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Digital Maoism, by self-confessed ranter Jaron Lanier, provides an alternative (and quite contentious) view on collaboration and the way it is used in Wikipedia. Unlike Reagle Jr, who suggests that collaboration can be successful with the correct cultural infrastructure (Reagle Jr, 2011, para. 103), Lanier argues that the best way to achieve successful collaboration on the web is to always cherish the individual over the collective (Lanier, 2006, para. 68). He expresses his frustration with the inaccuracies of his own Wikipedia page and speaks about the work of collaborative communities (or as he calls it, collectives) on wikis more generally, with disgust (Lanier, 2006, para. 33). Lanier argues that, "[h]istory has shown us again and again that a hive-mind is a cruel idiot when it runs on autopilot. Nasty hive mind outbursts have been flavoured Maoist, Fascist and religious, and these are only a small sampling" and that, "[i]f wikis are to gain any more influence they ought to be improved by mechanisms like the ones they have worked tolerably well in the pre-Internet world" (Lanier, 2006, para. 65). Lanier's essay is an interesting resource to view when thinking about collaboration and 'the wisdom of crowds' theory (Surowiecki, 2004, p. 5), and how this applies to Wikipedia. Lanier, a computer scientist and regular writer on the topic of computers and Internet-based technologies, portrays a controversial viewpoint that differs from much other writing on the topic. While I don't agree with most of Lanier's outspoken views which are often unsubstantiated, I think that there is some merit in the suggestion that there needs to be at least one individual, (as well as the correct infrastructure, as other theorists suggest), to guide the work in collaborative organisations. I also think this resource is useful as it is so far removed from other writing on this topic, which often glorifies the collective, allowing you to think about the topic in another way.

References Lanier, J. (2006). Digital Maoism. Retrieved from http://edge.org/3rd_culture/lanier06/lanier06_index.html Reagle Jr, J.M. (2011). Good Faith Collaboration. In J.M. Reagle Jr, Good Faith Collaboration: Culture of Wikipedia (Online Edition, Chapter 3). Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Retrieved from http://reagle.org/joseph/2010/gfc/chapter-3.html Surowiecki, J. (2004). The wisdom of crowds: Why the many are smarter than the few. New York, NY: Doubleday.

Digital Maoism is a rumination on the direction of online collaboration. Lanier examines this from a self reflexive viewpoint which begins with an examination of his own self as constructed by users on Wikipedia. In doing this he looks at online collaboration not through the empirical standpoint of participation, but the deeper reflection of having been 'produced' by it. The inconsistencies in the online record of his life introduce his perspective of measured criticism toward collaborative networks which increasingly attempt to function as overarching meta-narratives. Larnier's tone is personal, his perspective artistic rather than academic, he relates his arguments in language which brings it to life, "it's important to not lose sight of values just because the question of whether a collective can be smart or not is so fascinating. Accuracy in a text is not enough. A desirable text is more than a collection of accurate references. It is also an expression of personality." Seeing in Emily's introduction that Larnier was a "self-confessed ranter", I was a little concerned as to how balanced the article would be. He is a bit of ranter, but such is his passion for the subject, and I would say that it is a fair and insightful critique on online collaboration. Larnier's main thrust is reaffirming the importance of the individual as conscious participants within networks of online collaboration: aware of their own value as part of a diverse group rather than drones in a 'hive'. The relevance of this essay is its recognition that online collaboration is not smart merely by aggregation, that users must be empowered in their own beliefs for the group to benefit from the multiplication of which.

In the article, Collaboration in context: Comparing article evolution among subject disciplines in Wikipedia, the writers Katherine Ehmann, Andrew Large and Jamshid Beheshti, compare a small selection of articles - some newly created, and some well-established - from three subject disciplines - the hard sciences, soft sciences and humanities - in order to examine the article quality, how it differs from discipline to discipline and if it changes over time (Ehmann, Large & Beheshti, 2008). One of the most interesting findings that was published in this article was that, contrary to previous research (Brandle, 2005; Dondio, et al., 2006; Lig, 2004; Stvilia, et al., 2005a, 2008; Wilkinson and Huberman, 2007), the articles used that had a greater number of edits than the others, were not the articles of the highest quality (Ehmann, Large & Beheshti, 2008). Wikipedia articles on average retained 90.3 percent of their original text and in general, only small edits were made over time (Ehmann, Large & Beheshti, 2008). I believe these new findings still support, 'the wisdom of crowds' theory though (Surowiecki, 2004, p. 5). Even though a large portion of the text remains from the original contributor, the small edits by other contributors over time, still help to fine-tune the article's meaning and readability. The authors' exploration into Wikipedia Talk pages is also of interest, especially how these places aided the Collaboration and coordination process and how this in turn contributed to the quality of articles in Wikipedia (Ehmann, Large & Beheshti, 2008). While Ehmann, Large and Beheshti only studied a small number of articles, and another study is required which examines a larger number of articles, in order to make more conclusive findings, I think this article is still a useful resource (Ehmann, Large & Beheshti, 2008). It is constructive to compare this article's findings to the findings in the Rosenzweig article (Rosenzweig, 2006).

I think this article is interesting and pointed wisdom of crowd cannot bring high quality for Wikipedia's article. Talk pages are playing important role in Wikipedia, editors post their suggestion there and other active editors come and follow them or put other suggestion to make a more credible article (in Talk pages the most request belonged to the suggestion for editing and completeness had the less request followed by accuracy and accessibility) (Beheshti, Ehmann & Large, 2088). According to my own research, one of the important things, which mentions in talk pages is about sources of articles which can take a place as print resources, deep web resources external links and inexact references. Disagreement about content of articles is another important subject in Wikipedia and before an article edited, editors discuss in talk pages about adding controversial material or removing content, and then they get a decision to how edit the article. Talk pages may use to notify other users to know this article had recent edit or editors ask their questions there from other or they request for help. However, the author mentioned participation of contributors on different topics is different. There are many articles which have only one comment on their talk page and there is large number of articles who has various comment and suggestions on their talk page (Breslin, Passant & Schneider, 2010). Breslin, J, G., A, Passant. & Schneider, J. (2010). A content analysis: How Wikipedia talk pages are used. 7. Retrieved from http://journal.webscience.org/373/2/websci10_submission_80.pdf

Collaboration in Context takes an in-depth view at the Collaboration which produces Wikipedia pages. I was attracted to this resource in that I imagined it would assist me in understanding how users interacted in a organised context - ie. the mindsets of users collaborating on a specific, and, in the case of many Wikipedia pages, complex, task. Whilst the paper examines the development of pages from a 'contributor's' point of view, it does this through statistical interpretation of a set of data the authors assembled on page edits. The result is that the paper doesn't so much uncover the nuances of Collaboration in an organisational setting, as relate the nuts and bolts of page editing. Perhaps, the mores of Collaboration might be inferred from this reading of Wikipedia's collaborative process, though I found it difficult to see this in numbers rather than testimony from wikipedians themselves. What this paper does do is highlight the efficacy of 'talk pages' in the process of building of 'rich' Wikipedia entries. These forums provide the engine of Collaboration on Wikipedia - users able to get together as a group to uncover the most efficient ways to combine their work - the paper concluding, "Talk pages - in addition to article edits themselves - provide wikipedians with a powerful means of shaping the presentation of knowledge. (chap.8)" This information is useful to me in the way I will be able to compare it to the, say, simpler, and more spontaneous Collaboration of strangers in bittorrent which does not require a 'talk page'. What I would have liked to have known is how the 'talk' on these pages allowed networks of 'equal' users to perfect articles on complex topics, and what the users themselves thought of the arrangement.

In chapter three of Good Faith Collaboration: Culture of Wikipedia, J.M. Reagle Jr provides a utopian vision of Wikipedia's collaborative community. Reagle Jr uses the work of Cass Sunstein to demonstrate that the Collaboration process is not free of conflict, and as with other types of communities both, "consensus and dissensus each have an important, and unavoidable, role in community" (Sunstein cited in Reagle Jr, 2011, para. 5). While referring to Wikipedia's policy and guidelines, Reagle Jr suggests that by applying a "Neutral Point of View" (NPOV) to the subject matter and practising good faith towards the other contributors, it is possible to achieve a successful collaborative culture (Reagle Jr, 2011, para. 103). This chapter is a useful resource for the study of Wikipedia as an example of an online collaborative tool, as it argues that collaborative communities can function effectively as long as they have a cultural framework to ensure productivity. I also believe this is a useful resource, as it provides a very positive view of Collaboration and the work of the Wikipedia community, supporting Surowiecki's idea of 'the wisdom of crowds' (Surowiecki, 2004, p. 5). It is also interesting to compare this article's view on Collaboration to the second resource I have chosen, Digital Maoism (Lanier, 2006).

References Lanier, J. (2006). Digital Maoism. Retrieved from http://edge.org/3rd_culture/lanier06/lanier06_index.html Reagle Jr, J.M. (2011). Good Faith Collaboration. In J.M. Reagle Jr, Good Faith Collaboration: Culture of Wikipedia (Online Edition, Chapter 3). Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Retrieved from http://reagle.org/joseph/2010/gfc/chapter-3.html Surowiecki, J. (2004). The wisdom of crowds: Why the many are smarter than the few. New York, NY: Doubleday.

The poster child of collaboration? A bold statement but is it that far off the truth? Every day Wikipedia helps people around the world find information that is both detailed and related to the topic they have searched. The modern internet is filled with incorrect and purposely misleading information that users can freely access. The user has no idea that the information they are receiving is incorrect so it is quite often trusted. Wikipedia's system of article moderators allows the information to be supplied by anyone but filtered by people considered to be well educated in that chosen field. This means that the information is not as random as other information available throughout World Wide Web. The progression in the Web 2.0 era has been at an exponential rate and Wikipedia has been at the fore front of the revolution as it allows users of the World Wide Web to contribute which is what separates Web 1.0 and web 2.0. So I don't completely agree with the idea that Wikipedia is the poster child of collaboration, however I would suggest that it is the poster child of the Web 2.0 era as it encompasses all that makes the new era so exciting.

I found this article was an interesting read as it discusses Wikipedia's journey in becoming a successful and reliable encyclopedia. While I do consider myself a Wikipedia supporter I did find the article to be incredibly bias in favour of Wikipedia as it speaks extensively with Sue Gardner the Executive Director of the Wikimedia Foundation. The article does briefly touch on some negative points about Wikipedia in hearing from Robert McHenry, author and former Editor-in-Chief of Encyclopedia Britannica (Wikipedia's largest competitor) but soon turns back in favour of Wikipedia explaining that its scientific articles are of similar accuracy to that of Encyclopedia Britannica (Solon, 2011). As this article suggests, Wikipedia is evermore becoming a reliable source of information however people still seem to question Wikipedia's reliability. Here are somethings that I found in my own research that can suggest people's lack of confidence in Wikipedia's reliability: * Wikipedia articles that cover obscure and unusual topics tend to present more inaccuracies and errors than those covering mainstream topics - this is because obscure topics receive less traffic and therefore there is less likelihood of errors being corrected (Ball, 2007). * Wikipedia is not an accurate representation of a vast and diverse crowd, in fact "the encyclopedia is missing the voices of people in developing countries, women and experts in various specialties that have traditionally been divorced from tech" (Manjoo, 2009). * Wikipedia has in the past been subject to vandalism with hoax and defamatory article updates (Ball, 2007). Reference: Ball, P. (2007, February 27). The more, the wikier. Nature: International weekly journal of Science. Retrieved from http://www.nature.com Manjoo, F. (2009, September 28). Is Wikipedia a Victim of Its Own Success? Time Magazine. Retrieved from http://www.time.com/time/magazine Solon, O. (2011, January 11). A Decade of Wikipedia, Th

This article provides quite an interesting overview of Wikipedia and how it started off as a "dirty little secret" for some in the earlier years, with its use progressing to be an "accepted part of daily life in the developed world" ten years after its launch. In addition, higher education facilities (Grossek, 2009; CCNMTL, 2008) and companies (Hendrix & Johannsen, 2008; Hasan & Pfaff, 2006) are beginning to discover the advantages of employing wikis in their respective institutions. We are beginning to see that the 'wisdom of the crowds' and 'knowledge management' are important factors in larger organisations. Thus what once started out as an online encyclopaedia and a "dirty little secret" is now branching out and weaving its way into larger businesses, organisations, and educational institutions. Although Wikipedia has suffered its fair share of editing glitches and is not completely error free, as mentioned in this article, Wikipedia has come a long way since its introduction into the Web 2.0 world and is becoming a more commonly used tool. In addition, it has shown us the effects of the 'wisdom of the crowds' and how collaboration can be so important. Speakers at the New Media in Education Conference (CCNMTL, 2008) note that wikis provide such a valuable communication and collaboration platform that they essentially create a virtual classroom- an interactive platform where students can share ideas, edit documents, and collaborate on group projects. Inevitably I do agree with the title of this paper and think that Wikipedia is "The Poster Child for collaboration", with Wikipedia and wikis weaving their way into educational institutions (Grossek, 2009; CCNMTL, 2008) and companies (Hendrix & Johannsen, 2008; Hasan & Pfaff, 2006) who use them as a collaborative tool. Additional References: CCNMTL (Nov 3rd, 2008). Promoting Collaborative Learning using Wikis. [YouTube Video]. Retrieved 22nd March 2012 from http://www.yout

Courtenay Honeycutt and Susan Herring discuss the collaborative potential of Twitter. This is of particular relevance to the discussion of Anonymous organisation tools, as Anonymous uses Twitter for a large amount of its public relations. @Anonops, @AnonymousIRC and @Youranonnews are twitter users with substantial followers, each with greater than 250,000 followers. Anonymous's favourite method of attack - Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS - works better with every additional participant. Anonymous must recruit members to participate in such attacks through Twitter, Facebook and Youtube. Twitter presents the most anonymous and easily digestible communication channel of the three, whilst also being extremerly active during past operations such as #oppayback. Therefore, Twitter plays a central role in the collaboration of anonymous, especially communicating with those who do not take an active role in IRC chats. Honeycutt and Herring examine the conversational and collaborative potential of Twitter with the use of the @ symbol to direct conversation. This activity is very prominent among the Anonymous Twitter account listed earlier. Anonymous Twitter feeds are full of responses to criticisms and answers to questions. It is worthwhile to note that Honeycutt and Herrings article was written in 2009, before use of the @ symbol became recognised by Twitter as a certified way of creating conversation. Now, it is easy to transverse conversation simply by clicking tweets with an @ symbol. During Anonymous operations, Twitter provides an invaluable resource in being able to address such a number of followers at once. Honeycutt and Herring also note similarities between Twitter and IRC channels, also noting that the hectic, crossing conversation are perhaps part of the appeal to some of IRC. This is certainly present in Twitter, but without the constraints of server based IRC channels. Twitter presents a global audience to which Anonymous reaches out, when recruiting

Steve Mansfield-Devine, editor of Network Security, analyses the threat of the Anonymous activist hacking group. In doing so he discusses the collaborative tools used to organise the members of Anonymous into a focussed effort. The tools discussed include the Low Orbit Ion Cannnon (LOIC) and various spinoffs, Internet Relay Chat (IRC) and Twitter. Mansfield-Devine's discusses the Anonymous group's usage of the LOIC as a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) weapon. Mansfield-Devine makes a clear point that only with enough users is the LOIC effective, making the effective usage of the LOIC a collaborative operation. The more users collaborating with the tool, the more effective it becomes. Mansfield-Devine discusses how Anonymous members are coerced into participating in an LOIC attack, specifying IRC and Twitter as the main forms of mobilisation of members. His discussion highlights IRC as a primary form of organisation, with Twitter being taking a more secondary role in directing potential participants into IRC channels. Mansfield-Devine does note that Twitter became an integral part of Anonymous organisation when their domain names were taken offline by authorities during Anonymous operations. Tweets were sent out to redirect the Anonymous participants into new IRC chat rooms to continue the attack. Overall, this article concisely covers IRC, Twitter and LOIC based aspects of Anonymous collaboration and organisation. Mansfield-Devine, Steve. 2011. "Anonymous: Serious threat or mere annoyance?" Network Security 1: 4-10. http://dx.doi.org.dbgw.lis.curtin.edu.au/10.1016/S1353-4858(11)70004-6

In this article Mansfield-Devine explores the threat of the organisation Anonymous and the collaborative tools they use to organise the group. In relation to this, he specifies that Anonymous uses "Low Orbit Ion Cannnon (LOIC) and various versions, Internet Relay Chat (IRC) and Twitter" as his key tools for facilitating organised attacks on institutions (Mansfield-Devine, 2011, p. 4). This article links to the article 'Kony 2012: The Template for Effective Crowdsourcing?' by Olubunmi Emenanjo, on more than one level, they are both about outside organisations against institutions, and they both undeniably rely on social media and the power of the crowds for the mobilization and facilitation of their actions and recruitment (Emenanjo, 2012). The success of the Kony 2012 campaign and Anonymous's attacks can be pin-pointed to how the organisations are aimed at a particular audience, reinforced by social media platforms, and most importantly how they harnessed networking tools to deliver their messages. However a major difference between the two groups is that the Kony 2012 organisation has a consistent online identity, while Anonymous has anonymity. Little is known about the organisation itself but the tools they utilise (LOIC, IRC, and Twitter) lead us so assume that their audiences engage with the organisation. References Emenanjo, O. (2012). Kony 2012: The Template for Effective Crowdsourcing? Communia. Retrieved from http://stipcommunia.wordpress.com/2012/03/13/kony-2012-the-template-for-effective-crowdsourcing/ Mansfield-Devine. (2011). Anonymous: Serious threat or mere annoyance?. Network Security, 1, 4-10. http://dx.doi.org.dbgw.lis.curtin.edu.au/10.1016/S13534858(11)70004-6

Although much of this article is not particularly useful to my focus on Anonymous, this article still raises some interesting notes. The way in which the author plays down the impact of Anonymous' actions towards the end of this article is of particular interest. The author often refers to the disorganized nature of the Anonymous movement, and suggests frequently that although a number of individuals may be involved, automated 'botnets' are often more effective than Anonymous members (Mansfield-Devine, 2011). For my focus, this is the most important part of the article because of the way in which the author neglects to take note of Anonymous members who do more than simply use LOIC and other DDoS attacks. Although it may be true that Anonymous DDoS attacks may not result in significant, long term damage to their targets, the disruption caused by such attacks can often provide enough distraction for Anonymous hacktivists to retrieve data from said targets. With hacktivist groups within movements such as Anonymous being responsible for the largest amount of stolen data in 2011 (AFP, 2012), Anonymous DDoS attacks could pave the way for much more damage to be done to websites than the temporary service disruptions noted by the author of this article. Mansfield-Devine, S. (2011). Anonymous: Serious threat or mere annoyance? Network Security 1: 4-10. Retrieved from http://www.sciencedirect.com.dbgw.lis.curtin.edu.au/science/article/pii/S1353485811700046 AFP. (2012). 'Hacktivists' biggest data thieves in 2011: Verizon. Retrieved from http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/-/world/13242086/hacktivists-biggest-data-thieves-in-2011-verizon/

Torrent etiquette is more than just good manners, it is a tool by which bittorrent sites promote collaboration and organisation between users. Torrent etiquette has many faces, it is frequently a formal mechanism such as seeding ratios needed to stay on site or the instructions of Admin on discussion boards, yet it is also something which users proliferate themselves purely through the course of interaction. Etiquette allows bittorrent communities to solidify user collaboration. There are 1,090,000 results for 'torrent etiquette' on google, this page presents one net user's guide to the subject. That bittorrent has evolved to the point of having a widely understood etiquette says something: strangers need just a very basic framework to be able to come and work together collaboratively. Before, people would download individually, now, with a little guidance a group of people from all over the world, with different intents, schedules and backgrounds can work as a coherent entity, each individual not only gaining his or her needs but contributing to the needs of the group. Aside from some specific information on ratios and multiple accounts, Brooks' advice is very simple, "If someone uploads something you happen to like, click the thanks button. If there's a forum, say hi. If a tracker has a list of requests to fill then see how you can help out." Etiquette provides boundaries to the crowd and by looking closely at its form we see that its is very close to the ethics we live by in day to day life. Thus, we realise the power the internet has in connecting people and concatenating the work of individuals into that of an organisation. References Brookes, T. (2010). Torrent Etiquette: How to avoid getting banned from private trackers . Retrieved 20th March from http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/bittorrent-etiquette-avoid-banned-private-trackers/.

This page, rather than looking mostly at rules like my articles, also addresses etiquette, at least for private torrent trackers. Although some of the etiquette described could be applied to public torrent trackers, it is mostly relevant only to the more exclusive private torrent trackers. Rather than this being a weakness of this page for the subject, it is useful to note that fair use and courtesy by people using BitTorrent is much more likely to happen in smaller communities, and doesn't necessarily apply to BitTorrent as a whole. The collaboration that occurs through BitTorrent becomes more like collaboration when it is governed by these kinds of social interactions between users in the same private community. This page mentions ways which users can help out other individuals, for example by looking at someone's list of requests, or hitting a "thanks" button on someone's torrent. These seem much more specifically collaborative interactions than what occurs through the actual BitTorrent downloading process, where everything is automatic. Overall this is an interesting page, but I would suggest keeping in mind that the etiquette described doesn't apply directly to all BitTorrent activity. Many users going through public torrent trackers likely don't feel any kind of reason to observe any of this etiquette and will share what the protocols of BitTorrent make them share.

Like the many articles that I looked at a few weeks ago, Brookes gives us a brief introduction into how private tracking helps to create mechanisms for interaction and how these websites promote a good social etiquette and overall community for users. He shows a similar opinion to many others in that people do not require much in order to feel part of a community. According to Brookes, the introduction of communities to the bit torrent world, has taken away the more individualistic downloader. Through the private trackers it has seen these collaborative communities sprout up and instead of individuals selfishly downloading for themselves they are now working and contributing for others and are helping the whole group function. His overall belief that the etiquette element of these communities is key and that if they are to function properly, that each person should be willing to help out when required. As I mentioned, many of the other articles that I reviewed, for example Incentives in Bit Torrent Induce Free Riding (2005) written by Jun, S., Ahamad are of a similar opinion that private trackers are improving the communal and collaborative features of bit torrent and have made it something that people are encouraged and enticed to participate in.

Manjoo, F. (2009, September 28). Is Wikipedia a Victim of Its Own Success? Time Magazine. Retrieved from http://www.time.com/time/magazine Is Wikipedia a Victim of Its Own Success? is an article which suggests Wikipedia's achievement level has reached its peak and eventually will see its downfall. The article looks in depth at the potential causes for Wikipedia's slowing growth and how these elements could possibly lead to the community's eventual failure. It suggests one reason for Wikipedia's decelerating growth rate is simply that "the site has hit the natural limit of knowledge expansion" and the only possible remaining contributions are obscure topics and "janitorial" editing job such as formatting and fixing grammar. The article claims "Wikipedia's natural resource is emotion" and editors are motivated by the "rush of joy" they receive when contributing their unique wisdom to an audience of 300 million people. What this means is that as the need for significant edits diminishes, so too does participation enthusiasm. Additionally, as Wikipedia has grown, so too has the bureaucracy and complex laws of Wikipedia, resulting in a community that has become unwelcoming to novice Wikipedians. The article discusses how Wikipedia editors are made up of a narrow class of participants dominated by young males from wealthy countries and academic backgrounds. The Wikipedia author-base is not as broad and diverse as first thought and it seems "the encyclopedia is missing the voices of people in developing countries, women and experts in various specialties that have traditionally been divorced from tech". This too is given as a reason for Wikipedia's imminent downfall.

This article brings up a very interesting idea: the concept of an endpoint for Web 2.0 communities. As the author relates it, this would occur as a Malthusian collapse. Whilst at first glance this seems unfeasible given the infinite expanse of virtual pastures, the article makes some interesting points for consideration: the number of contributors on Wikipedia is dropping and it seems the we have run out of topics to write. It is interesting to compare the Wikipedia community to that of Bittorrent which has found renewed growth, and purpose, in the context of its struggle against copyright laws. Wikipedia has been hailed as a revolutionary form of knowledge democratisation, it is hard to imagine that wikipedians don't share a sense of purpose in their collaboration, and, perhaps even harder to imagine that we are running out of things to write about. Whilst this article is from a highly reputable source, its bias might be considered in following that of the conservative media toward copyleft, this is highlighted by phrases like 'Wikipedia's joyride' which suggests the growth of the site as frivolous. Considering the data it presents, the article is certainly very relevant to an understanding of online collaboration and thought provoking. I cannot help but think that there are still multitudes of topics to be written about, how many contributors, for example, have penned a page for themselves? Whilst ostensibly trivial, this might be the kind of interaction that sees renewed interest in the site and attracts the minority demographics which Gardner says the site needs to make its community richer (p.2). Perhaps the flagging interest in the site comes from the reason that the site is moving too close to the status quo, that as the BitTorrent community has seen, it needs to reminded of its position in an ideological shift.

This article starts with a brief summary of Wikipedia's start. Wikipedia started its work in 2001 and allowed Wikipedia's to contribute and share their articles with others through it. Wikipedia increased its article slowly, in 2008 there were about 2200 articles being added to the Wikipedia every day and in 2009 Wikipedia had about 3 million articles in English. So, Wikipedia broken the record held by Chinese Yongle encyclopedia, which was the famous encyclopedia (Manjoo, 2009). According to my own studies, Wikipedia has different level of articles; they divided to low-, medium- and high quality and different people must play different roles, such as linking, editing and writing. For example, cleaning up other editor's mistake is a very important part, because some people do not add valuable information and some editors must come to increase articles quality and maybe the article needs another editor to correct the article again and this process may need to continue many times to increase quality of that article. However, that does not mean casual users work is not worthy, because, they can absorb more well-rounded contributors to make more valuable articles. To help contributors, University of Arizona suggested Wiki software, which guides contributors to know what should they do, for example, they will aware the article needs more link, references or it needs more editing and writing (Conger, 2010). Conger, C. (2010). Who writes Wikipedia articles? Retrieved from http://news.discovery.com/human/wikipedia-community-articles.html

Steal this Film is a documentary about bittorrent culture centred around the story of the Swedish torrent tracking website The Pirate Bay. In telling their story, the Pirate Bay members relate quite early on that they are not only a filesharing website but also an organisation for free speech. We see bittorrent organisations as situated within the wider context of media piracy and filesharing networks as clandestine organisations that must be diffuse in order to evade detection by anti p2p groups. The Pirate Bay's struggle against media outlets is elevated to a battle against American cultural hegemony. Within this context Kent's (2011) reading of the swarm as a simulacra of group identity can be seen as a defence - a tactic - as deCerteau (1984) puts it for the weak to re-appropriate the power of the strong. Filesharing is a form of protest. By publicising their struggle, The Pirate Bay build a bridge between physical and virtual communities. The film features spontaneous interviews with people on the street."The internet is too big, you can't fight it, (27mins)" says a girl with blue hair. Is she referring to the network of computers which make up the internet, or the strength of communities which practice filesharing, the linkages and solidarity of people across the world? This footage awakens the reader's conceptions of a link between physical and virtual activities, online collaboration breeds a solidarity between users which can echo beyond the activities of the swarm. We see bittorrent used not solely as a method for obtaining entertainment but as a vehicle for ideological struggle. The faces in the movie are conspicuously youthful and one sees that they collaborate not only in terms of files but also in ideas and viewpoints. We see bittorrent as a tool for worldwide collaboration/change. References Certeau, M. (1984), The Practice of Everyday Life. University of California Press, Berkeley. Kent M (2011), 'Strangers in the Sw

Steal this Film, is a short 30-minute documentary that looks at the social politics and debate about file sharing and the bit torrent client, focusing on Swedish torrent tracking website The Pirate Bay. The documentary outlines how file sharing and copyright is a touchy subject within American laws, and through the documentary we are able to hear differing opinions on who is right and who wrong. The various people that are interviewed who are involved with the Pirate Bay take a 'us against the world' approach and make it clear that technically they aren't doing anything wrong, and through the power of free speech they are making their voice heard. Numerous youths are also interviewed and each seem to be of the copyleft opinion that what they are doing is almost some sort of activism, and believe that these torrent communities are un-able to be stopped. I would also have to agree with this as a 'Pirate' myself and also through the learning that I have undertaken while at university, that this excuse by the Movie/Music industry that they aren't being hurt through piracy is totally utterly false and I think as one of the speakers in the video says "We aren't going to wake up one day and find that all music artists have died because of Piracy". In fact I would go as far to say that because of this cry-baby outlook by these industries that the bit torrent and file-sharing communities have been strengthened because of it.

I was taken aback when I went to download 'Steal This Film' and it popped up as a torrent file in BitTorrent. I suppose I wasn't used to, what I perceived as, 'legitimate' content being provided in the form of a torrent. The film stated, "right now ten million people are using BitTorrent" and indeed, at the time of watching, I was also using BitTorrent. One of the things I found admirable, and also a little surprising, was the resilience of the Pirate Bay founders. Even after being raided and shut down by the authorities, their belief in what they were doing, and their advocacy of free speech, was too strong to just let go. I also found the film interesting in its depiction of the various anti piracy campaigns created by Hollywood film studios juxtaposed with the interviews of young people claiming that the amount of money made by Hollywood is "absurd". Even if crew members and writers are suffering at the hands of film piracy, like the people interviewed, I find it difficult to sympathise with Hollywood's view point when you can safely assume that the largest chunk of proceeds made from any film go to the 'talent' and not those people working so hard behind the scenes. Perhaps Hollywood losing money could be considered a positive outcome, as so many subpar films probably should never have been made in the first place. Perhaps having less money to fund any film on a whim will lead film studios to choose their projects more carefully, resulting in the delivery of quality rather than quantity to film consumers.

This is an extremely interesting article as it focuses on the ways in which wikis have excelled in enticing people into contributing and exciting them about making contributions. Businesses and organizations can learn a lot from this article as it also illustrates ways in which a wiki can be used to increase the rate, amount and quality of contribution. The precise nature of Wikipedia is one of the greatest advantages it has over other information sources. People looking for information find their topic and the information provided is in a formatted style that is maintained throughout the site. The limited security measures on Wikipedia allow people to contribute what they wish with minimal restrictions. The question is however can a wiki such as Wikipedia be used effectively to add value and increase collaboration within a business environment? Wikipedia does allow users to contribute information and remove the barriers and restrictions of both geographic and social status. This can allow bias or ill-informed information to be present in articles. Within a business structure there is little to no chance of purposely misleading information being presented to the articles. This does remove one of the major problems that Wikipedia faces as the integrity of information is assured. So with this in mind does a wiki remain a great resource for collaboration within a business environment?

Overall, this article provides a nice summary of how businesses and corporations can employ wikis in their knowledge production, highlighting some of the advantages and disadvantages and discussing some troubleshooting problems. Yeo (2010) notes that an added benefit of using wikis in businesses is that multiple people can work on a document at once, allowing multiple editors to work on different sections of the wiki at the same time. However where companies may struggle is with the layout and formatting of the page. Hasan and Pfaff (2006) note that IBM, the Disney Corporation, and British Telecommunications are just some of the major corporations that have successfully implemented the use of wikis into their business structure. The Shell Corporation is yet another business that has successfully employed the use of wikis in their organisation (Hendrix & Johannsen, 2008). Similarly, the revision history and ability to track editing changes made to pages is a common advantage running across all of these studies. Although this article offers a nice description of how wikis can be used in businesses, it does not delve into the world of knowledge management and using wikis as a knowledge sharing platform, as discussed by Hasan and Pfatt (2006). They also fail to provide strategies to motivate employees to make use of the wiki and participate in knowledge contribution, as mentioned by Hendrix and Johannsen (2008). Nevertheless, the article makes us aware about wikis and how they can be incorporated in businesses, noting some of the advantages and limitations. Additional References: Hasan, H., & Pfaff, C.C. (2006). The wiki: an environment to revolutionise employees' interaction with corporate knowledge. OZCHI. 11(24-26). Pp377-380. Retrieved 19th March 2012 from http://www.ozchi.org/proceedings/2006/sessions/short-papers/social/hasan-p377.pdf Hendrix, D., & Johannsen, G. (May 16th, 2008). A knowledge sharing and collaboration platform. Inside Knowledg

This article related to my topic discussed about how Wikipedia as one of the popular online collaborative encyclopedias allows everyone to write and read its article for free and there are large numbers of businesses all around the world who edit and publish its articles (Yeo, 2010). According to my own studies, Wikipedia will be good for small businesses? Wikipedia as a popular online community can help small businesses to have an article there. Of course, everyone can make a page in Wikipedia, but, having a page for businesses can bring more customers for them, for example, Zip's Drive-In has article in Wikipedia which gives information to people about its fast foods. Tekserve, sales Apple products in New York, has a Wikipedia article to gives beneficial information about their new products and absorb them on their own blog. Or even "Hollywood-based Roscoe's House of Chicken and Waffles" has article in Wikipedia (Mcgee, 2009). But why businesses want to have an article in Wikipedia? They can have great exposure of their new products: when a company has article in Wikipedia that means more people all over the world can read their information that brings them more exposure. They can manage their information and their through Wikipedia and people know Wikipedia as a trustable resource. Moreover, Wikipedia gives permission to businesses to update their articles, and with the help of Talk page they can read customers wishes and suggestion (Mcgee, 2009). However, businesses must aware there in Wikipedia there will be some angry customers and they may edit their articles, so, businesses should aware to correct any untruthful information which added by others and it is a truth that monitoring can be very time-consuming for them (Mcgee, 2009). Mcgee, M. (17 september 2009). Should a small business have a Wikipedia article? Available online at: http://www.smallbusinesssem.com/should-small-business-have-wikipedia-article/2311/

Matt Brian, mobile editor for The Next Web, discusses the popularity of pastebin.com among hacking (or perhaps more accurately 'cracking') groups. Brain notes that Pastebin is a tool originally designed for collaboratively editing code, but has since gained popularity among malicious security crackers as a method of releasing stolen data to the public. While there are numerous spinoffs of the simple text-sharing concept, pastebin.com remains the most popular. Searching the pastebin.com website for 'anonymous' or their (now disbanded and arrested) spinoff group 'Lulzsec' reveals a considerable level of Pastebin usage by Anonymous. Manifestos and anouncment seem to be a popular use of Pastebin by Anonymous. For example searching '#opegypt' reveals a list of sites taken down by Anonymous - perhaps it was collaboratively updated while the operation took place? The Anonymous group link to Pastebin.com pastes (or other equivalent websites) through blogs and twitter accounts associated with the Anonymous movement. Brain notes its utility in escaping the 140 character limitation of twitter, whilst still retaining anonymity with minimum fuss. If illegal material was posted on Anonymous blogs such as anonops.blogspot.com, youranonnews.tumblr.com or anonnews.org it would likely violate terms of service and result in blogs being closed. Pastebin.com therefore, provides a suitably nebulous zone for posting illegal content. Brain makes extensive note of the use of Pastebin.com to release sensitive, stolen information to the web. Although the hacking groups mentioned are not always directly related to Anonymous, it highlights the usage of Pastebin.com as a tool for sharing information. Hacker groups could potentially be working on releases or manifestos collaboratively with their peers, although this in not discernible in the final Pastebin product. Brian, Matt. 2011, June 5. "Pastebin: How a popular code-sharing site became the ultimate hacker hangout." The Next Web: Social M

This article provides an interesting (if somewhat brief) account of the Anonymous movement, and associated (as well as un-associated) hacktivist networks, using a relatively simple internet tool and altering the intended usage to suit the purposes of the movement. The article focuses mainly on the usage of Pastebin by an offshoot of the Anonymous movement called LulzSec, and how the group was able to use Pastebin to greatly aid their hacktivism efforts (Brian, 2011). Although now disbanded and with most of its members arrested (Apps, 2012), LulzSec very successfully utilised Pastebin for various leaks and links to their efforts of retrieving data from a number of high-profile organizations. This article touches on another example of the confrontational tactics for raising media awareness outlined by Andrews and Caren (2010), and thus the two articles may provide relevant references for discussions relating to the reactions to hacktivist groups such as LulzSec, as well as providing information regarding another tool used by such movements. In terms of my focus on the Anonymous movement, the article may not provide a direct reference to the divides between individuals within the movement based on motivation for activities under the Anonymous movement. The article does however provide a relevant secondary source for additional discussion relating to the way in which particular offshoots of the Anonymous movement operate. Andrews, K., & N. Caren. (2010) Making the News: Movement Organisations, Media Attention, and the Public Agenda. Retrieved from http://proquest.umi.com.dbgw.lis.curtin.edu.au/pqdweb?did=2527572391&sid=1&Fmt=6&clientId=22212&RQT=309&VName=PQD Apps, P. (2012). LulzSec Arrests Hurt Hacker Groups, Anonymous Movement Hard To Kill. Reuters. Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/08/lulzsec-arrests-anonymous_n_1331982.html Brian, M. (July 5th, 2011). Pastebin: How a popular code-sharing site became the ultimate hacker hangout. Retrieved fr

Hasan, H., & Pfaff, C.C. (2006). The wiki: an environment to revolutionise employees' interaction with corporate knowledge. OZCHI. 11(24-26). Pp377-380. Retrieved 19th March 2012 from http://www.ozchi.org/proceedings/2006/sessions/short-papers/social/hasan-p377.pdf This article focuses on collaborative social software, such as wikis, being used by members to communicate and collaborate electronically within corporate organisations. The authors use the term Knowledge Management (KM) to describe the ways in which wikis can be used within these organisations to share knowledge, create content, distribute documents and edit files. The advantages of using wikis within corporate organisations are that knowledge can be shared quickly and efficiently, allowing editing of pages to be recorded and information to be kept up-to-date. New pages are able to be created and old ones deleted. Editing of pages and knowledge contribution is relatively easy when employing a wiki, even for the novice user. Overall the "wiki takes advantage of the collaborative efforts of all members of the organisation to create an effective library of knowledge" (p.378). Major corporations such as IBM, the Disney Corporation, and British Telecommunications, are three major organisations that have been noted to employ wikis to assist with KM amongst workers. However, some corporate organisations choose not to employ wikis to organise KM for a number of reasons. Wikis may appear to change the organisational structure within companies such that "senior executives may be reluctant to share power with their subordinates" (p.379). There are issues surrounding intellectual property and quality control of information. Privacy concerns also come into play, and conflict may arise if workers are contributing more information or less information to the wiki than other employees. However the authors note that through offering corporate incentives, implementing revision control, and employing u

Corporate knowledge pertains to the inside information that companies need to operate. Internal wikis allow companies to coordinate and collaborate their internal information to streamline the normal business processes. This also allows businesses to spread their business network across many areas and still work cohesively on a common task. Wikipedia can be considered one enormous organization that serves the single purpose of supplying information to the entire globe through the detailed and yet at the same time brief articles. Global networks like this are true representations of collaboration and how steps can be taken in an effort to allow and access the knowledge of crowds. The knowledge of crowds is an idea that there is a bank of information that can be attained by taking the small pieces that each person in the crowd holds. Can corporations use wikis effectively to store information? Who holds the power? With any type of wiki it is important to remember that someone must be in charge of moderating and filtering the information. Or if a wiki is used inside a corporation does that remove the need for a person in charge of filtering? Either way a wiki can be an effective tool in allowing businesses to collaborate without the need to be in the same geographic location.

Beaumont, P. (2011, February 25). The Truth about Twitter, Facebook and the Uprisings in the Arab World. The Guardian. Retrieved March 24, 2012, from http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/feb/25/twitter-facebook-uprisings-arab-libya?INTCMP=ILCNETTXT3487 This article discusses how political activists harnessed the web for their benefit, during the Arab revolutions. Unlike other resources, this article is of great value as it reveals that written tweets were not the only way that protestors and activists utilised the web. The people involved used phones to capture images and videos of the destruction around them, to not only inform their fellow protestors, but also to provide credible evidence to the outside world. People also contributed medical information and important phone numbers to assist and organise others involved in the uprising. This indicates the power of the 'other' described in "The Revolutions Were Tweeted: Information Flow during the 2011 Tunisian and Egyptian Revolutions" as ordinary people provide the bulk of the information. Each of these contributions demonstrates a form of collaboration, whereby; participants worked towards a common goal and participated in knowledge sharing (Blau, 2011, p.23). The article conveys that this provided a clear image of what was happening where, via specific sites. It is also noted that each uprising used the web differently, due to constrictions and organisation of the group. Facebook provided the voice to people in Tunisia as it was one of the only social networking sites that had not been shut down, despite the government's desire to do so, they feared it would cause more unrest. However, Egypt appeared to be the most organised group, as "details of demonstrations were circulated by both Facebook and Twitter and the activists' 12-page guide to confronting the regime was distributed by email" (Beaumont, 2011). The author also comments on the Western media's quick judgments on how social media was used

Roy Rosenzweig's article Can History be Open Source? Wikipedia and the Future of the Past, discusses many issues regarding collaboration, with a focus on its historical entries. One of the most interesting points Rosenzweig makes, is that the contributors on Wikipedia, "do not come from a cross-section of the world's population. They are more likely to be English-speaking, males, and denizens of the Internet" (Rosenzweig, 2006, p. 127). Rosenzweig explains that as a collaborative medium, Wikipedia articles show bias towards Western culture and 'nerdy' topics such as computer science, physics and math (Rosenzweig, 2006, p. 127-128). This is interesting information to apply to Surowiecki's idea of 'the wisdom of crowds' (Surowiecki, 2004, p. 5). Is Wikipedia only representative of the wisdom of white, western, geek crowd? While this article was written back in 2006, I still find it makes some very interesting points about Wikipedia and the collaboration process, which are still applicable today. I also found this article valuable, as unlike a lot of other articles that focus mainly on the author's research which was generally conducted on a very small number of Wikipedia entries, Rosenzweig only discusses the research of others. Rosenzweig cites a range of academics that have compared Wikipedia with other encyclopaedias such as, American National Biography Online, Encarta, Columbia Encyclopaedia, and Britannica; providing the reader with an overview of the different research available and the findings made.

References Rosenzweig, R. (2006). Can History Be Open Source? Wikipedia and the Future of the Past. The Journal of American History, 93, 117-146. Retrieved from: http://www.jstor.org/ Surowiecki, J. (2004). The wisdom of crowds: Why the many are smarter than the few. New York, NY: Doubleday.

The many critiques in the article provide good fodder for the academic seeking to justify their position one way or the other. Us users of Wikipedia and traditional books know that Wikipedia works just as we know government process has major flaws. In my personal experience it is Wikipedia that is the most accurate source of information when compared to books on the subject of my father's country of birth. Prior to Wikipedia the books were full of misinformation or no information influenced by politics. So for the purpose of studying internet collaboration - I think this paper gives good argument. Even the people that experience history do not recall it exactly the same.

This article, recently published by security firm Imperva, investigates how an Anonymous attack is mounted. A Particularly interesting point is that this article makes no mention of IRC channels, instead painting Facebook, Twitter and Youtube channels as the main methods of communication for Anonymous. Also interesting is that such communication is referred to as recruitment, recruitment of technically savvy hackers and not so technically savvy activists who are willing to participate in the attack. Particular attention should be paid to pages 6-8 which outline the recruitment activities over Facebook, Youtube and Twitter. Imperva outline the technical methods used to stage the attack, mentioning that there are 10 -15 'Anons' working to analyse the victim website for security vulnerabilities. These are more experienced hackers who are searching for a vulnerability that might allow them to retrieve private data from the victim (p.6). Although not mentioned in this article, perhaps these experienced hackers collaborate using Internet Relay Chat. When no vulnerability was found, Imperva notes that Anonymous instead tries a DDoS attack, but instead of employing the LOIC, a web based version is used for ease of participation (p.13). This way, users of any device can be recruited (through social media) into participate in the attack with minimum of barriers to entry. Although this article focusses heavily on the technical aspect of the attack, a significant portion of the article deals with the recruitment of participant through social media, alongside discussion of the online variant of the LOIC collaborative Denial of Service tool. Anatomy of an Anonymous Attack. 2012. Imperva. http://www.imperva.com/docs/HII_The_Anatomy_of_an_Anonymous_Attack.pdf

This document may prove to be quite a significant additional reference to my focus of my chosen topic of the Anonymous movement and hacktivism. This article discusses precisely what Mansfield-Devine (2011) neglected to note; that within the Anonymous movement, there are a number of individuals with significant hacking skills who are able to retrieve valuable data from the targets of Anonymous attacks. The article quite thoroughly deconstructs the order in which Anonymous attacks typically occur, the differences between the two major types of individuals who participate, and circumstances under which Anonymous attacks are generally able to be successfully performed (2012). Of particular interest, is the emphasis placed on the importance of acknowledging the fact that Anonymous attacks are not always as harmless as they may appear. Another interesting note is found within the conclusion of the report. The report suggests that targeted, small-scale data retrieval attacks are the preferred means of attack for the Anonymous movement and that "DDoS is the hacker's last resort" (Anatomy of an Anonymous Attack, 2012). This would suggest that unlike many sources of information regarding Anonymous hacktivism attacks, Imperva has identified the serious nature of many incidents involving the Anonymous movement, which do not necessarily receive as much immediate attention as a simple DDoS attack may. Anatomy of an Anonymous Attack. (2012). Imperva. Retrieved from http://www.imperva.com/docs/HII_The_Anatomy_of_an_Anonymous_Attack.pdf Mansfield-Devine, S. (2011). Anonymous: Serious threat or mere annoyance? Network Security 1: 4-10. Retrieved from http://www.sciencedirect.com.dbgw.lis.curtin.edu.au/science/article/pii/S1353485811700046

Ball, P. (2007, February 27). The more, the wikier. Nature: International weekly journal of Science. Retrieved from http://www.nature.com The More, The Wikier is an article published on Nature: International Weekly Journal of Science, which explores the secret behind the quality of Wikipedia entries when anyone, anywhere has the ability to write and edit content. The article looks at three groups of researchers who "claim to have untangled the process by which many Wikipedia entries achieve their impressive accuracy". Wikipedia is an organisation in which users collaborate their knowledge to create an encyclopedia of information. "The percentage of edits made by the Wikipedia 'élite' of administrators" is steadily declining and "Wikipedia is now dominated by users who are much more numerous than the elite but individually less active." "The wisdom of the crowds" principle suggests that the combined knowledge of a large and diverse group is superior to the knowledge of a few experts. Ball explains that content accuracy and quality of Wikipedia articles is related to a high number of edits by a large number of users. For example, articles that deal with very topical issues receive a higher level of attention from a large and diverse audience and therefore are of higher quality than articles that are not as topical and thus do not attract the same attention. The three research groups referenced in the article are: Dennis Wilkinson and Bernardo Huberman of Hewlett Packard's research laboratories who studied how a high number of edits by a large number of users create the 'best' Wikipedia articles, Aniket Kittur of the University of California, and co-workers who explored how the Wiki community has evolved from a small governing group to a democracy, and Ofer Arazy and colleagues at the University of Alberta who discuss the importance of this diversification of Wikipedia contributors to the overall success of its articles.

This article takes a look at the crowd sourcing idea that Wikipedia thrives on. 'Lots of edits by lots of people'. Crowd sourcing makes use of the knowledge of crowds. The more people you have contributing information to an article the more information the article will contain. This is however affected when fewer people begin to contribute to the writing and collaboration process. A person contributing to the Wikipedia page may only be making a change as small as a simple grammatical correction but it means quite a lot to the overall aesthetic of the page. People are far less likely to believe the information presented by an article filled with errors and punctuation problems. It might seem like a small issue but this is how many hands make light work. Wikipedia's reliability comes from its ability to be edited by many people with small alterations. It is strange however that in your other article regarding Wikipedia being its own worst enemy you have points made there of why Wikipedia is leaning towards extinction. These mainly are concerned with the decreasing number of people editing. So is Wikipedia going to stay strong or will it slowly become just another encyclopedia?

Ball's article highlights the successful nature of Wikipedia's open source network and how quality of information is achieved. He suggests that the 'secret' to Wikipedia's credibility is the increasing number of contributors and the 'diversification' it brings to the platform through collective knowledge (Ball, 2007). I can relate Ball's article to Surowiecki's (2004) article Wisdom of the Crowds because it reinforces the notion that people must be unrelated, independent, and have diversity of mind from one another to form good opinions. The architecture of the collaborative platform Wikipedia harnesses the 'power of the crowds' in such a way that encourages diverse participation, as opposed to a group-think scenario, and thus produces 'wisdom' through quality information (Surowiecki, 2004, p5). Ball observes that Wikipedia's structure allows for an above average quality of information on more topical articles. This occurs because popular topics create more traffic, which in turn enables more contributors to edit an article and therefore creating more 'diverse' and 'reliable' information (Ball, 2007). This reinforces the quality of an article through diversification and mass collaboration. This notion of 'quality' can be applied to the Kony 2012 campaign page on Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kony_2012), which has been edited over 500 times and has been viewed 1,227,982 times since 6 March 2012, when the Kony 2012 campaign was first launched (Wikipedia Article Page Statistics, 2012). However, it is at this point that the similarities between Ball and Surowiecki cease. According to Ball, the Kony 2012 Wikipedia article is a prime example of a topical issue. The statistics reinforce his observations about Wikipedia's crowds and how they are able to create credible and reliable information due to diversification brought into the article by 1,227,98

Catone, J. (2012). Relax: Twitter's New Censorship Policy Is Actually Good for Activists. Mashable. Retrieved March 23, 2012 from http://mashable.com/2012/01/27/twitter-censorship-activism/ This news article from the online news site Mashable takes a look at the announcement that Twitter will now censor tweets on a country-by-country basis, and argues that this is actually a good thing for online activists. This is contrary to the widespread backlash that has been made against Twitter with users pledging to boycott the service over its new censorship rules. The author points out that Twitter has always been subject to takedown requests, and that this was on a global scale so that if a tweet or user was removed it had to be done for everyone in the world. The author believes it is a lot better that "now, Twitter can remove that tweet in that country, but allow the world to see it". His rationale is that everyone outside of the offending country can still see the tweets, and that if Twitter were to refuse a takedown notice from an oppressive regime it could have its service totally blocked for all users in that country. The fact that Twitter has pledged to increase its transparency in dealing with takedown notices strengthens his argument. I agree with the author on this and find this an especially useful resource as it provides links to circumvent Twitter's technology in an effort to get around censors, and arguments that this new change could even allow the message of censored activists to be more powerful.

This article is of relevance to my chosen topic (the Anonymous online activism group) as it deals with Twitter and the way oppressive governments seek to deal with it's collaborative and organisational power. Mansfield-Devine (2011) discusses how Anonymous use Twitter heavily as a method of collaboration during their activism operations. Though the article says otherwise, if Twitter's censorship were to inhibit this kind of collaboration this could affect the way in which Anonymous organises itself. The reliability of the source is reasonable. Mashable may be a somewhat sensationalist online news website at times, but this article in particular has many links within allowing one to see the sources behind various claims. The article is of considerable relevance to the topic of online movements as it deals with threats to online activism. Twitter itself is subject to pressure to silence of voices of dissension in certain rendering Twitter less useful for activism purposes. I found the article somewhat useful. It highlights that Twitter impervious to control and censorship. It also highlights that Twitter is a powerful tool for organising uprisings and political movements. This article is quite valuable to the overall collaborative resource development project as it is reasonably reliable, deals with the collaborative potential of Twitter and highlights some of the threats to online movements. Mansfield-Devine, Steve. 2011. "Anonymous: Serious threat or mere annoyance?" Network Security 1: 4-10. http://dx.doi.org.dbgw.lis.curtin.edu.au/10.1016/S1353-4858(11)70004-6

Prior to reading this article, I had not been aware of Twitter's new censorship policy related to each individual country. After reading the title of the article, I failed to see how censorship on Twitter could possibly be considered to be a good thing for activists so I was interested to see the writer's arguments. I definitely agree that Twitter's opting to censor certain tweets is the more desirable outcome than a whole country be denied access to the site. Twitter's approach to censorship, something that they don't seem to be able to avoid on some level, has been handled in the best way possible given the circumstances. I believe that transparency of the 'take down requests' has real potential to alleviate some of the frustration users may feel when they notice that something that was there yesterday is suddenly gone today. This method of publically displaying the reason why something has been removed seems to work well for YouTube in similar censorship cases, particularly in relation to copyright cease and desist claims.

Youtube acts as a place that enables users to access media, create, connect, collaborate and share between other Youtube users. This article explores how Youtube provides community space through technology that facilitates music creativity by the users. The article is divided by two sections; firstly, the relationship of art and technology will be examined and reflected on appropriate literatures, the other section will analyse a case study of an amateur musician who consumes music and ideas, recreates and shares back this 'art' work. Through Youtube, masses are able to view and listen digitalised artwork and the technological revolution enable users to play, reconstruct and share innovative ideas. Thus this action has created democratisation of art where previously artworks were constrained by institutions and now the artwork politic has become bias. The case study included in this article covers many aspect on how a user utilise Youtube to collaborate online. Firstly, Youtube as a medium has the ability to connect communities of users with similar interest. Secondly, Youtube enables users to combine talents and create a piece of work even though the creators live in different geographical area. Thirdly, difficulties that affecting the production were discussed: time differences constrain, physical distance between creators, file size, different Internet access and privacy of creators. The factors mentioned is similar to the three properties of digital networks explained by Sassen (2002), which are: decentralized access, simultaneity and interconnectivity. Youtube enable the producers to promote themselves by distributing their creation to the crowd. The audience has become the 'jury' to give feedback on how they perceive the work and may become producer recreating new original work and supplementing the existing one. This made the communication and ideas to circulate within the online community.

Resource: Cayari, C. (2011) "The YouTube Effect: How YouTube has Provided New Ways to Consume, Create, and Share Music." International journal of education and the arts, July 2011, 12(6). Available online at http://www.ijea.org/v12n6/ Additional reference: Sassen, S. (2002), 'Towards a Sociology of Information Technology', Current Sociology, May, 50(3): 365-388 available online at http://transnationalism.uchicago.edu/infotech.pdf

Based on a longitudinal study of five torrent hosting sites (Btefnet, e-tree, easytree, piratebay, torrentportal), this scholarly paper is an in-depth examination of cooperation in bittorrent communities. It relates that collaboration is a social activity. This paper is pertinent as it compliments its examination with data collected by its authors. Firstly, it explores the ethic of sharing central to bittorrent community - people who leech (download) files must later seed (upload) them so that they are available to other members of the organisation - relating this reciprocality as the main incentive for torrent users to collaborate (p.111). Comparing the five sites, the paper examines the different tools used to shape how sharing occurs, they find that the most salient of these is seeding ratios. Seeding ratios are used to ensure that users spend a fair amount of time seeding in comparison to the amount they spend leeching. These ratios are publicly viewable, it is as such that the user's contribution to the community is overt and users feel obligated to maintain this in order to preserve good relations within the group. Users in torrent swarms (collection of seeders and leechers linked via a common file) have minimalist identities (Kent 2012), however, they are not completely anonymous, linking their identity with download activity (p.112). In this way users in swarms are still connected to the physical world and individual identity through things like bandwidth speed, which determines how a user interacts with their peers. The paper relates how easytree, a network for bootleg recordings, had to have ratio enforcement emplaced as the site grew and received new users who were not familiar with the sharing culture of offline bootleg traders who had originally populated the network ( pp.114-5). We see that even within the diffuse nature of virtual entities, online collaboration is influenced by (physical and virtual) social factors (p.114).

This article looks at the value of social media as a knowledge management platform for managing emergency responses by organisations to disasters, based on a case study of the 2010 Haiti Earthquake. The US was a major stakeholder in coordinating the emergency response to this humanitarian crisis and had, prior to this event, relied on manually intensive and centralised knowledge management systems. This was the first time the U.S. Government "relied on social media to coordinate knowledge and action between cooperating agencies" (p. 7). Data was gathered by one of the participating authors assigned to AFCAT (U.S. Air Force Chief of Staff's Crisis Action Team) to configure social media tools. SharePoint, newly introduced to the organisation, provided a new basis for knowledge sharing. Previously, the only opportunity for staff to find out what others were doing was during information briefings. The SharePoint platform supported mechanisms for knowledge sharing within the team, and Haiti specific wiki pages were developed by participating agencies using a common government MediaWiki platform. Together, these social media tools increased the flow and form of knowledge as they allowed knowledge to be: o shared - it was now visible and accessible within and between agencies o reused as new knowledge o verified and usefulness rated o removed duplication of effort o facilitated collaboration and cooperation between groups Conversely, this study found that the uncontrolled uploading of information to wikis required organisations to put systems in place to manage and monitor the content of wikis. Accuracy of information for emergency response by organisations is critical. This peer reviewed article provided a theoretical framework for social media as it applies to disaster management. I found it took several readings to absorb the content and it was difficult to work out what social media tools were actually created beside wikis.