Overview

"Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia, is built by a community--a community of Wikipedians who are expected to ""assume good faith"" when interacting with one another. In Good Faith Collaboration, Joseph Reagle examines this unique collaborative culture. Wikipedia, says Reagle, is not the first effort to create a freely shared, universal encyclopedia; its early twentieth-century ancestors include Paul Otlet's Universal Repository and H. G. Wells's proposal for a World Brain. Both these projects, like Wikipedia, were fuelled by new technology--which at the time included index cards and microfilm. What distinguishes Wikipedia from these and other more recent ventures is Wikipedia's good-faith collaborative culture, as seen not only in the writing and editing of articles but also in their discussion pages and edit histories. Keeping an open perspective on both knowledge claims and other contributors, Reagle argues, creates an extraordinary collaborative potential. Wikipedia's style of collaborative production has been imitated, analyzed, and satirized. Despite the social unease over its implications for individual autonomy, institutional authority, and the character (and quality) of cultural products, Wikipedia's good-faith collaborative culture has brought us closer than ever to a realization of the century-old pursuit of a universal encyclopedia."

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Wikipedia deserves to have its story intelligently told, and Joseph Reagle has done exactly that.

[A] fascinating revelation about how Wikipedia is just one of several attempts at creating a universal encyclopedia. -- Jeff Kirchoff, Rhizomes Beyond doubt this is a text that captures the spirit of the Wikipedia enterprise; it is definitely an excellent read and an accomplished exercise of transparency. -- Jose-Carlos Redondo-Olmedilla, The Information Society For students of social phenomena, Reagle's history is a fascinating read, especially in light of Wikileaks...for anyone interested in starting a wiki, his descriptions of problems and solutions are invaluable. -- Bernice Glenn, Computing Reviews Ultimately, Reagle offers a compelling case that Wikipedia's most fascinating and unprecedented aspect isn't the encyclopedia itself -- rather, it's the collaborative culture that underpins it: brawling, self-reflexive, funny, serious, and full-tilt committed to the project, even if it means setting aside personal differences. Reagle's position as a scholar and a member of the community makes him uniquely situated to describe this culture. -- Cory Doctorow, boingboing

[A] fascinating revelation about how Wikipedia is just one of several attempts at creating a universal encyclopedia. -- Jeff Kirchoff, Rhizomes Beyond doubt this is a text that captures the spirit of the Wikipedia enterprise; it is definitely an excellent read and an accomplished exercise of transparency. -- Jose-Carlos Redondo-Olmedilla, The Information Society For students of social phenomena, Reagle's history is a fascinating read, especially in light of Wikileaks...for anyone interested in starting a wiki, his descriptions of problems and solutions are invaluable. -- Bernice Glenn, Computing Reviews Good Faith Collaboration sheds some much-needed light on one of the most influential resources available today. Joseph Reagle accurately captures the internal collaborative climate of 'good faith' in Wikipedia, and provides an excellent history of its progenitors like Nupedia. -- Jimmy Wales, Founder of Wikipedia Joseph Reagle is one of a very few people who are both deeply engaged participants in online community and first-rate scholars of it. In Good Faith Collaboration he provides the best explanation to date of how a communally created encyclopedia went from 'crazy idea' to the most important reference work in the English language in less than ten years, and what Wikipedia's massive global experiment in its collaborative culture means for the future of ours. -- Clay Shirky, NYU, author of Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing without Organizations Joseph Reagle Jr's Good Faith Collaboration: The Culture of Wikipedia is exactly what a popular, scholarly work should be: serious but not slow, intelligent but not dull, and esoteric but not obscure. It's practically a textbook example on how to adapt a dissertation as a trade book -- dropping the literature review, moderating the stuff that's meant to prove you've done your homework, and diving straight into the argument. -- Cory Doctorow, boingboing Joseph Reagle's account of what makes Wikipedia tick debunks the vision of a shining Alexandria gliding toward free and perfect knowledge and replaces it with something far more awe-inspiring: a humane, and human, enterprise that with each fitful back-and-forth elicits the best from those it draws in. In an era of polemic and cheap shots that some attribute largely to the Internet's influence, he shows how even those of wildly varying backgrounds who disagree intensely can see themselves as embarked on a common, ennobling mission grounded in respect and reason. -- Jonathan Zittrain, Professor of Law, Harvard Law School and Kennedy School, Professor of Computer Science, Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, and author of The Future of the Internet -- And How to Stop It Wikipedia deserves to have its story intelligently told, and Joseph Reagle has done exactly that. Good Faith Collaboration is smart, accessible, and astutely observed. I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to better understand how Wikipedia works, and why it matters. -- Sue Gardner, Executive Director, Wikimedia Foundation

Author Information

Joseph Michael Reagle Jr. is an Assistant Professor of Communication Studies at Northeastern University and a Faculty Associate at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University.

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