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Wikipedia and encyclopedic production

Jeff Loveland and Joseph ReagleView all authors and affiliations
Volume 15, Issue 8
https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444812470428

Abstract

Wikipedia is often presented within a foreshortened or idealized history of encyclopedia-making. Here we challenge this viewpoint by contextualizing Wikipedia and its modes of production on a broad temporal scale. Drawing on examples from Roman antiquity onward, but focusing on the years since 1700, we identify three forms of encyclopedic production: compulsive collection, stigmergic accumulation, and corporate production. While each could be characterized as a discrete period, we point out the existence of significant overlaps in time as well as with the production of Wikipedia today. Our analysis explores the relation of editors, their collaborators, and their modes of composition with respect to changing notions of authorship and originality. Ultimately, we hope our contribution will help scholars avoid ahistorical claims about Wikipedia, identify historical cases germane to the social scientist’s concerns, and show that contemporary questions about Wikipedia have a lifespan exceeding the past decade.

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Biographies

Jeff Loveland is a Professor of Romance Languages and Literatures at the University of Cincinnati. Much of his recent research has been on the history of encyclopedias, especially 18th-century encyclopedias in western Europe. Among other things, he is the author of An Alternative Encyclopedia: Dennis de Coetlogon’s Universal History of Arts and Sciences (SVEC, 2010) and co-editor of The Early Britannia (1768−1803); The Growth of an Outstanding Encyclopedia (SVEC, 2009).
Joseph Reagle is an Assistant Professor of Communication Studies at Northeastern, a faculty associate at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard, and author of Good Faith Collaboration: The Culture of Wikipedia (The MIT Press, 2010). He taught and received his PhD at NYU’s (New York University) Department of Media, Culture, and Communication. As a research engineer at MIT, he served as a Working Group Chair and Author within Internet Engineering Task Force (IETE) and World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) on topics including digital security, privacy, and internet policy.
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