Negotiating Boundaries of Knowledge: Discourse Analysis of Wikipedia's Articles for Deletion (Afd) Discussion

Negotiating Boundaries of Knowledge: Discourse Analysis of Wikipedia's Articles for Deletion (Afd) Discussion - scientific work related to Wikipedia quality published in 2016, written by Shing-Chung Jonathan Yam.

Overview

ABSTRACTAlthough previous research has revealed factors that affect Wikipedia editors' decisions regarding content retainment and deletion,1 there has been little research on the editors' discussion that is involved therein as a linguistic process. In this article, Author study Wikipedia's Articles for Deletion (AfD) talk pages and conceptualize each discussion as a conflictual language game.2 Author study, by using discourse analysis interpretively and critically, how participants (especially first movers) frame the discussion direction—either as an invitation to collaborate or with cascading arguments (leaving little room for casual chit-chat). Finally, Author study entire AfD discussions and find two coexisting language games: the discussion game and the consultation/enforcement game. Author find that the closing admins of AfD discussions function as policy experts rather than consensus facilitators. Hence, AfD discussions contain both sets of game rules, but ultimately the power of the decision is nonetheless vested in t...