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> It is a kind of social network where users debate the minutiae of history and modern life, climb the editorial hierarchy and even meet friends and romantic pa

> It is a kind of social network where users debate the minutiae of history and modern life, climb the editorial hierarchy and even meet friends and romantic partners. Exactly. Just because Wikipedia doesn't have traditional profiles and like buttons doesn't mean it isn't a social network. A social network at the end of the day is literally just that: a graph of people (nodes) with relationships (edges) between them. For some reason, people tend to think of social networks as more specific things than they actually are. That happens all the time with language. Some big brand comes along and monopolizes an entire widget[0]. Twenty years later, we get a small fraction of people who actually believe that something can only be a widget IFF it looks like that brand's widget. Social networks can look very different than Facebook or MySpace. Wikipedia is one such example. If you can model Wikipedia as a graph of people with relationships, then it makes sense to think of it as a social network. It's actually pretty easy to establish a toy model. There are lurkers and editors. Lurkers visit pages built by the editors, and editors effectively interact with each other through edits. In any system where you can interact with people, unwritten social rules become relevant, and we can expect things like harassment. [0] http://mentalfloss.com/article/56667/41-brand-names-people-use-generic-terms http://mentalfloss.com/article/56667/41-brand-names-people-u...

gman83 8y ago
For me a social network is a community of users where the primary goal is social interaction. Other communities like Wikipedia, or Goodreads are similar but aren't social networks to me since the primary goal is editing an encyclopedia or curating books. At least that's the distinction I've always personally made.
siruncledrew 8y ago
Interestingly, on Wikipedia, there are articles both for and against whether Wikipedia is a social networking site: > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_is_not_a_social_networking_site https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_is_not_a_s... > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_is_a_social_networking_site https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_is_a_socia... -- To your point - I can see why Wikipedia is a "social network" according to the social science definition: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_network https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_network However, there is also a distinction between "social network" and "social networking service": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_networking_service https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_networking_service This is again a matter of language and semantics. If we wanted to get super-specific, we would call sites like Facebook, Myspace, and Twitter "social networking sites" or "social networking services". Instead, we colloquially wrap everything up into the term "social network". To that extent, the intention and/or context of "social network" here is more about whether Wikipedia fits into the landscape of major public social networking sites mostly meant for socializing (ex. Facebook) instead of some other niche or segment. Wikipedia has a different use-case, product, and business model than "social networks" (social networking sites) like Facebook or Myspace, so it's something to consider when making the mental association of what a social network is and comparing it against those major brands. There's millions of users on Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedians https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedians), so it's not far-fetched that out of so many people, there are going to be those that clash with others in the network in bad ways. I bet if you look at other information-oriented "social network" organizations, such as in academia, the same sentiment would come up where there would also be unpleasant people and harassment to deal with as minutiae is argued over, so this is not something unique to Wikipedia in that regard. Overall, it would be nice if Wikipedia stayed committed to capturing information in a non-biased and objective way to preserve it for future users. It's valuable to have multiple groups contribute their own experience to various subjects, as long as it's not done destructively in a way that is intentionally set to follow an opinionated agenda, which would devalue the 'encyclopedic' nature of Wikipedia.
JumpCrisscross 8y ago
> doesn't mean it isn't a social network Social networks don’t tend towards meanness per se. Only those that are incentivised to drive engagement, like those powered by ads, have an inherent tendency towards devolving into cesspools. Wikipedia doesn’t appear to be inherently corrupted in the way Facebook or Twitter are.
- DanBC 8y ago
  Wikipedia is a cesspool and it's incredibly hostile to some users, which is why wikipedia and wikimedia foundation keep trying to fix it.
TelmoMenezes 8y ago
> A social network at the end of the day is literally just that: a graph of people (nodes) with relationships (edges) between them. Doesn't sound like a very useful definition. There are infinite meaningless graphs of people that fit your definition. E.g.: the graph were the relationship is "all of our grand-grand-parents have the same number of characters in their respective names". There you go: graph of people (nodes) with relationships (edges) between them.
notahacker 8y ago
I don't think people think social networks look like Facebook or MySpace because of branding but because their raison d'etre is allowing people to share their personal interests and communicate directly with people on the site. cf Wikipedia where most lurkers are blissfully unaware of the editors, and editors actively frown on and delete attempts at social interaction and personalisation across most of the site except in the ultra-limited context of explaining that User:X's personal opinions are irrelevant here and they should find a source and seek consensus before editing the page. Sure, it's a website edited by multiple people - some identifiable - and you could in theory be so impressed by a person's contribution to it you end up wanting to meet them, but to some extent so is the vast majority of the rest of the internet. There are comment threads on local newspapers and Amazon.com too.

gman83 8y ago

For me a social network is a community of users where the primary goal is social interaction. Other communities like Wikipedia, or Goodreads are similar but aren't social networks to me since the primary goal is editing an encyclopedia or curating books. At least that's the distinction I've always personally made.

siruncledrew 8y ago

Interestingly, on Wikipedia, there are articles both for and against whether Wikipedia is a social networking site: > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_is_not_a_social_networking_site https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_is_not_a_s... > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_is_a_social_networking_site https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_is_a_socia... -- To your point - I can see why Wikipedia is a "social network" according to the social science definition: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_network https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_network However, there is also a distinction between "social network" and "social networking service": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_networking_service https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_networking_service This is again a matter of language and semantics. If we wanted to get super-specific, we would call sites like Facebook, Myspace, and Twitter "social networking sites" or "social networking services". Instead, we colloquially wrap everything up into the term "social network". To that extent, the intention and/or context of "social network" here is more about whether Wikipedia fits into the landscape of major public social networking sites mostly meant for socializing (ex. Facebook) instead of some other niche or segment. Wikipedia has a different use-case, product, and business model than "social networks" (social networking sites) like Facebook or Myspace, so it's something to consider when making the mental association of what a social network is and comparing it against those major brands. There's millions of users on Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedians https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedians), so it's not far-fetched that out of so many people, there are going to be those that clash with others in the network in bad ways. I bet if you look at other information-oriented "social network" organizations, such as in academia, the same sentiment would come up where there would also be unpleasant people and harassment to deal with as minutiae is argued over, so this is not something unique to Wikipedia in that regard. Overall, it would be nice if Wikipedia stayed committed to capturing information in a non-biased and objective way to preserve it for future users. It's valuable to have multiple groups contribute their own experience to various subjects, as long as it's not done destructively in a way that is intentionally set to follow an opinionated agenda, which would devalue the 'encyclopedic' nature of Wikipedia.

JumpCrisscross 8y ago

> doesn't mean it isn't a social network Social networks don’t tend towards meanness per se. Only those that are incentivised to drive engagement, like those powered by ads, have an inherent tendency towards devolving into cesspools. Wikipedia doesn’t appear to be inherently corrupted in the way Facebook or Twitter are.

DanBC 8y ago
Wikipedia is a cesspool and it's incredibly hostile to some users, which is why wikipedia and wikimedia foundation keep trying to fix it.

TelmoMenezes 8y ago

> A social network at the end of the day is literally just that: a graph of people (nodes) with relationships (edges) between them. Doesn't sound like a very useful definition. There are infinite meaningless graphs of people that fit your definition. E.g.: the graph were the relationship is "all of our grand-grand-parents have the same number of characters in their respective names". There you go: graph of people (nodes) with relationships (edges) between them.

notahacker 8y ago

I don't think people think social networks look like Facebook or MySpace because of branding but because their raison d'etre is allowing people to share their personal interests and communicate directly with people on the site. cf Wikipedia where most lurkers are blissfully unaware of the editors, and editors actively frown on and delete attempts at social interaction and personalisation across most of the site except in the ultra-limited context of explaining that User:X's personal opinions are irrelevant here and they should find a source and seek consensus before editing the page. Sure, it's a website edited by multiple people - some identifiable - and you could in theory be so impressed by a person's contribution to it you end up wanting to meet them, but to some extent so is the vast majority of the rest of the internet. There are comment threads on local newspapers and Amazon.com too.