#friendsorenemies

Upon choosing this module, I had not made a single edit on Wikipedia, always finding the complete information I needed, and never being in a position where I knew more about something than the page did. That changed recently when I had discovered an early social media site on the Internet Archive and struggled incredibly to find any information about it, so I knew it had to be me who made this public knowledge.

My lack of edits stem from there not being many factors surrounding the early 2000’s alternative music scene that are up for debate. Music in the 2000’s was greatly documented, and with blogging platform websites such as LiveJournal, where fans could make communities, we can see events unfold in real time while looking at archived journals. Interestingly, this uncontroversial area of interest is mirrored greatly in my own editing experience.

I settled upon my edits to include information about blogging platform Friends or Enemies on Pete Wentz’s Wikipedia after stumbling upon the website while viewing archived band websites, all of whom were signed to Decaydance Records (Wentz’s Label). Following links to this website, I was amazed by the vastness of communication from musicians to fans, yet shocked I had never heard about it before, considering the Decaydance label is still active. I went through Wentz’s Wikipedia history and only found one mention of the site, in June 2008, which stated that Wentz posted on his official blog that he is expecting his first child. I remain unsure as to why such a notable occurrence has no digital footprint, or remnants of its heyday mentioned retrospectively in increasingly popular 2000s ‘emo’ nostalgia journalism pieces. 

Beginning in week one’s reading, the Rosenzweig article had an amazing quote which summed up my thoughts on how academics view Wikipedia, and ultimately set the tone for the rest of the reading. I was very open to understanding how and why people do not like Wikipedia, to hopefully be proved wrong, but I never happened upon a consensus that was positive from the academics we were reading. McHenry, an editor for the Encyclopaedia Britannica used a ‘public restroom’ analogy while speaking of the site, expressing whether it be dirty or clean, you do not know who was there before you. This is untrue, and I fear this quote shows McHenrys incompetence with understanding the website. The nature of the page has always allowed users to view previous versions, as Halstead states: a Wikipedia page is not fixed or permanent like a chapter of a book. In places, I could not help but feel a negative attitude from the authors, seemingly threatened by a free to use website that is practically as reliable as a book.

Coming from a Digital Humanities background, I felt like I had opposing views to the Historians in our class, I supposed we used the internet in very different ways. The archive blog I run solely uses the internet to find sources, the communities I am interested in did in some ways exist offline, but online was the hub where they met and posted content. I couldn’t help but feel like some of my peers, and the academics whom we were reading, were engaging in a Technological Determinism point of view when discussing Wikipedia. This school of thought believes that a digital product is made, and then as a society, we deal with the consequences. This notion lacks nuance, as it does not recognise the intention behind an idea. Perhaps a Social Determinism of Technology understanding is more precise when thinking about this website: the users of the internet in the web2.0 era wanted a quick and handy place to obtain factual information, so Wikipedia was created. Although it did take a while for Wikipedia to become the site as we know it, with it being one of the most visited websites from the early days of its articles being published, there was a clear need for a website like this, shown by its popularity alone.

I spent several hours locating sources for my edits, wherein all but two were links from archived websites via the Internet Archive. Searching on the current internet served little use as I could not find any information, except for their old social media accounts. Friends or Enemies officially went offline in 2013, which is a relatively short time ago, but in internet time, that is long enough for it to be completely forgotten and any traces of the page be washed away by new websites and new communities. I drafted and redrafted versions attempting to make my tone of writing emulate that of the article. I was genuinely concerned that my own personal tone coming through in my writing would be a good enough reason for a moderator to remove my edits. Admittedly, I wanted my edits to be accepted as I enjoy the thought of strangers finding out about this website, hopefully inspiring them to look at my sources and experience it firsthand. Remaining neutral was simple, what I was writing about is objective: a fan site, there was no way I could take a stance which would make my entry not follow the NPOV rule. One struggle was being able to concisely explain the inception to decline in as clear a way as possible, not to make points too convoluted by getting excited and including information that was not purely vital to the idea. 

I have previously mentioned the website’s popularity, which I believe in a way, is down to its NPOV, or Neutral Point of View, stance it takes on the information it displays. I had not heard of this rule until I began learning how to edit. A discussion in class was had about remaining neutral, and a point was made that remaining neutral is a viewpoint within itself. I found myself disagreeing: to remove personal politics and biases so an objective, impartial telling of events can happen, can allow people to decide for themselves which way they are going to understand the event. In week two we were asked to choose what we think is a good article, which showcases the Neutral Point of View. I chose the Stonewall Riots. The page details the night, the social climate in North America leading up to the riots, and the impact of them worldwide – at no point does the page insinuate the riots needed to happen, nor was it a good thing they happened. The unprejudiced account of events allows the reader to take from it what they want, again furthering my point about the website’s popularity, anybody holding any point of view can ingest the core information, and with the website being run by a charity, there are no political affiliations. 

Much of the reading had strong thoughts on the NPOV rule, suggesting that it goes against how historians are classically trained, to include primary sources and to create a point of view regarding an event. The most interesting consequence of the NPOV rule is the behind the scenes chaos it often causes. ‘Edit Wars’ I believe to be a commonly known term amongst internet users who are familiar with Wikipedia. Luckily Wikipedia has introduced a mechanism which now prevents this, known as the Three Revert Rule which stops people undoing a page more than three times in 24 hours. Nowadays, many of the NPOV wars take place on the Talk pages, often called the Discussion pages. In class I was excited to hear that two of my peers were engaging in strong discourses surrounding their edits, as it seems they had chosen controversial topics. Aforementioned, the page I chose to edit was that of Pete Wentz, bassist of American rock band Fall Out Boy, seemingly not as controversial as some pages chosen by my classmates. I posted on the talk page, made my edits, and that was the end of my experience. I had one apostrophe corrected, and a bot changed the formatting of one of my source links. After much contemplating why my edits were not picked apart, I realised that unlike history that was written in books and passed generation to generation, I could physically see the web page, the history I was talking about, I had solid dates and references. Nothing I posted could be up for debate, as it was genuinely factual with proof, unlike my contemporaries who were in passionate discussions about location and wording. My topic was incredibly interesting to me but did not unnerve the moderators of the page. Reflecting further on our class discussion, it seems my peers had a more ‘classic’ Wikipedia editing experience than myself, at least a version of events which seems to be mentioned in academic writing. Indeed it may be that there are larger amounts of small details to be concerned with on historical pages, yet I wish that I had encountered some issues as I would be intrigued to find out why my edits would not be approved by the wider community. 

Relating to regular editors, studies have shown the demographic is 90% male, and 75% of contributors have some kind of degree. Understandably, arguments have been made regarding that the 90% of male editors are those who uphold the Neutral Point of View, but how neutral can it be if it is coming from a middle-class, educated, white male perspective? To very much contradict myself from an earlier paragraph in this essay, I do stand by this argument that Wikipedia is dominated by the male higher education demographic, whilst still arguing that the NPOV is crucial. I believe a neutral point of view is slightly better than no neutrality whatsoever, unfortunately even if it is coming from a 90% male point of view. A great piece was written by University College London Royal History Society about the editors and amount of pages about women on Wikipedia – leading to conclusions of how the demographic of editors mirrors the gender formation of articles. The work being done by the Royal History Society is aiming to change this, and encourage more women editors to become regular contributors. In hindsight, after seeing how seriously some people take the gender divide of editors, I can not help but feel a twinge of guilt over not putting this information on Wikipedia earlier, almost like my own preconceptions of the website stopped me, notably my lack of digital skill and suspecting overprotective moderators who would shun a fledgeling editor.

A fascinating Digital Culture concept which can tie into the gender of editors is that of Cyberutopia. In the early days of the counterculture net in the 1990s where it was mostly text based browsing, users were unaware of other users’ race, gender, sexuality. This allowed users to flourish, and be their truest self online. Some users hiding behind obscure display names, and not revealing their true identity mimics this, allowing people to edit and be judged solely on their edits, not background or education. However, this also allows some users to engage in Identity Tourism, by hiding behind a display name, they could introduce themselves on a talk board as a female undergraduate student, but are actually a high-school educated male. Famously, Wikipedia hired notable user Essjay who claimed to be a doctorate of History, but turned out to not be as studious as he claimed and was ultimately pushed from his role at the company, in a very early instance of somebody being caught (academic) catfishing.

Allowing anybody to edit is one of the main criticisms of the page, by academics and sceptics alike. Despite having to provide sources, and pages being regulated by chosen moderators, people have a distaste for this mode of online publishing and collaboration work. As previously mentioned, academics struggle with Wikipedia as it goes against their training, but this free to use website that has versions in 329 languages drastically opens up information to be consumed by the masses. Unlike Academic Journals that are hidden behind paywalls, and unlike books that can quickly become out of date when a new discovery in the field happens, Wikipedia can be updated in seconds making it incredibly appealing as a website to check when searching for something online. On the contrary, in some ways that Wikipedia is inaccessible is through the language of the website, as much like the rest of the internet, English is the dominating language, or with the site being partially or entirely blocked in some countries due to distrust of the content on the website. While the site is often praised for its accessibility, it does seem to be that it is by western scholars, for whom the website was built with them in mind. 

One of my main takeaways from this five week module is my glowing optimism about the platform. I found it easy to edit once being taught how, and will absolutely be adding regular edits whenever I come across something noteworthy during my archive research. Through all the reading I have undertaken for this module, I have come to understand why academics are not too fond of the website, notably the NPOV blocking them from adding new narratives to the general consensus of knowledge. Yet Wikipedia truly imposes no threat to academics. Peer reviewed journals are still regarded highly and hidden behind paywalls, the average member of the public is not privy to groundbreaking research, but Wikipedia is the next best thing in the dissemination of knowledge. I sincerely hope the webpage has some longevity, as it truly does serve a great purpose in ordinary people’s lives. This module has helped me to demystify the logistics of the online encyclopaedia, and ultimately made me appreciate it even more than I originally did. 

Bibliography

Halstead, D G, ‘Accuracy and quality in historical representation: Wikipedia, textbooks and the Investiture Controversy’, Digital Medievalist 9 (2013). 

Harrison, S, ‘Why China Blocked Wikipedia in All Languages’, Slate (May 2019), https://slate.com/technology/2019/05/wikipedia-china-block-censorship-tiananmen-square.html [accessed 1 November 2022].

Jensen, R,  ‘Military History on the Electronic Frontier: Wikipedia Fights the War of 1812’, Journal of Military History, 76 (2012), pp. 1169 – 1177.

Leonard, V,  ‘How Can Historians Achieve Inclusivity In Digital Archives?’, Royal History Society, (December 2019), https://blog.royalhistsoc.org/2019/12/16/how-can-historians-achieve-inclusivity-in-digital-archives/, [accessed 31 October 2022].

‘Most Popular Websites in the World 1996/2021’, Statistics & Data 2021, https://statisticsanddata.org/data/most-popular-websites-in-the-world-1996-2021/ [accessed 1 November 2022].  

‘Pete Wentz – Wikipedia, the free encyclopaedia’, The Internet Archive (June 2008), https://web.archive.org/web/20080624235142/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pete_Wentz, [accessed 1 November 2022].

Phillips, M. G, ‘Wikipedia and History: a worthwhile partnership in the digital era?’, Rethinking History, 20.4 (2016), pp. 523 – 543. 

Reed, T V, ‘How Do We Make Sense of Digitizing Cultures? Some Ways of Thinking Through The Culture-Technology Matrix’, ‘Digitised Lives: Culture Power and Social Change in the Internet Era’, (Second Edition, New York, 2019) pp. 1 – 30, 32 – 34

Rosenzweig, R, ‘Can History Be Open Source? Wikipedia and the Future of the Past’, Journal of American History, 93.1 (2006), 117 – 146. 

Steggle, M,  ‘Prospero and Plagiarism: Early Modern Studies and the Rise of Wikipedia’, Digital Studies/le Champ Numerique 2.1 (2010).

‘Wikipedia:Edit warring: The three revert rule’, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Edit_warring [accessed 1 November 2022].

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my wikipedia edits [sic] to include hyperlinks and references;

Friends or Enemies was a blogging platform created by Wentz to showcase "VIP" content of the bands signed to DCD2. The site first appeared online in the latter half of 2005 stating "coming this fall".[52] On January 16, 2006 the page published its first post, welcoming people to its BETA version; earlier that day Wentz appeared on MTV's TRL wearing a friendsorenemies.com branded t-shirt, to promote the website.[53] The platform allowed its users to customise their own page, comment and reply, and post entries on their profile. In support of Friends or Enemies, William Beckett of The Academy Is... posted on their website that it is "the hatester's MySpace",[54] and Cobra Starship shared a preview of their music video, Church of Hot Addiction on the website, a week before it was to be aired on MTV2.[55] By February 2007, Equalstudio, the designer and host of the website, stated there were over 100,000 members on Friends or Enemies.[56] The website became a hub for posting tour announcements and updates, and had increased its VIP journals to include bands that were not signed to DCD2, such as Armour For Sleep and Innerpartysystem[57][58]