free stuff gets stronger: cries of elites and special interests.

21st century: war as forces tug against each other.

Panel intro:

Jimmy Wales, Martin Wildes, Sarah Phillips, Randal Strong, Rodney Sparkes, James Farmer, Daniel Ingerson, Derek Whitehead

Daniel: education is a social thing. Chicago: effect of moving schools on students. 25 people that moved to better schools didn’t do better: the desire (passion) to do better was critical. Students today: how do we turn that engagement into better education, how do we get the systems to understand that? Personalised learning vs. standardised testing. Over next 10 years: exploding of what information is recorded: processes of learning, not just the end result. Looking at what students are doing, which will change assessment. First elements of the web where R/W. Concern of control an issue in Syd. Highlights quote form Jimmy: accountability not gatekeeping. Daniel is producing s/w to do this.

Martin Wildes: superclubsplus. MIT, all academic content delivered free online. Why MIT? Quality of education experience is between the students + lecturers. Its the passion! The enthusiasm!

Content controlled by 6–12 yo children (by+for) in a UK site. (missed site) Gives children a voice, and something to say. Trends toward to user generated content: peer to peer participative approach. Intuitive media working with this. Even actuaries are thinking about user generated content.

Challenge: power communities for young children: integrity, extend learning. Legitimise these into our institutions, K-12 and

Derek Whitehead: Swinburne Univ; Derek here as copyright officer and librarian. Librarians like wikipedia? yes and no. lots to love. well organised current accessible widely know. Not all librarians like wikipedia, lack of authority, volatility (eg defintion) Librarians are ambivalent about information democracy. Dichotomy. Every has the right to information, but must get order and control into the situation (LOL) Life is google’d (google can be used as any part of speech). Whole web as the reference source. Google search on the web, take the first. Wikipedia is way more QA’d than the first/random google search. Before, once “just ask mum”.  Google is about the same, Wikipedia is better as its community controlled. Wikipedia is what all Librarians have been looking for.

Rodney Sparkes: eworks: vocation education/TAFE sector. Wide range of styles and types: included those with limited skills for self-directed learning. 70% are part-time and mature age works. Untapped potential in the peer to peer world. Capacity to self-directed learning is going to be toughest challenge. Immediate impact in the area of teaching: Peer to Peer impact on teachers will be greatest impact and keeping teaching quality high. Takes the informal approach into al little more formal. Translating skills into the online environments is critical. Learning objects. Making content available to others. How to incent contributors to make them add knowledge.

How do we ensure everyone has learning skills? Smartest people are the wealthier people. Technology is everywhere; how to we create economic models for community rights. Is teaching in the 21st century illegal due to recent Digital Laws. How about our culture knowledge. Writing is not the only way: digital storytelling: peer to peer model: video+sound etc. Value of culture of knowledge is appreciated.

Randall Strong: Multimedia Victoria: Education, how do gov’t policy people think: dejavu to 1993/1994. Network ICT’d disrupting technology: web2 is the next disruptive technology. 1990s we under estimated impacts. This time, the gov cannot underestimate the impact. Now want Victoria into secondlife now. Opportunity: web2 open innovation platform for the country. Exploit the other 99% of the knowledge in the world for local use; effect journalism. Digital TV: make it, now watch it. DESTRA “‘yooph’ generated TV”. Teacher generated content; student generated content from/for kids. Web2 disruption to drive productivity. Threats: experimentation; that has to happen again in the economy. Basic ADSL will not drive this in AU. Converged networks need Symmetry to Write. Deeper fibre into the economy. Vic EDU fibre to the school. Gov’t will react to excesses, Youtubes: why, werribee example. US Congress; throttle $ to schools who use web2. 1994 now excess: billion people are already using it. Internet measured and monitored, will happen quicker. MMVic is thinking through this stuff.

James Farmer: Edublogs and The Age,  pissed. Drunk. Intoxicated. On the knowledge. Gorging on information, binge knowledging. Don’t abuse the knowledge. 100 years ago, rote learning, information transfer. Since then, research, John Dewey etc. Old skool schooling don’t work. Conversation and interaction are better. Forget modes of teaching, just jump on the knowledge. Just follow the IT. ICT. (C for communication is silent). Content, content, content. Challenge is to get over the orgy of knowledge to add social side. JF sick of learning objects, wikis, podcasts.… less can be more!

Sarah Phillips, Deakin University: wikipedia for speech? Free encyclopedia is a noble idea. Essay topic to trivia questions. Answers don’t provide a basis of credible argument. Online vandalism. In an ideal world, people don’t cross check. PR student, in social media, PR people cannot edit in wikipedia. Peer produced learning should permit PR people from communications professional. Does this rule apply to the PR team at Wikipedia?

Q: Sarah; as PR practitioner, can I write an article?

Jimmy Wales: broader rules from community, conflict of interest editing. When you have a personal interest in this. Must identify openly, post in discussion page openly, present information on themselves.

Problem we have, PR unprofessionals who do exist out there. Come in mindlessly without openly saying who they are. Quite dangerous behaviour, and unethical for the PR community. Show the respect. Idea not a free-for-all; there are people on the other side who spent time.

Corporations may have entities who are paid and potentially not fair: but remember the community norms and values.

Q: Rodney: cf: News Ltd Purchase of Myspace.

JW: Myspace skeptic; Myspace too much advertising and spamming, core market like facebook.

Wikipedia is owned by a non-profit — so its not for sale. Content is (cc) anyway!

Q: (on podcast, survive death of universe). Ownership of Knowledge in Education domain. Information is not shared freely between educational institutions; actively discourage sharing as they are threats to each other. Sharing the source, won’t happen until © policies are solved.

Information is not open. Randall: information should be shared, not a formal policy. Gov’t can lead by example. Does Gov’t use (cc) model? Critical mass of user generated content.

Victoria, software IP; changed default model where IP resides: in the industry, gov’t should not be in the game of making and exploiting IP — commercial.

Growing band of people who will drive this.

Mark: peer produced drawing project. All the way to the AFTRS board to get approval for OS software.

James: slightly different in the university world.

Martin: the students will drive the university with their own learning networks in place. Students will continue their tools and networks already in place. Education is beyond the institution.

Mark: peer learning — pushed outside the school. Is the school the locus of learning in the 21st century?

Martin: UK experience, superclubsplus; social networking; 120,000 6–12 years of age. Learning in school, outside: logs engaging generating content + annotating, friends, primary outside school confines. Innovative teachers: any tool or technology. Creative and original ways.

Q: QLD fire+rescue: Jimmy a citizen of the world. Software design, social education/design.

Law Professor at Harvard. Tension between guards and prisoners, due to escape. Used a wiki to produce a neutral view of what happened. Both sides never agree, so wiki was used to find the source of the conflict.

In general, using social tools at a young age, to teach at a young age from TV. How to have a constructive conversation aimed at a mutually agreeable end. vs. TV is A vs B style to make the other side appear evil. (editor: need to create a Jimmy Wales — Microsoft healing wiki)

Q: Increasing comfort of use, downside on KPIs and measurement

Mark: distribute authority, you are distributing expertise. Distributed model of assessment.

Martin: expertise model is interesting. Expertise is about experience, not knowledge. Organisations to grow expertise need to provide the power of the community in development of the expertise, and distribute it around — including assessment.

Philosophically true: demonstrate competencies, not just what they remember.

James: competencies: pain with this word. Education system K-12+University, segment wheat from chaff. Nice comfortable society (class).  School — social aspects is rubbish with outdated assessment processes and large exams.

Rodney: employers decide in vocational side. Demonstrate in a work context (portfolio) Qualifications only one aspect.

Sarah: all assessment in this final term is work-oriented cf. exam. Term of learning for 3 hours of pressure. Into the community is far more beneficial in final exam.

Daniel: who is doing the assessment? Peers doing the assessment, shifts the power base to the community.

Q: Collaborative. University had a model more advanced than the students in a Master’s degree. Generational gap in learning styles.

Daniel: Doug Brown has a spectacular presentation on cultural change. Teachers vs. students perspective. Research — publication can be peer and self.

Rodney: are universities the best example of collaborative learning/peer learning.

(next: Fireside chat with Jimmy)

Flickr Group for all images.

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The following is a blog-best-effort transcript of Jimmy Wales in Melbourne on the 27th April 2007. This is not a verbatim transcript.

This blog post, and Flickr images are licensed under the Creative Commons License:

This
work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 Australia License.

Garry Putland: welcome. Apple might get Podcast from Adelaide up today. Didn’t they invent the technology? Garry happy as he got a photo with the Chaser guys for his kids. Lucky! About 200 attendees.

Auntie Joy: welcome from original land owners and custodians.

Garry: educationau.edu.au Challenging How Knowledge is created.  Ms danah boyd coming in September; digital generation focus. must remember to come.  Microsoft must get involved with these guys, especially as they map out the future of learning in the r/w digital native culture.

Katrina Reynen: Assistant General Manager, Innovation Branch, Vic DET. Listing companies here. Lots. How Victoria takes IT forward. Exciting challenge: how young people connect and learn. Most wired and global of generations. Teachers integrate technology: critical/reflective thinking. Moving beyond textbook/blackboard roles. Teachers are now advisers and learners themselves.

Students: nonlinear; links, not narrative. Images > text. Networks greater than local

eg: Andrew Douch: Wanganui Park Secondary School:, Victoria podcasting @ school. Study on the bus. Kids thinks its cool as other think they are listening to music.  Kids also creating podcasts and are publishing.

Letting go as teachers: kids are beyond us.

ICT transformed learning; connection across the globe. enthusiasm for ipods, games, web2 services, enormous potential

Use tech — new ways of learning; collaborative tech eg: wikipedia. Victoria ICT is integral into schools, ICT helps students create.

Kahoots; podcasts, tv+radio programs today . Mashup machinima; Kahoots + bluescreen with kids acting in from of kahoots created 3D world.. Must mix media, and uses all sides of the brain.

editorial note: ICT > geeks cutting code Microsoft people! Get Web2 or get out.

Learning in a new mode, learning @ the centre. Vic Gov’t AU$130m. to ICT. Notebook to teachers and students. 1:1 learning?

Garry: Jiimmy’s visit: all humans have access to all knowledge. Skills: networker, connections are important where knowledge is rapidly growing in large networks. Has attracted media attention.

Jimmy Wales:

Australia is really big! Perth Adelaide Perth Sydney Melbourne.

Melbunn as spelling of Melbourne

Cost of textbooks to zero, software towards zero, cost of computers down

Learning impact has been going on from 10 years

Digital divide is going to reduce due to above (ref: Microsoft US$3)

Charles van Doren, encyclopedia should be radical (subversive)

Wikipedia: free access to sum of all human knowledge.

Melbunn beat Sydney in % of people editing wikipedia entry.

Greater percentage of the board from outside US

Wikimedia is a tiny non-profit org. US$1m last year, US$2m last year. Traditional spending on bandwidth and servers (mostly servers) Supported by small donations as it is a charity. Donations from 50 different countries.

Wikia: new organisation (Jimmy is Chairman), book, work or community people might want to build. GPL — wikipedia model nonprofit education and research communities. GFDL for documentation. Plus (cc) licenses.

Encyclopedia » Library: Wikia, travel guides vs. encyclopedia entries. Opensource knowledge. Muppetswiki eg: 300 wikipedia entries; Wiki site 12,000 articles about the Muppets.

Itzhak Perlman: wikipedia; fails to mention he was on Muppets show. Spin/angle. Everything in the world from a Muppet perspective

Mode of production, new style of cultural work. Only way to publish in this way, and this volume

2500 communities in 66 languages; Klingon is not a language. LOL

Explosion of creative.

Open serving: free software, free content, people keep ad revenue. No clue as to business model yet; like day of OS software; skepticism. Hugh amount that can be done. Software packages text, images. As cost of bandwidth drops.

Wikipedia bill lower in December 2006, vs December 2005 as bandwidth cost because less.

Jimmy: Google’s worst nightmare. Jimmy’s mom like Fast Company

Search engines are not democratic, not transparent. Not a good state of affairs. Protocols of internet are open; view / time; OS community to create search engine software to challenge big guys. Search.wikia.com. Community design on the site. Clone basic idea of search engine, get links back. Expect public launch end of CY2007. Media not at launch of wikipedia (so start wrong) — so, work in background before launch. Expect low quality whilst software is in development.

Wikipedia is global. 1.750m articles in English, <33% of the total. 128 languages = 1000 articles. 5–10 regular users. Group has formed genuine community. How to reach out to communities outside the wikipedia group in their language.

Free access to sum of all knowledge. Stallman/GNU. Free as in Speech. Freedom to copy, freedom to modify, freedom to distribute, free do distribute non-commercially. Contributing into the commons.

Sum of all human knowledge: wikipedia, encylopedia: not a data dump; summary of human knowledge.

250,000 articles in every language spoken natively by at least 1,000,000 people — goal.  347 languages that fit this description. Currently only 6 languages meet this goal.

Reusable, distributable over the world: (Truth in Numbers) visit squatter city in New Delhi. Illegal settlement. No schools, infrastructure. (Sangamvihar sp?) Parents creating private schools. Better education for this kids (this is universal) — no internet access. 400 students. 2 computers. 6th grade class can touch computers. All the students in uniform. Unlicensed school, cannot film, Gov’t could shut down! Something broken in a policy that can shutdown schools and not provide replacement.

Wikipedia supplied on CD; no library; where there are few computers and no connection. High challenge ahead. 250,000 articles to english speakers with access: different in developing countries.

Wikipedia: only 7 fulltime people; wikipedia 9th most popular website (6th in Germany) (ref: Alexa). Like David Hasselhof of the internet in germany. 12th most popular in Iran. Persian language editor turned into police twice. Large blogging population in Iran. Crazy people call the police, and the police ignore them. Freedom of speech, worried in Iran. Make a big noise if he is arrested otherwise you might just dissappear in Iran.

CNN.com 2.3% of the internet. wikipedia.com 6.2%.  Journos call Jimmy and ask “what does the internet think?” old skool media

cnn.com is not growing, wikipedia is growing. people are getting their information from different sources. Press coverage (error in Wikipedia, who know?) — oldmedia got wind of it (John Seganthaler) in one para. Corrected in wikipedia within 10 minutes. USToday a month later: wikipedia is a dangerious thing. Almost killed wikipedia (LOL: boost ratings)

How good is wikipedia. Only academic look, Dec06. Nature magazine. Scientific Journal. cf: Wikipedia, Britannica. Peer review from Nature. Look for major/minor errors. 50 articles. Avg 3/article in Britannica. 4/article in Wikipedia. Not that bad, but doesn’t show improvement in quality over time. Pick 10–100, look at history and see the changes over time. Self-correcting behavior of the content. Wikipedia striving to be better. Its a shock that Britannica is so bad , and not self correcting.

Perfection is not possible as an absolute; it will take time. It’s a goal.

Good job of Neutrality, bedrock principle. Widely divergent view points can collaborate. Even presenting the disagreement. Thoughtful toleration are important, where we can disagree safely. Mono-cultures are dangerous. Healthy discussion, all have same goal. Keep the central goal in mind. Entire project is one of love.

How do we foster these styles of communities. Principles of software design. Thought exercise. Imagine a restaurant design.  Steak/knives/killers/cages — bad design, bad society. Software for social interaction, same in education. Think about the bad things first (then design so they don’t do the bad things)

In real world, don’t assume badness. Design, think about cleaning up afterwards. Mostly, accept trade off of open society — believe in goodness of other people. Assume do bad, top-down approach, bad. Hostile mindset, not trusting. Nuture communities, not top down. Bring people together, not technology. Successful online community same as offline. Respect for individuals, respect for others, love. Tech conferences, its about love. Fundamental benevolence. Strangers are people you haven’t met yet.

How should teachers use Wikipedia?

Use wikipedia as initial source, but not he only source! Just like an encyclopedia. Don’t cite wikipedia. Go deeper into the information. wikipedia is edited live.

danah boyd: “encyclopedia citations are rearely my problem, but wikipedia as cliffnotes is.”

cliffnotes: read the summary rather going to the real sources.

Always follow the second sources at the bottom of the wikipedia page.

cf: Battle of Iwo Jima: wikipedia to get context, then movie, then read novel. Context, summary. Not as the final source.

teacher: I told the kids not to look at wikipedia: jimmy: I can tell you not to listen to rock and roll, too.  They are doing it.

All source materials have flaws; wikipedia has policy that by no means perfect, but nor are anywhere.

Free culture: groundswell. CC licensing. Jimmy on board of CC. Millions of objects on the internet with CC licensing.

Taking the OS software culture to content. Youtube: get off your butt and add CC licensing !

Go CC licensing. yeah. base layer of rich cultural materials. Base exchange of cultural experience.

Power of decentralisation. let’s do it. (cc)

Q&A

Charles Sturt University: strengths, group important in knowledge. academic exercise: closer to the truth. What is the editing process.

Link: edit this page, wiki-code is a little geeky. Any change you like. its live immediately. Keep history of article. Truly delete in legal/privacy issue. See the revisions/history and see what’s gone before. One click and it reverts to previous version. Another thing, History — all past revisions and compare any two revisions. Paragraphs changes, words changed (yellow/red respectively).

Can also see who so can be blocked, many schools (parliaments LOL) get blocked for QA.

Articles on watch list for editing.

Can see full history of contribution for a person, can see accountability (rather than gatekeeping). Assume good work, once you start doing bad things, we’ll notice. Community self-polices

State Library Victoria: cost of text books, learning to zero

Same reason as for encyclopedia, Britannica is expensive in book form. Britannica is furniture. Expense craftsmanship of the books. General, cost go to zero (or close to)

Internet, projects freely licensed text books. Wikibooks (textbooks).  Wild and wooly wiki

Org called Connections from Rice University for freely licensed; traditional authorship model.

Textbook @ Economic 101 (US speak) ; 2–3 text books that are popular; authors make a hit. Samuelson text as eg; superstar economist. Handful of authors make a pure living out of books. New method of productions, 1000 economics professors can create text. OS release early and often. Profs testing in classroom to improve quality.

Free software dominate in Unix world (cf; Apache) mode of production vs. Microsoft spending billions on servers like IIS. Why? Open source model. Firefox > 50%, wants to avoid Microsoft as much as possible (editorial: there goes my chance for a photo with Jimmy)

General public, taxpayer money — available to the general public. Research results academic journals and software generated by Gov’t open source. Trends are strong and inevitable.

(editorial note: Nick feels like he is going to be shunned and stoned by those around him, as I am wearing a Microsoft shirt)

Quality of Knowledge, vs. Volume of Knowledge. Most great theologians have born and died.

Jimmy 5 years ago a guy in PJs on the internet. Ain’t no guru. LOL

Volume of info is great: wikipedia is about the assistance of assisting with knowledge overload. cf. search for sydney in google vs. go to wikipedia.

PRC China: no wikipedia access. Banned? Connection issue?

Mainland China, all languages of wikipedia is blocked. (editor: so much for free access)

Jimmy will not censor, and working with censors is morally wrong. Jimmy to go to China at high level as possible to open up.

Position of wikipedia: block of wikipedia is an error. Vast majority of knowledge in wikipedia is not subversive. Controlling is not assisting the IT industry and depriving the Chinese people of a voice.

Using Skype to get around the firewall of China

Norway: drumming competition, old traditional 150 years. Big deal locally, known outside Norway. Put article into Norway; also translated into English. Similar festival somewhere in China, we’ve never heard of — cannot contribute this outside. China gov’t thinks they are misunderstood — makes no sense to block content as wikipedia is important to get their own voice out to the world.

Engineering Company: 5000 people, online community, young people within from older people. Setup own wiki. Challenges, getting people to contribute as its voluntary.

Wiki, low barrier to entry as possible, takes time to build. Momentum; process of learning how to learn the social learning; edit others work, conversations productive.

Inside companies different; wikipedia, newpedia failed prior — but had a community. Humanitarian excitement.

Internal, fervour not as great. Caution: culture, hierarchical and top-down, will have trouble as lower level don’t want to subvert this hierarchy. Big boss writes , all bow down on the excellent prose — wiki will fail. These organisations will fail in the collaborative world.

What seems to work, someone is an evangelist for the wiki, and tasked to make it go. Beloved person, great social skills not the unfriendly ubergeek.

Categories, taxonomies, some are maintenance function. Can true categories extracted from maintenance categories.

Lot  of talk on folksonomy; taxonomy created by the people. Tagging in an emergent tagging system. eg; Flickr tags, from the overall community — array of things appear. Tagging can get a lot of noise. eg: seminar series tagged with jimmywales not of jimmywales.

Community monitors the quality, some have hobby discuss and debate the taxonomy.

Jimmy consulting @ BBC a few years ago, search engine for general search. Couple of staff members to hierarchy of concepts. They were gobsmacked, or dear, the wikipedia categories: soccer players: Wikipedia subcategories by teams, country of origin by the community; vs. BBC do it internally.

Under freelicense, some have extracted the taxonomy for other uses.

Wikipedia, category via topic. Use same topic for internal functional reasons.

Inside/outside the Wiki for people’s own sites?

Recognise: two separate organisation: wikimedia, wikipedia.

Wikia: other areas. Wikia support wikimedia as much as possible. Muppets is a wikia site. Wikipedia is neutral. nobias. Don’t push an agenda.

Wikia, no rule as to neutrality. Sustainapedia (sp), how sustainable world, certainly not neutral.

So, if your site is not neutral (advocacy, etc) wikia.

Don’t come into wikipedia, its an encyclopedia: not a data dump.

Peter Jackson, ABD RN Online: Top-down editorial process driven, how do large orgs chill out (excellent idea)

Went to ABC yesterday to talk about this, Jimmy quote: I think the world should relax a notch or two (editorial agree!)

Consulting for the BBC, similar issue as to ABC. BBC:everyone loves the BBC, especially the BBC

Moderation policy: looser policy now, only react when someone complains in their message boards.

Think about: reactive moderation in forum, more openness — but also for the community for self control. Wiki, flame wars are moderated by the community, and the policy is set before. If there are flames, they are self deleted. Forum software doesn’t give the community an ability to throw out the troublemakers.

Don’t pick the hardest possible topic to do a wiki about: something easy, friendly. Successful experience.

Knowledge how to do a successful wiki, call Jimmy at Wikia. It has nothing to do with the software, its about managing the community. Don’t just block the troublemakers: you must have a tolerance for trolls and be a soft target so they get tired and just go away.

Garry: says Melbourne was best show (woohoo, chose the right one. Except I missed the Chaser guys)

Press conference, master of answering questions!