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A monthly overview of recent academic research about Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects, also published as the Wikimedia Research Newsletter.
Other recent publications that could not be covered in time for this issue include the items listed below. Contributions, whether reviewing or summarizing newly published research, are always welcome.
Translated from the abstract:[1]
Previous studies have mainly positioned Wikipedia as a "meta-media", "reference book" or "social media", which seem unable to explain the reasons behind the continuous expansion of the Wikimedia project. Our research notes that Wikipedia originated from an open-source culture, and its development process can be traced back to the concept of the rights revolution. By evolving from Wikipedia to projects such as Wikidata and Wikimedia Commons, as well as holding activities like edit-a-thons, Wikimedia has transformed from an nternet encyclopedia to a global social movement. The Wikimedia movement can be regarded as an open-source knowledge movement without boundaries, of which the action process is fully transparent throughout the domain, the action subjects heterogeneous and integrated, and the forms of interaction competitive and cooperative. Viewing Wikipedia as a social movement and an open-source community helps to further understand the logic of global open-source knowledge dissemination.
FYI: One of the co-authors, Gan Lihao, was mentioned in an article of BBC in 2019. In the compiler’s opinion, BBC had misinterpreted the Chinese scholar’s words, which followed a special way of expression under China’s context.
From the abstract:[2]
With the increasing globalization of Chinese martial arts, diverse forms and levels of documentation have emerged worldwide. This study examines the collaborative folk writing of Chinese martial arts in English-language contexts by analyzing the development trajectory, contributor demographics, writing practices, and negotiations/competitions observed in the Wikipedia entry “Chinese Martial Arts”. The research reveals that the entry’s evolution is characterized by continuous growth and refinement, yet remains an ongoing, “ unfinished” process. While the writing inherently exhibits distinct international and collective traits, the emergence of core contributor groups and Wikipedia’s editorial protocols dominate the negotiation and competition among diverse perspectives, ultimately shaping the entry’s narrative direction and textual representation. Notably, the study identifies a striking absence of Chinese voices in this collaborative writing process. It emphasizes the urgent need to integrate Chinese perspectives and knowledge into the global dissemination of martial arts discourse to bridge this representational gap.
From the abstract:
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