Power | R. Stuart Geiger

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Wikimania 2008: Wikipedia Administrators / Arbcom Panel

Sunday, July 20, 2008

This panel was at Wikimania 2008, and featured James Forrester, Andrew Lih, Kat Walsh, and Charles Matthews. Everyone except for Lih is or has been on the Arbitration Committee, and this turned into a discussion about admins.

Filed in Conference Notes | Comments (0)
Memetic Inkblots

Tuesday, June 3, 2008

I explore the memetic inkblot, which refers to units of cultural information that have effectively no singular semiotic value and therefore serve as a psychosocial indicator. In other words, they are so vague and open to interpretation that you can learn a lot about someone by asking someone to give a simple definition of them.

Filed in Random Thoughts | Comments (0)
Review: 10 Books That Screwed Up the World by Benjamin Wiker

Monday, May 12, 2008

Benjamin Wiker’s book on bad books throughout the ages is misinformed and makes a few critical errors in its analysis. Specifically, it ignores the cultural context around each book he critiques, treating them as pure subliminal propaganda.

Filed in Reviews and Responses | Comments (1)
The Wikipedian Discourse: A Foucauldian Archaeology

Thursday, December 20, 2007

This paper is a Foucauldian account of power relations as expressed through discourse in the on-line encyclopedia Wikipedia.

Filed in Academic Works, Unpublished | Comments (0)
There Is No Cabal: An Investigation into Wikipedia’s Legal Subculture

Thursday, May 31, 2007

An investigation into the community formed by small number of Wikipedia contributors who care enough to decide how, at some level, Wikipedia is run. The work discusses identity, communication, and organizational hierarchy in this subculture.

Filed in Academic Works, Unpublished | Comments (0)
Senior Thesis: Democracy in Wikipedia

Thursday, May 10, 2007

My thesis studied the legal culture of Wikipedia to examine the law through stories and histories, giving the reader a sense of not only what the Wikipedian legal system is, but also what fundamental assumptions the community makes in utilizing such a system.

Filed in Academic Works, Thesis | Comments (1)
Response: Me++: The Cyborg Self and the Networked City by William Mitchell

Monday, January 29, 2007

In his book Me++: The Cyborg Self and the Networked City, William Mitchell describes how information technology – specifically digital, wireless networks which are accessed primarily through portable devices – fundamentally changes how we interact with others. More than anything else, “[c]onnectivity had become the defining characteristic of our twenty-first-century urban condition” (11). For Mitchell, [...]

Filed in Reviews and Responses | Comments (0)
Notions of Identity Liberation in Virtual Gaming Communities

Friday, May 5, 2006

The vast worlds of MMORPGs seem close to postmodern theories of identity, as a player is able to radically constitute their on-line self at will. Despite this, these virtual gaming communities should not be seen as safe spaces in which a subject can realize their true (or ideal) self.

Filed in Academic Works, Unpublished | Comments (0)
Trobriand Cricket: An Ingenious Response by Colonialism

Wednesday, March 8, 2006

Embracing Trobriand cricket as an instance in which domineering cultural empires were repelled is a flawed concept which masks the very forms of domination that it attempts to criticize.

Filed in Academic Works, Unpublished | Comments (0)