Rowman & Littlefield Publishers Global Wikipedia: International and Cross-cultural Issues in Online Collaboration

Dozens of books about Wikipedia are available, but they all focus on the English Wikipedia and assume an Anglo-Saxon perspective, while disregarding cultural and language variability or multi-cultural collaborative efforts. They address the impact of Wikipedia on society, processes of mass knowledge production, and the dynamics of the Wikipedia community. However, none of them focus on Wikipedia's global features. This lack of attention presents a serious problem because more than 80% of Wikipedia articles are written in languages other than English---in fact, Wikipedia includes articles in 285 languages. Global Wikipedia: International and Cross-Cultural Issues in Online Collaboration is the first book to address this gap by focusing attention on the global, multilingual, and multicultural aspects of Wikipedia. The editors showcase research on Wikipedia, exploring a wide range of international and cross-cultural issues. Online global collaboration, coordination, and conflict management are examined in this rich socio technical environment. Special emphases include ·International and cross-cultural collaboration; ·Intercultural synergy on Wikimedia; ·Conflict and collaboration in editing international entries; ·Case studies of Chinese, Finnish, French, and Greek Wikipedias; and, ·Cross-cultural studies that compare more than one Wikipedia, focusing on content, structures, policies, contributions, interactions, processes, motivations, and challenges. Review Despite the numerous books written about the impact of Wikipedia on society, the majority take an Anglo-Saxon perspective, ignoring the fact that more than 80% of articles are written in languages other than English. This book takes a comprehensive view of Wikipedia and examines the global reach of Wikipedia. Numerous graphs and tables supplement chapters on bot policies across different Wikipedias, conflict and collaboration on international entries, and gender gaps in editing. Case studies focusing on Chinese, Finish, French, and Greek Wikipedias help to ground the topics in actual examples.-- "protoview.com"Wikipedia articles are written in 285 languages, with 80 percent in languages other than English. This study claims to be the first to examine Wikipedia's global features, including multicultural collaborative efforts. Topics in the nine essays by academics from a variety of disciplines include the use of software robots, analysis of controversial topics, archived current events, cross-linguistic neutrality, the treatment of gender across several languages, knowledge sharing, and a gender analysis of Wikipedia contributors. Included within these essays are case studies of Chinese, Finnish, French, and Greek Wikipedias. There is . . . use of statistics and charts . . . This information will be new to . . . Wikipedia users. Each essay includes a bibliography, and there is a[n] . . . index.-- "American Reference Books Annual" About the Author Pnina Fichman is an Associate Professor in the School of Informatics and Computing and the Director of the Rob Kling Center of Social Informatics. Her research in social informatics focuses the interaction between ICTs and cultural diversity, and the consequences and impacts of this interaction on group process and outcomes, the perception of and reaction to online deviant behaviors, such as trolling and discrimination, and the processes and outcomes of online communities and virtual teams. Her publications appeared in Information and Management, Journal of the American Society for Information Science & Technology, Journal of Information Science and other venues. She earned her Ph.D. from SILS UNC in 2003. Noriko Hara is an Associate Professor in the School of Informatics and Computing at Indiana University Bloomington. Her research examines the means by which collective behaviors―including knowledge sharing, online mobilization, and communities of practice―are enabled and/or impeded by in