The prompt provided a hint stating that, "As a hint, there are a couple of such roles/keystone species: 1) the defender of the page (each page, often has someone who is very protective of edits and changes to a page--wikipedia is even more protected and territorial--if you try to make a change that individuals will continuously hit the revert button and return the page back to it's original constitution); 2) the editor who revises all the content that others put on the page." This caught my attention because of a personal experience when I was creating my Wikitravel. First and foremost, I made the mistake of underestimating how serious these keystone species are about the editing of certain information ecologies. I learned this the hard way when I edited the Florence, Italy, Wikitravel, according to my own personal experience after living there for four months. Apparently, my advice did not "make the cut," so to speak and was revised and deleted off the page.
Nardi and O'day argue that presence of these keystone species is crucial to the survival of the ecology, however, after my personal experience, I have to disagree. After all, these people fall into this category, they are not assigned to it. In other words, who are they to decide they are important enough or the most knowledgeable on the topic published on the information ecology itself. And, how do they know what type of information the reader is searching for? I disagree with Nardi and O'day for the simple reason that these keystone species do not know. They are not mind readers, but everyday people with no higher rank than the next man.
Due to this, I still support information ecologies but believe they should be worldly knowledge, as the creators of wiki intended them to be. Nardi and O'day state that "Ironically, their contributions are often unofficial, unrecognized, and seemingly peripheral to the most obvious productive functions of the workplace." I agree with this statement. The contributions are unofficial and unrecognized, this is a known fact to both editors and readers of the information ecology. So, then it should be left at that. If you want to feel important, go get published, otherwise, learn to live with the fact that an information ecology is open for additional information and worldly knowledge.
Hmmm...This is an engaging response, Jenna. Still, the main concerns I have with the response stems from a less complete understanding of "keystone species" these are, as Nardi and O'Day explain a number of species--those that kind of get there first or those that have a certain type of vital importance to the ecology.
ReplyDeleteThe example I provided in the post is just one type of example. You could suggest that people like you whose posts are "deleted" are unfairly incorporated into the ecology, and using Selber's heuristic we can see that there is a type of "differential incorporation," yet we see this type of behavior in everyday contexts. Why would one expect that hierarchies do not exist within information ecologies? Ultimately, I think the more central question becomes how can we get the different types species keystone and otherwise to coexist in ways that are sensible and acceptable to all? No...?