User:Victuallers/A History of "The World" in 100 Articles

==Caveat Emptor= This is a superseded version Victuallers (talk) 18:15, 24 November 2010 (UTC) A History of the World in 100 Objects was a joint project of BBC Radio 4 and the British Museum. A History of the World in 100 Articles is a pastiche of this series that discusses the existing and potential collaboration between GLAM and WIKI expertise. Examples are shown where wikipedians are freely doing research that improve the public's interest and the information publically available on museum exhibits. On average museums do not have their artefacts on public display. Some exhibits are of both national and local importance and wikipedia articles can assist in allowing remote access to them.

I'm told that GLAM is not a term in common use. It stands for Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums. The 100 articles below are mainly from the Museum sector, but we will be discussing the 140,000 books we have archived and several paintings from a few galleries.

Making us collaborate
In January 2010 Neil MacGregor revealed the results of four years of planning and his the British Museum's collaboration with the BBC as he spoke for 15 minutes each weekday on the earliest objects that define us as humans." At about the time these were being broadcast in January 2010, the British Museum was being approached by Mike Peel and Liam Wyatt to investigate how Wikimedia UK could co-operate with the British Museum.

Neil MacGregor took four years to develop his series, the 100 articles below were identified in the last two weeks. The core of the choices are based on Neil MacGregor's objects that either were or inspired Wikipedia articles. Here we have five of the earliest objects that were chosen by the British Museum that were also described by wikipedians. Three of the five articles below existed before the GLAM/BM collaboration started in June 2010 and they would have been seen anyway, but over the next few months over 40,000 people would be reading about two of them. One was a prehistoric sculpture of two people making love - another was a prehistoric sculpture of two reindeer swimming. Which got more hits?

Surprisingly it was the Swimming Reindeer which had 5,000 people viewing it every hour it was on the main page.

Despite a "Bad First Date" ...
The phrase a "bad first date" has been proposed to title the disagreement between the National Portrait Gallery and Wikipedia in March 2009. The disagreement focuses on whether it is possible to claim a copyright on a very good photograph of a public domain painting. Some argue that the "sweat of the brow" required to take a professional photograph justifies the protection offered by copyright law to original works. Wikipedia argues that if this argument is correct then the concept of public domain content becomes difficult to defend. It can be argued that the purpose of establishing a law that copyrights are protected for the authors lifetime plus 70 years, strongly implies that it was intended that no one would be able to claim copyright to those ideas after that date. The NPG were not alone and they were supported by the British Association of Picture Libraries and Agencies whose members deal in copyright and public domain images.

The picture shown is what is known as a template in Wikipedia. The template allows this image to be used over and over again in several articles. The image is important as this painting by Haydon recorded dozens of the leading anti-slavery activists of the nineteenth century. The people are from America, Barbados, South Africa, France and Jamaica. Users can move their cursors over the painting and find a fair sized article on the scores of notable people in the painting. It isn't possible to do this anymore on the NPG site as the images and the associated key cannot be read at the resolution available. The medium resolution images and the key to which person represents each person is only available at Wikipedia.

The examples below are five people from the painting. One is of interest to people from Sheffield, another is a man who split the early quakers from Manchester; another is a French intellectual; another is a Barbadian national hero and the last one is a businessman who sued (and won) a case against the British Government. They and their agents had robbed him of his right to live in Jamaica. In each case we have a very rare colour picture of these people which can only be seen by visiting the NPG. This could be difficult for many living in the provinces or Barbados.

More recently the BBC has announced that it plans to put the 200,000 paintings in public ownership on the web, although it is not clear under what license or at what resolution. The British Museum has committed itself to putting two million records and one million images online by 2012. Again it is not clear what the licenses will be or the resolution but their strategy for increasing income does not identify image licensing as a growth area.

The GLAM/WIKI "world" gets some "cities" ...ok articles
The cyberworld of information that makes up wikipedia relies heavily on the availability of images. Images should ideally have a license that allows them to be distributed with attribution and share-alike licenses. Wikipedia also requires that imafes and text are able to be used commercially. Wikipedia's information is intended to be used freely without the need to gain permission. If a printer in Africa makes money by printing text books then he is still free to use Wikipedia's information. The five articles below rely heavily on images taken from public institutions. Some institutions have the advantage of laws that presume the free and open access to a shared cultural heritage. Making things accessible (even) to the able bodied. Other institutions are being challenged by their historic obligations but some are succeeding to make thir information available (even if they have to use Nelson's blind eye).
 * MISSING ONE

The Back Stage Pass - the beginning of science and literature?
Five more British Museum artefacts that were chosen by wikipedia editors to have an article that were also chosen to be in "The History of the World in 100 Objects". The Minoan Bull Leaper is important as many of the wikipedians who attended the Back Stage Pass event saw this artefact and one decided that it deserved its own article. It was one of the first of the "100 Objects" to make the first page just days after the back stage pass. The last of the 100 objects (so far) to make the main page was based around Peruvian Textiles with were found on thousand year old mummies. A photograph of the distorted skull of one of these mummies got the article on to the main page for Halloween.

Old world, new powers
The English Wikipedia started nearly ten years ago. In the wake of its success there have been other sister projects. There is a wikiversity, a wiktionary, wikipedias in dozens of language and wikisource that stores thousands of books, magazines etc and creates digital versions of their content. The British Museum had a portal on wikisource that gathered together biographies, books and other works relevant to the British Museum. These inspired new wiki articles and also added to the quality of those already available.

The world in the age of confusion
"The world in the age of confusion" was one of Neil MacGregor's titles for his "100 Objects". Here we are looking at "100 articles", and the "confusion" title needs no amendment. Wikipedia is formed from chaos. No one chooses what is going to be worked on apart from their own next edits. Editors are encouraged to to just do their best. Errors are amazingly caught by those who come later. Occasionally a project like the WIKI/BM collaboration can create some consensus and direction. The artefants below vary from a simple meat hook a carved stones brought from Greece which are given a special room at the BM.

Building an Empire of Featured Articles
The Brtish Museum made an unusual step of offerng five 100 pounds shopping tokens for the first five articles that achieved feature article status. Its a condition of wikipeda that no one gets paid for edtting wikipedia so this was a major step for both wikipedia and the British Museum. As someone who has observed ten well paid curators and ten wikipedian editors joining in collaboration with wikipediams worldwide to create Hoxne Hoard then I can tell you that 100 pounds is well below the UK minimum wage.... but it is slightly more that the wikipedian n residence was paid.

Ancient pleasures, modern spice? - "Good Article"s on Wikipedia
The concept of "Good Article" is an assessment of an article's quality. Good Articles on Wikipedia are well written and have been through a review process. They will have no copyright issues, they will be well illustrated and structured and every major facet of the subject will have been addressed. There are only about 10,000 articles on the English wikipedia that are "Good Articles" (although there are an additional 5,000 which are in higher classifications).There were two good articles about British Museum artefacts in June, but over the next few months a number of new articles received this accolade. These articles are in the top 0.5% of articles by quality (1 in 226).

The rise of world faiths - Wikipedia around the world
I have mentioned the British Museum's prize of 100 pounds for the first five featured articles, but I never mentioned that only one of the English Wikipedia's feature articles won a prize. The prize had specifically not been constrained to English as Wikipedia itself does not assume that its members speak English. One of the challenges of running wikipedia is the number of languages the project supports. The English, French and German wikipedias contain over a million articles. The Rosetta Stone won with a new "Feature Article" in Latin, there were two winning entries in Catalan and one in Spanish. None of the articles previously had a feature article in English, although an English "Feature Article" was written after the Latin one achieved its status.

The Road to the National Helmet Week
"National Helmet Week" was a ttle that arose after the Wiki Britsh Museum got a thing about helmets. The Crosby Garrett Helmet was in the news so it seemed reasonable to attempt the most similar helmet in the Britsh museum. In the end all of the full face Roman helmets were described before other helmets were included. Surprisingly the most iconic helmet of Sutton Hoo was not started despite it being item 47 in the History of the World in 100 Objects. Just goes to show that you cannot micro manage voluntary effort, you can however support, inspire and guide it. However the Sutton Hoo article was substantially improved in 2010.

Inside the palace....
These are five random articles that all appeared on the main page but each is relevant to the British Museum. The first two are from Neil MacGregor's 100 Objects. Each of these new articles is subject to the rising standards that are set for wikipedia articles. As Wikipedia comes up to its 10th anniversary we can see that it becoming more reliable. Wikipedia now expects article to have reliable sources and efforts are made to encourage editors to delete unsupported material.

The first article has taken nearly five years to be close to being a "Good Article", the secod of the "Lothair Crystal" was written more recently. However each is improving. Every few days each will receive an edit from either a human or a robotic editor. In return Wikipedia is increasingly accepted as sufficient in quality for particular uses. The BBC are now using wikipedia text on their web site to document the bigraphies of musicians. The British Museum has also linked a few of its articles to our best pages. However as has been noted by Sue Gardner... people trust wikipedia because we tell them not to. Wikipedia is not a reliable source and we continue to criticise our own content.

Pilgrims, raiders and traders - Hoards
It may have been because the BBC broadcast Neil MacGregor's episode concerning the York Hoard as item 56 of "A History of the World in 100 Onjects" on the 21st June that captured Wikipedians interest in hoards. Or it may have been the museums challenge to write a top class article on the work on the Hoxne Hoard, but a great deal of effort went into writing articles concerning hoards. The "Hoxne Challenge" teamed up wikipedians and curators for a day in the hope of creating a featured article. The article was deemed to be comprensive of the subject after a month and in November it was chosen to be the featured article on Wikipedia's main page.

Hoards are a good example of artefacts that have a wide interest. The prime British hoards make their way to museums in London, Cardiff and Edinburgh but there will always be a local interest. Hoards are now frequently found by metal detecorists.

The recent Frome Hoard article was found with a metal detector and the wikipedia article is illustrated with an authoritative sketch released by those working on this recent find. The icture was included because almost as soon as it was drawn it was loaded onto the web with a generous license. Conversely the Broighter Gold used to be in the British Museum but it ended up in Belfast. Drawings of the Broighter finds have been used as designs for coins from the U.K. and Eire, but the best images that were free to use tp explain to a global audience were from a report made at the British Museum over 100 years ago.

These hoards were found by metal detectorists. Not all curators understood initially the contribution that these people were making to finding artefacts. The Treasure Act and the work done by the Portrable Antiquities Scheme has made the people with metal detectors a valuable resource for archeology. The articles were helped a great deal by the Portable Antiquities Scheme. The organisers arranged for the release of hundreds of images so they could be used by wikipedia (and anyone else).Could it be that wikipedians can make a similar contribution to metal detectorists in the future?

Status symbols
Status symbols is another name taken from 100 Objects. Again it suits these five objects which are all status symbols but from different times and different cultures.

Meeting the gods
"Meeting the Gods" includes Christ's thorn, Raphael's first wife, an "Empress" Pepper pot and some Celtic broochs.

The threshold of the modern world (copyright issues)
Writing wikipedia articles about items from recent history can prove difficult. One of the issues is finding images that can be used. Copyright law is rarely clear in any country. When the images will be uploaded in one country from images "taken" from a museum in another country and then stored on servers in the USA and then made available without censorship to the web - then problems are predictable. One of the difficulties is that even where the law is clear the meta data or information on the information is vague. Copyright laws can be clear if the manufacture and use is in one country and the author has been dead 70 years, but frequently the work is anonymous or maybe its just too tricky to find an author. Judgment is frequently required.

The first global economy in pictures and text
In September the BBC broadcast the second half of Neil MacGregor's radio programmes. One of the first weeks was devoted to the emergence of the global economy in the time around the sixteenth century. Since June there had been a growing collection of new wikipedia articles on these objects. However there wwere many gaps. In September, for the first (and only) time, Wikipedia had five consecutive articles to support the programmes.

The new articles were not written from the programme transcripts, but they were researched independently and therefore brought new facts to the publics notice. They brought the same objects to different people. The articles were written and usually published before the radio programmes were broadcast. Over ?, 000 people saw these five articles on Wikipedia. The articles were made possible by obtaining pictures from photographers around the world who were willing to release their pictures to the public.

The radio programmes are not just listed to in the UK. The programmes are available as a free download and half of the downloads are to ouside the U.K. The benefit of having these programmes distributed outside the UK must be very similar to the benefit of publishing articles on these artefacts. Luckily the funding sources for the radio programmes were able to see that the benefit of a museum's collections is not measured purely by counting visitors.

The philanthropists who contributed to the collections in today's Galleries, Libraries, Art Galleries and Museums did not predict that their gifts would be available without borders, but it is difficult to see that they would have disapproved. It is still reasonable that writers and artists should be able to profit from their creativity, but it seems difficult to believe that works given into public ownership were not intended to be shared with as many people, and at the lowest cost, possible.

Tolerance and intolerance...
Five random articles that are either about British Museum artefacts or in the case of James Conder his article was created to complement another (Condor lived on top of a hoard in Ipswich).

Exploration, exploitation and enlightenment
All five of these articles were created this year as a result of the collaboration with the British Museum. However the Hawaiian helmets involve numerous museums and the final painting is in the National Maritime Museum.

Mass production, mass persuasion
The first two of articles were based on objects numbered 91 and 93 in the 100 objects. Probably only the chronometer and the Japanese print were in mass production, but the other three were all involved in persuasion of some type.

The world of our making
The last five of the articles are again an eclectic group. There is a Russian plate and the Throne of Weapons which are two of the last "100 Objects". The Guisborough Helmet and Hippika gymnasia appear like a encore for National Helmet Week but its pure chance. Both articles are written by a new editor who published his articles last week. He had seen the helmet in the British Museum and I'd like to tell you that he was inspired by the 100 Articles shown here, but actually ... he's from Guisborough. Lastly we have the choice of the 100th Article. Neil MacGregor put his 100th Object out to public debate and Ive given you also a choice of articles. {| class="wikitable" ! Image || Number || Object & Origin || Date || Museum or Gallery
 * ||96 || Russian Revolutionary Plate from Russia || 2010 ||  BM
 * Guisborough helmet front right.jpg ||na || The Guisborough Helmet gained an article this week from a new Wikipedian. This was a late entry for "National Helmet Week" but showed that there are new editors out there. || This week! ||  BM
 * Throne of Weapons, British Museum.jpg ||98 || Throne of Weapons from Mozambique was inspired by the work of Bishop Dinis Sengulane|| 2001 || BM
 * Het Valkhof - Reiter mit Gesichtshelm.jpg ||na || The recent Hippika gymnasia article is also from a new Wikipedian. This article describes the ancient sport of Roman cavalrymen. The article is able to call on images and research developed during "National Helmet Week". Wikipedia has lots of small articles that support more important articles. The British Museum's articles has expanded by over 100 articles, but the quality of the articles still remains varied. The Rosetta stone will always command top importance and with luck a top quality article. Other artefacts and people are notable, but they do not demand the same level of detail. (Although they sometimes get a disprortionate level of interest). || This week! || BM
 * ||100 || Solar-powered lamp and charger from China || 2010 || ||
 * Throne of Weapons, British Museum.jpg ||98 || Throne of Weapons from Mozambique was inspired by the work of Bishop Dinis Sengulane|| 2001 || BM
 * Het Valkhof - Reiter mit Gesichtshelm.jpg ||na || The recent Hippika gymnasia article is also from a new Wikipedian. This article describes the ancient sport of Roman cavalrymen. The article is able to call on images and research developed during "National Helmet Week". Wikipedia has lots of small articles that support more important articles. The British Museum's articles has expanded by over 100 articles, but the quality of the articles still remains varied. The Rosetta stone will always command top importance and with luck a top quality article. Other artefacts and people are notable, but they do not demand the same level of detail. (Although they sometimes get a disprortionate level of interest). || This week! || BM
 * ||100 || Solar-powered lamp and charger from China || 2010 || ||
 * ||100 || Solar-powered lamp and charger from China || 2010 || ||
 * ||100 || Solar-powered lamp and charger from China || 2010 || ||

The 100th Article
The choice of the 100th article should sum up these 100 articles. The first choice offered is a solar lamp. This continues to mimic the 100 Objects as that was the public choice there. The second choice is an article about the British Museum's totem pole which an article that would again describe a highlight of the museum's collection. The third and fourth coice are much more ambitious. The third choice is for GLAM delegates. Can one of you create The last choice is to publish an article on the National Portrait Gallery's painting of the "1840 Anti-Slavery Convention" in collabration with the NPG. This would make an excellent second date as I believe we may have close to 99 other NPG articles that would create 100 Articles for the NPG.
 * }

Attribution
Much of the material used here is unsurprisingly taken from Wikipedia. There is grave danger of missing someone so I will not attempt a list, but all the audit trails should be in place. Do click on one of these articles, pictures or references and go and find out who helped to create what you see here.