Suggested essays
Editing Ethical Management of the English Language Wikipedia/Suggested essays
The following are suggested essay subjects. What makes for a good essay subject in this project is something that is revealing concerning ethical management of the English language Wikipedia, but yet has no clear cut "answer". If it did, then we should not tease you by not simply giving you the answer. So, the first clue to writing an essay on any of these suggested topics is that there is no right answer.
Who founded Wikipedia?
Clues:
- Define "founded" and "wikipedia" and what counts as a "who".
- Ask what is more important: a general idea, a specific idea, implementing an idea, paying for the implementing of an idea, or something else?
- Is the "real" father the one who one who raised you or your biological father or both?
- What ethical issues do you encounter while researching this question?
Suggested google possibilities:
- Jimbo Wales,
- Larry Sanger,
- Bomis,
- Richard Stallman,
- Clifford Adams,
- Magnus Manske,
- Lee Daniel Crocker,
- Ward Cunningham,
- volunteers around the world.
Further reading:
What can governance models teach us about the ethical management of Wikipedia?
Clues:
- How many distinct governance models do you know about?
- Can you recognize which governance model is in operation at any given juncture in an online community?
- What are the ethical issues associated with any given governance model?
Suggested google possibilities:
- Monarchy
- Oligarchy
- Hierarchy
- Republic
- Democracy
- Ochlocracy
- Anarchy
Further reading:
How can models of ethical (or non-ethical) behavior present on English Wikipedia be projected on a general understanding of the Internet and vice versa?
Clues:
- How are disputes handled on the Internet? How are disputes handled on Wikipedia?
- What issues are involved with ethical issues on the internet? What issues are involved with ethical issues on WP (for example, is anonymous or pseudonymous editing a negative or positive force on the internet? On Wikipedia?
- What processes can be identified as non-ethical or ethical on the Internet? What processes can be identified as non-ethical or ethical on Wikipedia?
- How have such processes evolved over time on the Internet? How have such processes evolved over time on Wikipedia?
Further reading:
- David Solove : The future of Reputation : Gossip, Rumour and Privacy on the Internet, Yale University Press, Published online complete under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License.
- Jon Awbrey's "Historical datapoints of the En:WP NOR policy", which is located here.