284 | nº 31, pp. 283-302 | doxa.comunicación
July-December of 2020
Spanish/Castilian on Wikipedia: voices and discussion forum
ISSN: 1696-019X / e-ISSN: 2386-3978
1. Introduction
From its foundation to date, the digital impact of Wikipedia has been extraordinary, a true example of the use of Big Data (Mayer-Schönberger y Cukier, 2013). Of all similar online resources, this online encyclopedia boasts the most entries, but above all, it is the most consulted, sees the highest levels of activity and has the greatest number of contributors (Tramullas, 2015, Alexa, 2020). In fact, in March 2020, there were as many as 25,322,788,288 visits recorded to some Wikipedia pages (Wikistats).
Moreover, Wikipedia is a model example of collaborative working, what is termed collective intelligence (Kubátová, 2012). This collaborative behavior is precisely what we will attempt to demonstrate in this investigation through the use of a case study focusing on the analysis of two articles from the encyclopedia: “idioma español” “Spanish language” and “controversia por el nombre del idioma español” “Controversy surrounding the name of the Spanish language”. The analysis of these two encyclopedia entries will allow us to shed light on the editorial policies regarding Wikipedia articles in the encyclopedia’s Spanish version.
The first version of the online encyclopedia, in English, was put together by Larry Sanger and Jimmy Wales on 15th January 2001 and took its inspiration from the Nupedia project (Timothy, 2005), a trial version which had much smaller scope owing to the fact that was not based on collaborative creation, termed wiki. Since this point, the birth and exponential growth of
Abstract:
In this research we carried out a study with quantitative and qualitative methodology of two encyclopedia entries and their respective talk pages in the Spanish version of Wikipedia. The two articles that were monitored and analyse are “Spanish language” and “Controversy over the name of the Spanish language”, whose analysis has allowed us to demonstrate the collaborative working mode of the online encyclopedia as well as to study the discussion forums that are generated in the construction of these entries. In this way, we analyse some of the aspects of typical user behaviour on virtual forums and the (im)politeness strategies used most frequently in the discussions that the encyclopedia itself promotes for its own development. Our results show how Spanish Wikipedia is a working environment that strives to keep progressing in its aim to produce rigorous and effective results, by providing an endogenous structure that acts as a filter/manager of content and ways of expression. We will also verify how discussions about the construction of these entries show elements of impoliteness occurring in interactions between users and editors, which denotes an attitude that is at variance with the rules of behaviour specified by the digital encyclopedia (the so-called “five pillars” of Wikipedia).
Keywords:
Wikipedia; Spanish; collaborative work; discussion; (im)politeness.
Resumen:
En esta investigación hemos realizado un estudio, con metodología cuantitativa y cualitativa, de dos voces enciclopédicas y sus respec-tivas discusiones en la versión en español de Wikipedia. Los dos artículos monitorizados y analizados han sido “idioma español” y “controversia por el nombre del idioma español”, cuyo análisis nos ha permitido mostrar el modo de trabajo colaborativo de la enciclo-pedia online y el estudio de los foros de discusión que se generan en la construcción de estas entradas. Por ello, hemos analizado algu-nos aspectos de comportamiento propios de los foros virtuales y las estrategias de (des)cortesía más recurrentes en las discusiones que propicia la propia enciclopedia para su construcción. Los resultados muestran cómo Wikipedia en español es un entorno de trabajo que pretende seguir avanzando en la obtención de productos rigurosos y eficaces, arbitrando para ello una estructura endógena que actúe a modo de filtro/gestor de contenidos y formas de expresión. Hemos comprobado también cómo en la discusión sobre la construcción de estas voces se emplean estrategias de descortesía entre los usuarios y los editores, lo que denota una actitud que se desmarca de las nor-mas de comportamiento de esta enciclopedia digital (los llamados “cinco pilares” de Wikipedia).
Palabras clave:
Wikipedia; Español; trabajo colaborativo; discusión; (des)cortesía.
Received: 20/07/2020 - Accepted: 17/10/2020
Recibido: 20/07/2020 - Aceptado: 17/10/2020
