Rimmer, Matthew --- "Wikipedia, Collective Authorship and the Politics of Knowledge" [2009] ELECD 441; in Arup, Christopher; van Caenegem, William (eds), "Intellectual Property Policy Reform" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2009)

Book Title: Intellectual Property Policy Reform

Editor(s): Arup, Christopher; van Caenegem, William

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781848441637

Section: Chapter 9

Section Title: Wikipedia, Collective Authorship and the Politics of Knowledge

Author(s): Rimmer, Matthew

Number of pages: 27

Extract:

9. Wikipedia, collective authorship and
the politics of knowledge
Matthew Rimmer
Because the world is radically new, the ideal encyclopedia should be
radical, too...
It should stop being safe ­ in politics, in philosophy, in science.
Charles van Doren (1962, p. 26)



I. INTRODUCTION
A `wiki' is a piece of software that allows users to easily create, edit and hyper-
link web pages together, and create collaborative and community websites.
Ward Cunningham (2002) was the developer of the first wiki in 1994 ­ the
WikiWikiWeb, which he described as `the simplest online database that could
possibly work.' He used the Hawaiian phrase, `Wiki', a shorthand for fast, to
describe the software. Cunningham (2002) explained, `I chose wiki-wiki as an
alliterative substitute for "quick" and thereby avoided naming this stuff quick-
web.' He elaborated:

Wiki is a piece of server software that allows users to freely create and edit Web
page content using any Web browser. Wiki supports hyperlinks and has a simple
text syntax for creating new pages and crosslinks between internal pages on the fly.
Wiki is unusual among group communication mechanisms in that it allows the orga-
nization of contributions to be edited in addition to the content itself. Like many
simple concepts, `open editing' has some profound and subtle effects on Wiki usage.
Allowing everyday users to create and edit any page in a Web site is exciting in that
it encourages democratic use of the Web and promotes content composition by
nontechnical users. (Cunningham, 2002)

Since the ...