Where do we go from here? Cognitive surplus,and changing the world

One of the most intriguing TED talks I watched some time ago was about cognitive surplus. It really changed how I view many things. When reflecting on all what I learned in this class, it came to my mind and I looked it up to find out that it was no other than Shirky himself who wrote Here Comes Everybody.

http://www.ted.com/talks/clay_shirky_how_cognitive_surplus_will_change_the_world.html

The concept is simple yet can truly change the world and make it a better place for everyone. I recall the number of cognitive surplus hours estimated to be around 1 trillion or so per year. If we all somehow aggregated this and mobilized it to serve mutually beneficial projects for all of humanity, we will all be better off, everyone of us. This class profoundly changed my views on many things, but this idea stands out for me. I think that most religions, philosophies, political and social movements that I can think of had such component in their agenda. Because they knew its intrinsic power. The only difference is that many times it was left in the abstract with no tangible way of taking action. But know we have it, technology. In addition to my idealistic dreaming of solving the UN Millennium’s goals which might be assisted by aggregating both the gaps in the current implementations and potential customized solution, there are more practical applications.

A concept I came across in one of my classes and I think ties well to this is “Games with a purpose.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_with_a_purpose

I think it's just fascinating on many levels. It’s aggregating usually “wasted” time and channeling it to solve problems that technology can't,leaving the burden on humans. One of the better known examples is Foldit http://fold.it/portal/ In which we play to solve puzzles about how proteins came to take their current shapes. This has numerous potential medical and therapeutic applications due to understanding the protein’s structure.

Another similar one is Phylo in which you play to try and decode genetic diseases.

This is all while we are technically still playing a game which makes it a great concept in my opinion.

In a world where recourses are getting scarcer and our problems larger and more complex, leveraging cheap technology to aggregate the cognitive surplus of the world will soon be inevitable. It can help us with medical access for sub-Saharan African countries who have more native doctors in Chicago than in their countries. It can help us in solvingn poverty and hunger. Combining micro finance with online networks was such a great way, but much more is needed. If I exagurate enough, the solution to all our problems are within our hands, we just need to find which exact hands.

In a truly globalized, connected and small world, aggregating knwoeldge has never been easier nor more important. I'll make sure to carry this knowledge along with all other ideas I took from this class to make myself a better person, and then maybe do something more...

So is it all just biology? Our Social networks and underlying neural mechanisms

When I hear about empirical social and psychological studies, I always like to think that it has a neural implication. It allows me to think that human can at some level of research by truly understood, but of coruse we all know that’s not possible. Last semester I got involved in a field called neuroeconomics. It combines the main theories of decision making in psychology and economics with neuroimaging to hopefully make sense of what we do. There is some progress albeit quite slow, especially about decisions pertaining to risk and uncertainty, but I think we are finally in the right direction. We need to "aggregate our fields of knowledge." Please see my wiki article (yep.. doing my aggregation part!) .

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroeconomics

Throughout this semester, the amazing blend of social and psychological theory kept me always wondering and reexamining the nature of my reality (networks, homophily, diversity, contagion, small worlds, weak ties, polarization, cascades, collective aggregation,..). But more importantly, my second question was, as always, is there a biological basis for this. There is actually research ongoing right here at NU trying to ask this very question. The results were published in Nature Neuroscience.

http://www.northeastern.edu/news/stories/2011/01/social_brain.html.

I also later found it published in my favorite psychology today.

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/choke/201102/when-it-comes-our-social-networks-brain-size-matters

The basic finding is that the volume of a brain structure called the amygdala was found to be correlated with the size of one’s social network . It was known that primates who live in larger social groups have larger amygdalas, and now this has been confirmed in humans.

They gathered the network data similar to many studies we read in class, by asking particiapnts about their contacts, how strong they are and to what groups they belong. They found the same results even after controlling for brain and body size. Of course this brings the question of causation. Is it the amygdala that is causing the large social network, or is it the later enlarging the amygdala?

I like how this ties to what Christakis proposed at the beginning of his book, and how our location in the network affects us, but we also affect our network.

I wonder if we can answer many of the intriguing concepts in this course with similar studies.

-Why do some people have more weak ties than others?

-are some people more prone to social cascades?

-can certain groups be genetically inclined to polarization

-Why do some ideas/behaviors diffuse through networks while others don’t?

There might already be answers out there for these that I’m not aware of, and there is always the possibility that some things just can’t put be tested in a lab, and so we might never know the causality. In either case, it keeps me wondering, and I enjoy that!

Parting Thoughts

In the last four months, I have learned more about networks than I have the last four years that I have been on Facebook. Studying networks that existed before the internet existed was especially eye-opening. I always thought that networks begun with sites like Myspace, but people before the internet used more manual methods of viewing network connections, and some of the network graphs that were made pre-internet are astounding to look at.

I really like that we had the freedom to research and write about whatever we wanted to. I was able to learn a lot more about topics which I'm passionate about. This class gave students the opportunity to interpret its content in their own ways, while discussing their views amongst others. One of my favorite topics we learned about was Swarm Theory. We learned that a seemingly unintelligent individual, when grouped with a swarm of others, can collectively combine their knowledge to optimize their ordinary tasks. With this mindset, ants were able to solve the Towers of Hanoi and bees could solve the Travelling Salesman problem.

I have learned to incorporate the knowledge from this class into my daily life. For example, I use Swarm Theory to better understand how members of websites think together, I use open sourcing, like Wikipedia, to better understand how Linux and Android work, and I use contagion to think about why so many people smoke and drink at Northeastern and why it spreads. This class has given me a new perspective on life by changing how I view the world.

My Thoughts on Procrastination

I have had problems with procrastination nearly all of my life. I often save work to the last minute not only because I would rather not do it, but mostly because I am much more motivated to complete tasks as the due date approaches closer and because my focus is higher, allowing me to generally complete work much faster if I'm working closer to a deadline. As the internet skyrockets in popularity, more and more people are finding new and improved distractions rather than completing work in a timely fashion. Therefore, in an effort to reduce procrastination, I offer two general suggestions to students and professors:

1: Assign more regular due dates for assignments. I feel that if work was assigned in smaller, more regular chunks, overall procrastination will decline. I believe that students would be less inclined to waste time on smaller assignments since they know that they will be able to finish faster than a larger assignment. For example, rather than having weekly homework over the week's lessons, teachers could assign problems each class period only on the day's lessons. From experience, I would much rather do three Thermodynamics problems a night, knowing there are only three left, rather than do nine problems on Sunday night.

2: Assign more group assignments and encourage students to work in groups whenever possible. I am much less inclined to waste time in a group scenario, especially when group members are relying on you to finish your section in time. I had a situation earlier in the semester where one of my Material Science lab group members did not complete his section of the lab until 10 P.M. the day before it was due, and since it was my job to compile and format all of the sections as well as write the abstract, I could not start my task without his work. On a normal assignment, working only with myself, I typically am not worried if I don't start until 10 P.M., but in a group situation, there is a certain stigma that appears if you let your team members down, as you have a group reputation to hold. While working in groups, I have seen that members are typically more encouraged to finish faster than if they had to work alone.

If due dates were assigned more regularly and group projects occurred more often, then I believe that students would tend to procrastinate less.

General Thoughts

At the end of our class on Wednesday, we went around the room and all shared one thing that we have learned from this class. There were a variety of different answers and it seemed as if almost everyone had something unique they were going to take from the class. The varied answers that were given by the class led me to start to think about the many different fields of study that correspond to some of the themes of the class. When looking back at my notes and the syllabus with all of the different readings, it became clear that the things I learned from this class can be applied to everything. Knowing specific network effects makes someone think more about their connections and how they will connect with the others around them. Since the start of this class I have found myself to think more about the possible effect of making a connection with a certain person or group. It is not something to obsess over, but it can certainly be helpful to think about.

The themes of this class can also be applied to any field of study. Knowledge on networks can be relevant in business, engineering, healthcare, politics, and many other areas. This was reflected in our syllabus as we had readings from a variety of different fields. When I first signed up for the class I didn’t expect to be reading a book about bees, but I found the book to be both interesting and useful. I think the interdisciplinary aspect of the class and network study in general is very beneficial. No matter what job I have, I feel I will be able to apply the themes of this class in some way. Having said that, I think society could benefit if more people had a basic understanding of networks. For example, politics on every level could be more efficient and balanced if more people understood some of the themes of the class. People could also be mentally and physically healthier if they knew the effect that people in their network had on them.

An information cascade in real life

I was standing in line for a concert over the weekend. Due to the physical limitations of the area, the line was entirely on the opposite side of the street from the venue, and a little further down the block. A group of people came running from somewhere near the end of the line (which most people couldn't see from where they were, and which no one was really paying attention to, heading directly toward the venue. Everyone in line immediately wanted to know what was happening and whether these people were disobeying the social norms of the line and trying to gain some kind of advantage.

While waiting in line for concerts, many people are with friends already, or they form temporary friendships to pass the time. As a result, the overall order of the line was maintained even though many people also ran toward the venue to investigate - only one person from each group needed to go.

The incident turned out to have absolutely nothing to do with the order of the line, but instead with its length (an abutting property owner took exception to our presence on "their" sidewalk), and the people from the rear of the line resumed their original place as soon as they received guidance from venue staff. But without the social bonds formed in the context of the long wait before the concert (through which groups could send one representative to figure out what had happened while the rest stayed in place and allowed the scout to return to her previous position), the entire line could have been destabilized.

Thoughts on Homophily

I believe that the idea of homophily was one of the most interesting ideas studied in this class. When we were first learning about it, I thought that homophily would be something that impedes diversity. I have come to realize that while it can separate networks into segments of like-minded people, thus making close networks less diverse, it also can be used as a tool to learn new things and broaden interests and viewpoints. For example, lets say a friend of mine and I both really enjoy reading science fiction books. If he recommends something from a different genre, lets say a memoir, I would be much more likely to read it than if someone who doesn’t share my immediate interests recommends it to me. Another example comes from my own experience. I used to dislike rap and hip-hop a lot in high school; I listened to mostly rock, and then some electronic music as well. When I got to college and found friends who listened to similar things, one of them introduced me to some hip-hop artists that he really enjoyed. I ended up really liking it, and I don’t think that I would have listened to it with as open of a mind had it been recommended by someone who listens solely to hip-hop. Since then, my music tastes have been expanded greatly by my friends around me whose tastes I can trust. Similarly, with politics, I tend to associate with left-leaning people. If one of my friends started arguing against some policy that Obama had enacted, I most likely be more open to it and listen more closely than if someone who is right-leaning brought it up. This idea may not be optimal, but it is the way the human brain works. Therefore, homophily should not only been seen as something that segments networks, but also as a catalyst for expanding interests and ideas across similar people.

Rating Systems

We recently were discussing rating systems in class, and attempted to determine how useful these rating systems are as informational tools for consumers. Examples of these rating systems include Amazon, Yelp, Trip Advisor, and many others. These rating systems can be very effective if they have enough reviews to analyze the product with. However, there are some flaws that lie in these systems which stem from anyone, including the owner of the product/service, being able to make reviews, as well as people purposefully trying to mess with the data.

I was recently in the market for headphones, and these rating systems were the most useful tool imaginable when deciding on what I wanted to purchase. Amazon had over 50 to 100 reviews of every headphone I was researching, so I was assured that I could take useful advice from them. Two headphones that had similar 4 star ratings were the Beats by Dre Tour Earbuds and the Etymotic HF5s. Both of the headphones had overwhelmingly positive reviews saying that the sound was amazing and they noise canceling made it seem like you’re in your own world. Therefore, I knew that the worst reviews would tell me the most useful information. Comparing the bad reviews, both of these headphones, as well as other ones that I also researched, had mostly complaints about them not lasting long, breaking easily, and sound not coming out of one ear. Therefore, I determined that these kind of issues arise with all headphones, and most likely because people do not take good care of their headphones. Other bad reviews about the Beats by Dre headphones said that the bass was too heavy that they overpowered other instruments, whereas the Etymotics didn’t have any complaints outside of them breaking easily. I ended up buying the Etymotics because of this, and they are the best headphones I have ever had, thanks to the rating system.

On the other hand, rating systems can be flawed easily. For example, an HDMI cable was recently released on the Best Buy website which costs $1600. Immediately, internet forum users were alerted to this ridiculous product and overtook the review board. All giving 5 star reviews, the comments were sarcastic with remarks such as, “Wow this cable is the best investment that I have ever made. It is the highest quality HDMI cable out there. It is so good that I hope that one day I can afford a TV to hook it up to.” Best Buy noticed all of these joke reviews, and deleted them shortly after. However, this left only reviews that didn’t seem to be sarcastic. Now the product has many high reviews when obviously no one should be buying a $1600 HDMI cable. This is an instance when the review system is flawed easily. When people use these rating systems, they have the potential to be the most useful tool when deciding what to purchase, but the whole situation (how many reviews, what the reviews say, and the product in general) must be analyzed together in order to not be fooled by possible flaws.

The Importance of Town Hall Meetings

Professor Lazer’s study on online town hall meetings brought forth some very important facts. There is a huge disconnect between politicians and the general public. Most Americans don’t understand the issues or why politicians take certain actions regarding different policies. The task of reading, understanding, and fact checking different topics can prove to be difficult and time consuming. Therefore, many people give up on the effort and blindly form their opinions based on their feelings, which may not be backed by reality. One major consequence of this is that people strongly dislike and distrust those who disagree with them. According to Professor Lazer’s study, town hall meetings can increase approval of the member and his/her position, increase engagement in politics, and increase the probability of voting for that member. All of these points are very important for a working democracy.

I was recently watching an episode of Top Gear, and it proved Lazer’s points perfectly. Top Gear is a British/American car show on BBC America, and is riddled with jokes and silliness. Each episode has a guest whom they interview for 10-15 minutes. However, a recent episode had Lord John Prescott on the show, who is a former Deputy Prime Minister and First Secretary of the State of the United Kingdom. When he was first introduced, he was booed by at least half of the audience. Throughout the interview, the host was surprisingly grilling him really hard on issues, despite it being a car show. It was amazing how he answered every question with a very understandable answer, which made his decisions very clear. After the show, everyone clapped for him, there was no more booing, and I’m sure everyone in the audience had an “Aha!” moment as to why he made enacted some of the policies that he did. It is amazing how one small interview with a policy-maker can change ones entire views on that person. If we can get more people to be part of these town hall meetings, which is helped greatly by online meetings, then perhaps we can have a more successful democracy.

Open Sourcing and the Freedom of Information

For people that haven't heard of Linux and Unix based operating systems, Wikipedia was a huge eye-opener for people that were unaware of open-source content. Wikipedia was founded under the principle that information should be free, reliable, and easily available to everyone. In Unix operating systems, the core distribution can be easily modified by programmers and redistributed freely. In Wikipedia, anyone who wishes to can add, delete, or modify articles, however many articles are moderated by volunteers, who are responsible for reversing any spam changes or changes that may lead to false information. Academia has constantly berated Wikipedia for being unreliable, but as the number of moderators increases, the quality and reliability of articles increase. As more people begin to trust Wikipedia's accuracy, maybe Academia will begin to trust open-source content such as Wikipedia articles .

One of the most prominent open vs. closed source battles occurring today is the Apple vs. Android argument. Apple chooses to lock down their iOS platform so nothing that Apple directly approves of can be released into the App Store. Android, however, is based on the open-source Linux kernel, so, for the most part, everyone is free to modify their Android devices as they please. Google often encourages third party developers to modify Android devices, who then write custom firmware distributions, known as ROMs, for Android users to install once they gain superuser privileges by rooting. However, within the Android platform, some device manufacturers disagree that users should be able to run custom ROMS, notably Motorola, and they have thus encrypted their phones. After a large and constant outcry from Motorola Android users, Motorola finally reversed their policy on custom firmware. Open source content, when used appropriately, can be hugely beneficial, as the content is often free and users tend to appreciate the freedom given to them.

Extremism in the U.S.

Sunstein’s Going to Extremes was a very interesting book that discussed how like-minded people act in groups. Given the current political climate, it was extremely relevant to what is happening in this country right now. I am a liberal, so my view may be a little biased, but in my opinion, two groups were formed directly from this phenomenon. One is the Tea Partiers, and one is the Westboro Baptist Church. The extremism from the Tea Party is a huge issue because as they converse with “regular” Republicans, they effectively push the views of the Republicans even further right. The implications of this shift were highlighted in a study done by John Avlon of Newsweek magazine. According to the study, 67% of Republicans (40% of America) believe that Obama is a socialist, 45% (25% overall) believe Obama was not born in the U.S., 57% (32% overall) believe he is a Muslim, 24% (14% overall) say that he “may be the Antichrist,” and 38% (20% overall) says “Obama is doing many of the things that Hitler did.” These claims are ridiculous, and take away from the real issues of the country. I think the most ridiculous ones are the ones relating him to the Antichrist and Hitler. One thing that Hitler was known for was his use of propaganda. He knew that if you read something over and over enough times, eventually you will take it as a truth. I can’t think of anything Obama has done that makes him anything like Hitler, but largely extreme Republicans such as Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh use this type of propaganda to sway the minds of voters. Republicans control 80% of talk radio, and by people listening to all of these ridiculous claims on a regular basis, many are taking them all as fact without looking further into them at all. If this trend of blindly accepting wild claims continues, it good have terrible repercussions for our country.

Rating Systems

In class last week we were asked to bring in one form of rating website, or wikipedia-esque website. The different examples of rating systems brought in were yelp, tripadviser, Hostels, and Netflix just to name a few. These rating systems brought up an interesting conversation centered around who posts reviews on them. It became clear that most people only post a rating review when they are extremely pleased or displeased with some service or place. This leaves the average or mediocre ratings and experiences out. Some students said that they look at the worst and the best ratings to compare what a business might thrive in versus what they lack. Another opinion is that the best rating system is a 1-5 rating or giving it a certain number of stars. This is so that all of the reviews and ratings and be summed up in one overall average that is easy to interpret.

The other issue when it comes to rating systems and websites is finding a real rating. One cannot discount the fact that anyone can post on most of these with very little regulation, if any. An owner of a restaurant could simply go on and post wonderful reviews about themselves, and no one would know. In addition, the opposite scenario could be true. A competitor could easily go on the website and post something negative about their competition. On Amazon, when reviews are done of the books it could quite possibly be the author's friends and collaborators who are the ones posting reviews, which while maybe not intentional could give a bias review. Also frequent reviewers who post long positive reviews with frequency can be sent free early copies of books, or other things giving them incentive to post a positive review. A young artist, Sam Adams, is said to have bought his own music on itunes thousands of times so that his song could be ranked in the top charts. These examples are just a few ways that these systems can be manipulated.

Professor Lazer brought up the way his profession reviews papers. Two people within the profession are carefully chosen to comment and review a paper with end remarks such as revise and edit, or rewrite and revise, etc. The author does not know who the two people are, therefore no one will feel compelled to slant their reviews one way or another to please a collaborator. I think this is one of the few systems that seems like it would be an effective rating and review of someone's work.

The Revolution Will Not Be Tweeted, But It Can Help

In his article, “Small Change: Why the Revolution Will Not Be Tweeted,” Malcom Gladwell makes some pretty good points about why the internet and social media do not completely change the game when it comes to activism. One can probably see the issues with a digitally generated protest or sit-in even without Gladwell’s paper.

The reason protests like those that took place in Egypt are so successful is because it is so clear whn a large group of people support it. That is because you can see it. You can see the number of people in the streets and the enthusiasm they show for their cause. By contrast it still seems like any online activism or petition signing doesn’t carry much weight. You may have 1000 people ‘attending’ your event on Facebook, but until they actually show up in person they are uselesss.
The idea of being willing to sacrafice something is what gives these activists and their actions so much power. When you see them take to the streets you know they are willing to put a face to their cause and in some cases suffer some kind of harm whether physical abuse or social stigmatizing. However, simply retweeting a message does not have the same effect.
While a physical presence will always outweigh a digital one when it comes to matters like this, we cannot underestimate the importance of social media tools like Twitter and Facebook. You may need to physically show up to a protest to create change, but that protest can be started online. There are a lot of people out there that are waiting for their “tipping point” when it comes to protests, they want to see others joining in before they do. By starting online, these people can see the growth and strength of the movement before stepping foot outside. From there they must actually take some action to be recognized by the authority they’re trying to reach.
So the internet and social media may help organize activism like that which we saw in the Middle East early this year, but when it comes down to it, a physical presence is needed. Protests can’t take place entirely online with any hope of being effective, but they can start online and the internet can be used to get them started. It’s just the peoples’ job after that to actually show up.

Swarm Theory in Practice

Growing up, I loved playing Towers of Hanoi. I had the game loaded on my TI-83+ in High School and would play it almost every day in my science and math classes, which I excelled in anyway. Once I figured out the puzzle's pattern, I quickly learned and memorized the optimal routes. I then quickly transitioned to blindfolded speed runs! Once you learn the pattern, it is easy to apply it to higher towers, even without looking.

Reading earlier about how a swarm of ants could learn the same pattern and end up only using the optimal path to reach their food source amazed me. Initially, I thought that ants weren't too intelligent, but when a swarm of ants travels through a maze, they somehow relay information to the swarm that a certain path isn't optimal. Bees use the same problem solving approach when searching for food, or solving mathematical equations. When searching for food, swarms of bees actively search for the closest food source and avoid those that are farther away.

These readings partially inspired me to write my third essay on the news aggregator Reddit. Community members actively seek out and upvote the best new posts to be put on the front page, and they downvote those that they dislike or disagree with. This mindset, known as the "hivemind mentality," can be problematic with links in the Politics section of the site, as it has some fairly heavy bias, but the hivemind often works well to promote higher quality links to the site.

Wiki Textbooks?

Infotopia and Here Comes Everybody both discussed Wikipedia as an example of collaborative production of knowledge. I wonder if textbooks could be produced the same way. Jimmy Wales mentioned in his TED talk that we watched that Wikipedia is very cheap to run. Students could certainly benefit from cheaper (or even free!) textbooks. Instead of buying a $120 chemistry book that would be outdated in a couple of years and replaced with a new edition, an online textbook could be constantly updated to reflect current research and would not need to be reprinted each time.

Some measures would need to be taken to ensure academic integrity. Perhaps contributors would need to professors or authors that have published papers in the field. Wikipedia seems to be fairly academically rigorous for many of its articles. I know that I have used Wikipedia to study for tests and to help clarify questions I have about material from some classes, and often the Wikipedia articles are clearer and more detailed than the information in the textbook and than the information presented in class. I would imagine that a wiki textbook would probably be the same way, and with restricted authorship might enjoy a better reputation academically and would be a citable source in a paper.

One requirement discussed of successful collaborative production is that no one unfairly benefits (as with the AOL guides that Shirky discussed). As long as there wasn’t a publisher that was profiting from the online textbooks, I wonder if it would work. Perhaps the hardest part would be getting enough authors. Would enough professors and other knowledgeable and respected people be willing to contribute?

Otherwise, I wonder if Wikipedia is complete enough at this point to be used as a textbook. Instead of assigning readings from a book, I wonder if full classes could be taught from Wikipedia readings instead, or if a student chose to use only Wikipedia and did not buy the assigned book, if their grade would even suffer.

[note: after I posted this I just saw Vin's post from a couple of days ago, and I completely agree. I wonder, could there be some kind of academic audit run on Wikipedia to legitimize it more? Have there been studies done to see if articles on Wikipedia are up to the same standards as textbooks and academic papers?]

Final Reflections

Well in my previous post I said it may or may not be my last one, and the answer turns out to be may not. I'd like to take the opportunity to reflect on the most important thing I've learned in this course that I will be taking away from it: the applications of network science for public health.

As a pharmacy major, I was fascinated to learn how obesity and other health problems (like smoking) can spread through social networks. The Christakis and Fowler paper met a great deal of outcry in the health professions; they couldn't believe that social networks were an important factor in obesity, preferring to link it to simple poor health habits. As a future member of a health profession, I hope to change this mindset. Regardless of how obesity spreads through social networks, health initiatives absolutely have to begin taking network science into account. While network science plays a critical role in the study of epidemics, it still doesn't have the foothold it should in other parts of the health sciences.

Pharmacies, for example, should understand that the communities around them will probably encounter similar health issues at the same time even if those health issues are not necessarily communicable diseases. They should also be wary of prescribing drugs just because other pharmacies in the area have begun doing so because of the probability of informational cascades. This is especially true for hospital pharmacies that often attempt to use the most popular new drugs as long as cost is not a large issue. Network science also reinforces the values of preventative medicine (healthcare) over sick-care. One can spread positive benefits to other members in the network while the other leaves behind possible problems in the population.

And on that note, I finish my final post for the course. I had a fantastic time with it and the class was definitely the academic highlight of my year. Good luck in the future to everyone on this blog!

Wikipedia Should Be Embraced by Academia

I have been using Wikipedia as a research tool for the past several years. It has been a tremendous source of information on a wide range of topics. But it wasn’t until I saw this TED talk, which features founder Jimmy Wales explaining the birth of Wikipedia. He makes a lot of interesting points while describing how this free online encyclopedia came about and continues to improve.

In his talk, Wales talks about the misconception that educators and academics are opposed to the idea of Wikipedia. While he makes a great case defending his creation, I must say that I have not come across too many professors who are in favor of using the site to do research. But should they? A lot of the points Wales makes about Wikipedia should, at the very least, spark a conversation about the viability of Wikipedia as an academic source. After listening to Jimmy Wales explain all the work that goes in creating Wikipedia entries and maintaining quality, I think that they me be just as viable a source as traditional periodicals or references.

Like Jimmy Wales said, the site has more visitors than the New York Times website. At the time of his talk, Wikipedia had over 600,000 articles in English and more than 2 million total. Those numbers are staggering and make Wikipedia a source that really has no competition in terms of the amount of information it holds.

Wikipedia also has the benefit of a diverse group of people continually editing each page. This helps on many different levels. First, it makes more sense to have thousands of people working on an entry than just a few. As we have read, these people working together can hone in on the accurate information better than a small group could. This group effort also helps because the people come from a diverse background. This works as a kind of checks and balances system that may not exist in traditional resources with information being created by less people. These people are also constantly making edits to the entries. This makes the information much more timely than a static entry in an encyclopedia or a news article.

    While many argue that leaving such powers up to individuals can lead to inaccurate information, there are actually policies and procedures in place to ensure that does not happen. The community has people always checking to make sure guidelines are being followed with an emphasis on quality and neutrality.  Wikipedia certainly prides itself on its openness, but like Mr. Wales said, quality is more important than the openness. The members of the community understand that and strive to maintain that across all entries.
    The final point in favor of adopting Wikipedia as a legitimate source for academic reference has to do with its cost to users. That cost, of course, is nothing. As a free tool offering so much information, it is really hard to compare Wikipedia’s value to any other source. So often limits are placed on access to information because there is some kind of pay wall in the way. For Wikipedia, all you need is a computer with an internet connection. This is a huge step towards leveling a playing field that sees students from lower income households at an extreme disadvantage when it comes to education.
    With all this in mind, we should be acknowledging Wikipedia as a great tool for all of us who want to learn more. Instead of ridiculing we should be embracing it as the great information tool of our generation, with people coming together to aggregate information about a wide range of topics and making this information available at no cost.

Facebook and Information Cascades

The class recently read a novel by Clay Shirky titled, Here Comes Everybody. Shirky talks a lot about how technology--the Internet in particular--has helped to mobilize groups more quickly. This mobilization occurs as a result of online information cascades. Information becomes widely dispersed via the Internet and once several people find out about a particular event, many choose to participate.

One venue that has been a prevalent source of information cascades is the social networking site Facebook. Facebook has numerous features that publicize information. The Newsfeed displays members' status updates. The Events page highlights popular upcoming events. Facebook users can also join Groups that cater to specific interests. When these features are not made private, any person logged onto the web site can view the information provided. Certain links then gain great popularity and all Facebook users start to hone in on these links, leading to information cascades.

Over the past year, I have witnessed several Facebook information cascades that led to the mobilization of people. People who are Facebook Fans of the clothing store Gap rushed to the store's Copley location when Gap posted that it was having a "buy one, get one free" sale on jeans. People who "liked" the Facebook link "Free Cone Day" flocked to Ben & Jerry's at the Prudential Center forming a line over 200 people long. People who were invited to the 5-day Rugby Party Facebook Event swarmed the Rugby house, leading to an overcrowded party where many people were denied entry. These are just a few examples of how information cascades on Facebook have quickly mobilized large groups of people.

Between studying for finals and experimenting with cascades

The definition of cascades whether social or informational is that you simply rely on what others think, or in other words you do it because everyone is doing it. Cascades can indeed arise in serious matters like in collective decision making and stock buying. But I think it’s more predominate with trivial issues that require less thinking, or interest to invest time or energy to know more.

Yesterday, like most of this week the library was almost completely packed, but it would soon be more so. It was the 20^th anniversary of Snell library, and they decided to have the event in the lobby of the first floor right next to me. Cramming for a final, I of course decided to leave everything and check it out. It was a weird setting. For the first time as I can remember, they filled the lobby with chairs leaving little room on the sides for students to come and go. There were some empty chairs left at the end. But as bored as I was, I decided I’ll try something since everything looked chaotic as it is. It was next to the computer labs, so I pulled a chair from there and sat. I was the only one not in the crowd and started paying attention. Few minutes later someone passed by, looked at the situation, and then decided to pull a chair next to me. Again there were some seats left, but he decided to pull a chair opposite to the crowd. We ended up being 5 in this position. I left to try standing in a random position behind the crowd. Someone immediately came and stood right next to me to watch. I decided to leave and I thinking feeling alone he soon left. I went to observe from far away for a while and didn’t see anyone standing at all. I came back and stood for a while and soon was joined by another person again. One of my friends stopped to chat, and this attracted 2 more people. I guess this situation and event would make any student in the area curious, but it was trivial enough for them that they didn’t want to exert energy or time to investigate how they can know more and whether is it OK to set down. They saw a student setting on a chair adjacent to the crowd, and figured that’s the right thing to do. When I stood up in random areas, it was these specific areas that attracted people to stand at. Similar thing can be observed in many other occasions where we are curious to know what’s going on but not interested enough to gather and analyze information, so we just follow whoever came before, thus creating a cascade .

In Shirky's "Here Comes Everybody" he discusses how cheap it has become to put information out there. The lines between a blog and a media outlet have been sufficiently blurred. With the ability to put out information with shorter notice, and of lesser cost, it has become harder to regulate collective action. Groups can organize without any organization essentially. If a group widely publicizes a march for days and days in order to reach a large crowd, it can easily be prevented or regulated by the police or government. However, now with the speed information can be spread, marches or rallies can be held last minute, and therefore are less likely to be prevented.

This also emphasizes how the cost of joining groups has decreased. Groups can grow much faster now. An example of this that was discussed is the Voice of the Faithful which kept doubling in size every six months. Its speed of growth was not the only interesting part about this group, it was also extremely spatially diverse. Which in the past, would have been much less likely and near impossible without this cheap, fast technology.

While Shirky makes some good and interesting assertions, I lean more towards Gladwell's views on the subject. The counterargument is that these unorganized internet groups are working by weak ties instead of strong ties, so people are less likely to do costly things. If one merely signs a petition online, or responds to an email, or clicks "join" they are usually much less invested than if one joined in person, or sought out the petition to sign. This decreases the chances that they will show up for a sit in, or a march with people they do not know, for a group they do not feel unified with. This is why I side more with Gladwell's arguments although I am not saying social media can be ignored because it certainly plays a role in publicity.

Taking Steps to Avoid Failure of Deliberation

As we discussed in class, there are certain situations in which group deliberation fails. In many cases shared “facts” or information is weighted with more importance than facts that aren’t shared among all group members. Also, in group decision making the person that speaks first is often able to shape the conversation. Information cascades can shape the context of deliberation and lead to failure to come to the correct conclusion.

As a class, we came up with a few possible solutions to this problem. (Deliberating on how to make deliberating work better).Two of the ideas we reached involve secret voting prior to any discussion and breaking into smaller groups.

Write Answer/Verdict First

This is an easy way to avoid information cascades leading to incorrect conclusions. This will also prevent deliberators from putting too much weight on shared facts/information. By writing down what they think, they will have made their decision prior to being influenced by what others think.

The obvious issue with this is that the decision is being made without taking all possible evidence into account. By taking this step to eliminate one factor that often leads to inaccurate conclusions, we may be creating an even bigger problem by not giving each person access to all the information that is available. To deal with this possibility it may make sense to first write down the answer as individuals and then discuss. Having made a decision before hearing the others’ information, they may be less likely to make a decision due to information cascades or shared information. Clearly this has benefits and disadvantages, which must be balanced.

Break Out in Groups

            Another issue that comes up from group deliberation is that, generally, the first person to speak is able to shape the deliberation from that point forward. Every response beyond the first one must be given in terms of how it relates to the first person’s thoughts.

            For a deliberation to avoid the failure resulting from one person’s thoughts shaping the entire conversation, the group can break out into separate groups. This practice may not prevent the bias associated with the first idea/answer presented, but it at least presents several first ideas/answers to shape the conversation. Smaller groups can see the same benefits of working together and sharing information. However, by breaking up into groups, deliberations is less likely to fall victim to the problems associated with information cascades, weighting shared information, and letting the first information shape the discussion.

            Obviously this isn’t the perfect solution to the problem of deliberation failures. One issue is the tendency of people with similar thoughts and ideas to move to more extreme beliefs after discussion. If group members were broken into groups and happened to end up with like-minded people, they may feel even more strongly than they did originally. This may result in more complications, making it difficult to reach a verdict.

            After examine the different ways groups can work together  (or alone) to deliberate, it is clear that there is no clear solution. Perhaps there will always be some issue in the way of getting groups to deliberate without succumbing to the problems that arise from information cascades, shared information, etc. It may just be that different groups need to approach deliberating in different ways depending on the situation. There may not be a clear cut way to make group deliberation most effective, but being aware of the potential problems may help. 

On Causation and Probability

Since this is my final (or maybe my second to last, I have to count them up soon) blog post, I decided it was worth it to think about some of the larger philosophical topics that have kind of stayed behind the scenes in the course. The first is the issue of causation. We talked a lot about the issue of inferring causation versus simple correlation due to homophily effects, but we never actually defined what causation means. In traditional philosophy, A causes B if and only if A occurring always results in B. By this definition, almost none of what we've discussed in the course is actual causation since much of it is based upon 50 (or worse) chances. So is causation really the correct word to use when discussing topics like the ones in the course?

It is probability, really, that throws a thorn in the side of this type of causative reasoning. Consider the flipping of a coin. Half the time you get a heads-up coin, half the time you get a tails-up coin. Does flipping the coin cause a heads or cause a tails? The answer, of course, is that it causes neither. It causes the coin to fly through the air and land one side up or another.

Can this line of reasoning be applied to social sciences? Perhaps it is worse to think of obesity as causing obesity in networks as it is to think of obesity as causing a potential for increased obesity. After all, if obesity in person A always resulted in obesity in their contacts B, C, and D, the obesity epidemic would be far, far worse than it is today. It may be best to think of friends with obesity (or friends that smoke, or are anorexic) as risk factors within networks, rather than agents for contagion spread. While the distinction may be small, at least philosophically it's an important one to make.

Accurate Rating Systems

In class on Wednesday we discussed how to monitor ratings on websites in order to ensure they are accurate. We talked about how some people can manipulate the ratings to improve their own situation. For example, a restaurant owner may give his business good ratings and give the restaurant across the street bad ratings in order for him to get more customers. The ratings could be wildly inaccurate but a prospective customer on a review website would not be able to know that. In class, several ideas were given for how to prevent against situations like this. My own belief though is that the best way to ensure the ratings are accurate is simply to have a large number of reviews. If the sample size is large enough, the random and inaccurate will not have an effect because the majority of the accurate ratings will outweigh the inaccurate ratings. This would work for product ratings, restaurant ratings, class ratings (TRACE), and many others. However, while the idea is simple, getting a large number of ratings is not.

In class we also discussed how many people actually fill out surveys and rate products and services. A large number of students said they didn’t fill out ratings and surveys and the main reason why was that the time investment was too large. Even the students who said they did fill out ratings said they did so mostly when it was convenient and easy. In my personal experience, I will often fill out a survey with only radio buttons and checkboxes and skip sections where I actually have to write something. I think the best way to get a large number of ratings is to prompt the customer (via email or another means) and to keep the survey or ratings as short as possible. For example, an email asking the customer to simply rate a product on a scale of one to five stars. The customer would not have to remember to go to a website, they would be sent an email to remind them. The simplistic rating would also take the same amount of time to complete as deleting the message would, so the customer would most likely rate the product. This would allow for a large number of ratings to give an accurate overall picture of the quality of the product, restaurant, or service. The customer could then also be given an option to write a review and/or complete a more detailed rating in order to enhance the overall rating. A prospective customer could then view the detailed ratings but would be able to see the average star rating that was taken from a large sample size to determine if the detailed rating is reliable.

A cascade anecdote: Today I logged into Facebook and noticed that it had a birthday notification of one of my good friend's. Now, I am well aware that her birthday is in October, so I clicked on her page. There were tons of "happy birthday" messages from lots of people, including a couple of her close friends who have known her well since elementary school and actually know when her birthday is. I called my friend to see what was up, and, incidentally, I also woke her up.

Not surprisingly, it turns out that a couple of her friends changed her birthday on Facebook late last night. They then immediately wrote a few birthday messages from their own accounts to make it seem even more legitimate. Essentially, they started a cascade, which was so effective that it fooled people who normally could tell you immediately when her birthday is. One friend wrote "lies" on her page, but that one comment didn't stop many other people from continuing the trend, since at that point there had been so many messages to the contrary. This scenario (for at least two of the people who have known her for a long time) also illustrates the Ascher (not sure how that's spelled, but they guy who did the test with different lengths of lines) experiment.

I also think that this event illustrates to what degree people are transferring information/ relying on technology to give accurate information about other people. I know that I don't think twice usually about posting a birthday message or looking up contact info though the people that I have known for a while, I tend to remember that type of information. That being said, I remember knowing many of my classmates home phone numbers and birthdays by heart when I was in elementary and middle school because there wasn't another convenient way to remember them (I always misplaced my address book). It's an interesting side effect of technology that means that we don't have to logically think about things we already know about the world.

Wikipedia as a Deliberative Community

One of the TED talks that we touched on today was the foundation and values of Wikipedia. I’m sure that the encyclopedia’s policy of promoting neutrality, not “truth” is widespread throughout the world of reference literature. However, I did think it was worth noting that although we may sometimes think of Wikipedia as primarily promoting open source literature, really Wikipedia’s main aim is to be a top notch reference source and it just uses an open source platform as a very effective tool to that end.

Similarly, Wikipedia’s editing community is structured to promote high quality literature. In fact, the idea that the people who edit Wikipedia are in fact, a community, is contrary to many popular held views of Wikipedia edited by the random average individual. As Jimmy Wales shared in the TED talk, only about 18% of editors are anonymous. The editing seems to be quite based on the ideas of both neutrality and community. This is demonstrated through a variety of norms that change and grow as the community and its demands change and grow.

One example of such norms is the delete page, where individuals put up articles they think should be deleted and the community discusses whether to keep or toss the articles. Wikipedia makes a point to have the page be a dialogue, not a vote, with value placed on unique information that can be replicated. Another example is the fact that the community tries to make a point to vote because they view the act of voting as not being neutral. In fact, eliminating the option of a vote (and thus requiring a consensus or at least deliberation with an opinion leader making final decision) could elicit many of the failures of deliberating groups highlighted earlier in the course. (Such possible failures include more biased groups than individuals, groups don’t necessarily arrive at the truth, and groups don’t aggregate info very well.)

It is interesting to me that a wiki, touted by Sunstein as being an alternative to deliberative groups, actually includes deliberative groups in multiple applications. Although wikis are a very interesting alternative to purely deliberative groups, it is important to note that they are not necessarily an entirely different animal.

The private register and security through obscurity

Shirky describes the problem of the private register in new social technologies - with even personal communications not intended for broadcast available instantly, to everyone, people outside the bubble to which a given piece of personal communication is addressed tend to see it as a broadcast communication. People haven't (for the most part) started broadcasting their small talk - there's just far more small talk happening where anyone can see it at any time.

Related to this is the problem of security through obscurity. Many folks (and unfortunately, I have no clue as to the demographics of people who trust in security through obscurity) seem to believe that, although they're sharing things publicly, the sheer quantity of other people's publicly shared stuff protects them from discovery.

Also related is The Facebook Problem, where people post things they perhaps shouldn't and get burned. This has a bunch of contributing factors:
* Facebook's privacy settings have become so ridiculous that you can very easily accidentally overshare. (Big factor.)
* People often have a crappy sense of what they should share and what they shouldn't. (Also a big factor.)
* Because Facebook so strongly encourages the use of "real names," users arriving from pseudonymous/anonymous internet cultures may retain their old oversharing habits even though they are now more discoverable by name. (Minor factor, especially since in my experience, the people coming from these other internet cultures have well-developed senses of personal privacy.)
* Because Facebook used to be limited to .edu email address holders only, it developed a site culture that, because it had no expectations that content would be discoverable by people outside that closed community, allowed/encouraged the posting of Inadvisable Things. (Possibly a lingering factor, but I think Facebook has been available to all for long enough that this is no longer contributing significantly.)

Cute cats

The Cute Cat Theory of Digital Activism

Hypothesis:
Sufficiently usable read/write platforms will attract porn and activists.

If there's no porn, the tool doesn't work.

If there are no activists, it doesn't work well.

Aligns beautifully with the rest of this week's stuff; in a way, I'm surprised that it wasn't assigned.

To sum up: A social media property that is sufficiently good will attract lots of users for various forms of personal gratification (porn, and also cats doing cute stuff) and a significant number of activists whose activism pisses off TPTB. To move against the activists, TPTB must move against the property in general. If you cut the rest of the users off from their porn and cat pictures, they will A) be pissed off at TPTB because they've lost access to the stuff they liked, and B) learn routes around blocks instituted by TPTB, which leads some of them to C) become activists themselves.

Prediction Markets Creating Truth

Prediction markets are often used for determining the results of elections. These prediction markets are also often correct which leads these tools be helpful for individuals who have stakes in which candidate wins. I think this may also be closely related to low voter turnout though. We have often discussed why voter turnouts in all elections are much lower than they used to be. According to Putnam, it is from the breakdown of social capital, but these prediction markets may also have an effect. Consider hearing that the prediction markets are almost always correct and they are predicting your candidate to lose. It would just reinforce the common thought of “my vote doesn’t matter” since the fate has already been decided. People are more likely to vote when they feel that their vote could affect the outcome of the election. Prediction markets are supposed to pool the voices of people who know how others and they will vote, but if that is not accurately portrayed, voters could think they have some inside information that makes their vote not influential.

The prediction markets could also be the result of information or product cascades. While individuals are making these predictions, they may be going on personal beliefs that may not apply to everyone. But when these prediction markets choose a product to be successful, the attention of the product or people listening to the prediction markets keep the success going by choosing the product they think everyone else will like. The product wasn’t necessarily going to be successful until the prediction market said it would. This would be the markets causing the success rather than predicting it. The prediction markets may work for both elections and products, but they might also be used to make the prediction come true rather than being a good guess of what would have before the market existed. It may be better to have the prediction markets be unknown to see if they are truly accurate or rather a product of people believing what the market says is true and then behaving accordingly. However, this would only be applicable to prediction markets for instances where the public controls the outcome and not situations where it is predicting an individual’s decision.

Infotopia Thoughts

While I did enjoy Sunstein's discussion of both the fallibility of deliberative groups and the abilities of markets like predictions markets to accurately gauge the probability of future events, I did have a few issues with the way he presented the information. To me, the book seemed to be advocating an "infotopian" future primarily built around software like wikis alongside prediction markets in order to gauge what will probably happen alongside the abandonment of deliberation. Why is deliberation so much worse than markets, though?

Consider Sunstein's primary quibbles with deliberation: the problems of the overvaluing of common knowledge (the hidden profile) and the aggregation of bias, as well as increased extremism after deliberation. All three of them are just as evident, if not exacerbated, in market settings. Markets fail the hidden profile test abysmally since the emphasis is on reading other people and valuing their information equally to their own, making common information far more valuable than specialized information to the overall market. It's more important to know what everyone else knows than what each individual player knows.

Bias in markets can also aggregate as we covered in class. This systematic movement towards extremes is very similar to what occurs in deliberative settings, with the most influential members of the market wielding power to shift the final price up and down just as the most influential deliberators frequently move the whole group towards their views. The problem of positive feedback adds to this significantly as evidenced by the dotcom bubble and the sub-prime mortgage crisis. Essentially, I think Sunstein slights deliberation while overpraising the wisdom of the market.

Guessing Populations in a Market Setting

As Sunstein pointed out in his book Infotopia and as we discussed in class, one advantage of markets is that they allow people to portray their confidence by how much money they invest. If someone is confident that that they will be able to predict a certain outcome, they will typically invest more money than someone who is unsure of the outcome. This is a strength of prediction markets because the people with confidence have more of an impact than others with less confidence because they will invest more money, which will affect the market more. It is usually the case that the people who are confident have access to more relevant information that allows them to be able to predict an outcome more accurately. This helps to ensure that prediction markets reflect the relevant information that is available on the subject. Sunstein points this out in his book and provides several of examples that show the accuracy of prediction markets. He also points out situations where prediction markets have failed and highlights that they are especially ineffective where there is little information available and there exists a wide variety of possibilities for the outcome. One thing that came to my mind was the class exercise where we tried to estimate the population of Irvine, California.

In class last week we were discussing information cascades and tried to conduct an activity to see if an information cascade would occur. At first every member of the class took a turn guessing the population of Columbus, Ohio. Many people had no idea what the population would be and as a result the guesses were widely varied from student to student and no information cascade occurred. The class agreed that an information cascade would occur if there was one person who was very confident in their answer. The students who guessed after this person would adjust their guess towards the person who had confidently given their answer. To try to simulate this, one person in the class was given the correct population of Irvine, California but nobody knew who that person was. As a result, no information cascade developed because nobody could identify who had the correct answer.

After reading about and discussing markets I thought back to the class activity where we had tried to incite an information cascade. It became clear to me that if the activity had been approached as a prediction market where students wagered virtual money on the actual population, an information cascade would have almost certainly occurred. The students who were unsure of their guesses at first would wager very little money, which would allow the rest of the students in the class to see that they had no confidence in their answer. However, when it got to the person who had been given the correct population they would give their guess and wager a large sum of virtual money. This would signal to the rest of the class that the guess was made based on good information and the person wagering was confident in their answer. As a result, every student who guessed after that would predict a population very close to the guess given by the student who had wagered a lot of money. An information cascade would occur and the class would accurately predict the population of Irvine, California.

This example shows the power of a prediction market. Without the factor of betting virtual money there was no way for the students in the class to measure how confident someone was in their answer. This led to a wide variety of inaccurate answers and the class was unable to accurately predict the population. In the market setting though, the confident students with good information wagered high sums of money which outweighed the inaccurate guesses and the population was correctly predicted.

Does Infotopia apply to all knowledge producing groups?

On page 85 of Infotopia, Sunstein discusses ‘cognitively central’ and ‘cognitively peripheral’ members of groups. A cognitively central person hold shared knowledge with all or most members of the group, while a cognitively peripheral person hold shared knowledge with few or no members. In his discussion he mentions that an item of shared knowledge is almost twice as likely to be mentioned as an unshared item in a deliberation.

I wonder how cognitively central and peripheral members work in an environment that celebrates the production of new knowledge. Researchers and documentary filmmakers are the first two groups that come to my mind. While these groups are still vulnerable to the issues that Sunstein discusses, I think that protocols are been made for the introduction of new information to the group, reducing the effects of hidden profiles. Of course, a well-respected scientist may be more able to publish a new idea, especially an idea that goes against commonly held information. However, the scientific method, and peer review are in place to ensure that scientific work is of a high quality. A cognitively peripheral scientist, perhaps someone who is new to research or has not yet published an article or book to establish their name, is still able to present controversial ideas. If a scientist’s methods are sound and their article is well written, it should be published. Having a convention on how solid information is produced allows, in theory, lower status members of the scientific community to present unshared information or new information to the group. As long as the knowledge was produced in a proper way, cognitively peripheral members can, and are in fact encouraged, to present unshared information to the group.

Similarly, in the arts, originality and differences are celebrated. A documentary that presents the same information as some other film or covers only commonly known information may not be well received. A work of art or a piece of news that does not present something new will be thought of as common, boring, or already done. So, in this environment of knowledge production, new information is important, and the artist, filmmaker, or journalist who is in a position to present new information or present information in a new way should, in theory, be heard. Again, there are higher status and lower status individuals, and this may afford them different abilities to present their work, but the structure of these particular worlds are formed around incorporating the new, since once something is common knowledge it is not worth presenting anymore.

Knowledge production falls into many different categories, and there are many different groups that are producing knowledge. I think that Sunstein has made convincing arguments for the majority of situations – corporate boardrooms, juries, government policy advising panels, etc. On the other hand I think there are some environments that may not be well described by Infotopia, namely those groups that thrive on new information and groups that have strict guidelines for knowledge production.

Trace Evaluations

As we have been discussing in class, another online system that does not have a high turnout is the SGA implemented trace evaluations. These evaluations, like the SGA elections, seem like a really convenient way to get students to evaluate their professors and give them feedback, however, the turn-out is so low sometimes that it makes the data statistically insignificant. To this end, they are encouraging professors to bribe their students with extra credit and candy. The professors in turn will get a "small reward" if they have a high trace turn-in rate. This system seems inherently off in the sense that professors shouldn't be bribing students to evaluate the class, and the problems with the low turn out rate seem more closely connected to what we have been discussing in class.

Like the SGA elections, the trace evaluations are online, so students do not have any influence from other students, since it is an isolated process that takes initiative. I know at least the English and Cinema department has their own evaluation forms that they give out, which students must complete in class and return to the department office. It is no surprise that these surveys have an almost 100% response rate, since students are taking the surveys in a setting with other students doing the same thing and in a place that they are already thinking about the class, so it is much easier to remember what has been going on throughout the semester. Students do not have to take these surveys, but I have never seen anyone in class not fill them out. That being said, this in class survey might impact the trace evaluations, since students feel like they've given back feedback once already. English and Cinema students might feel that their opinions have already been heard, and, therefore they do feel as motivated to fill out an additional online form as well. Perhaps SGA should take a cue from some of the social network research and apply those concepts to the implementation of professor evaluations by having teachers set aside class time for students to fill out the evaluation in a social setting. Then the University would not have to resort to bribery (a tactic that psychologically has proven not to have lasting success).

Networks within networks: the LiveJournal DDoS

To expand on what I said in class Monday:

LiveJournal is one site among many social media and/or social networking and/or blogging sites. It also happens to be, from what I can tell, more or less the entirety of the Russian blogosphere, for reasons going waaaay back. (In Russian, "blog" is ЖЖ, from Живой Журнал - literally, "LJ" and "LiveJournal.")

The attacks seem to be directed at the Russian users of the site, although all users have been affected. Early rounds of this particular DDoS episode were directed fairly specifically against politically outspoken Russian bloggers, but the scope has expanded. The attacks began at the end of March and, last I heard, are ongoing.

I have noticed Russian users popping up on Dreamwidth in significant numbers - requesting that invite codes be sent to .ru email addresses, posting and commenting in Russian - which makes sense because the structure of a journaling site is familiar; on the other hand, Dreamwidth's navigation, FAQs, etc. aren't translated into Russian and the direction of development doesn't seem to align with the needs of these users. I'm not sure where else Russian users might be trying to regroup, or how successful their social networks (as expressed through friends lists on LJ) have been at routing around the damage. I am not sure how long LiveJournal would have to be under siege to trigger a massive permanent migration (or where that exodus would settle down), and I really hope we don't find out.

The Politically Inactive Majority

I know a number of people have already blogged about the SGA elections and low voter turnout, however I still want to comment on this pressing issue. The main startling fact regarding this election is that only 20% of the undergraduate population (which is just over 15,000 students) needs to vote in order for the election to be valid, and the voting period had to be extended in order for this to occur. Due to this fact, I am realizing that I am in somewhat of a "bubble" on campus, as the voter turnout among people I know must be at least 75-80%. As I mentioned in class, last year current SGA President Ryan Fox was running for re-election, and since he was an RA in my dorm and almost everyone I was friends with in International Village had some level of a personal relationship with him, everyone voted. Because people living in my dorm made up a huge percentage of the overall number of people I knew on campus last year, I assumed everyone was this involved and invested in the SGA elections and must have voted as well. In fact, until I read the statistic in The Huntington News that last year saw a 24% voter turnout, only 2% more than what is to be expected this year, I assumed that last year must have had a much larger and enthusiastic turnout because of my personal experience with the campaigns and elections. Generally speaking, one would expect for the students active in various on-campus groups to vote, and would not be surprised to see students on co-op, commuters, or students that don't involve themselves with any on-campus activities not voting. Once again, I'm realizing that I am in a bubble on campus of students who are more active than the norm. Among my peers in the Honors Program, I know people who are involved from everything from club and intramural sports to greek life to academic organizations related to their majors. As a member of a few organizations, I also obviously know the other participants in these groups and teams. Because the majority of people I come in contact with day-to-day are very involved, I once again wrongly assumed that the majority of Northeastern students are involved in many on-campus activities. However, even when I think about as basic of a "school spirit" activity as going to a hockey game, I realize that no more than maybe 2000-2500 students go to even our biggest hockey games. This number of people is still well below the 3000+ students needed to vote in an election. Similarly, the Honors Program accepts only about 10% of incoming freshmen, and as the years go on, more students drop out of the program or become inactive in it than join or become more active. Another interesting point is that last year, Ryan Fox's opponent, Amanda Sabia, was in a sorority on campus. Because of this, many people I knew in fraternities or sororities, a small but not insignificant portion of the NU student body, were actively campaigning for her. This year, neither of the candidates are in a fraternity/sorority, and I have not heard anything from people I know involved with greek life as far as endorsing or campaigning for a candidate goes. Coming up with a solution to get students who don't live in campus, don't participate in any on-campus groups, or are on co-op to vote is a difficult task. People who are involved with teams or clubs or other groups feel more effected by election outcomes on a more personal level because it may affect the budget and function of a group they are passionate about. Students without this level of involvement may feel that the broader issues at stake are out of their reach, and thus feel like their vote or who the SGA president is won't matter in the long run. I think that the candidates using personal interaction is the most effective tool to encourage people to vote. However, candidates need to stand in very prominent places to grab the attention of the less active people. Handing out fliers in Curry during an activities period will only reach students who are on their way to club meetings and are probably more like to have already voted. Standing in quads and dining halls, and maybe by the orange and green lines are probably the most effective locations to meet and interact with people who may not be likely to vote on their own.