Page 19 - AC/E Digital Culture Annual Report 2016

idiosyncrasies. Within the Internet there are networks based on experience or power,17 but the combination of both elements as functional nodes is fully re ected in the Wikimedia movement. And its members constantly discuss what their powers are but also their counterweights, be they new policies or rules that limit or extend the action of the various a liates that make up the movement. It began more as an ‘Internet tribe’ (O’Neil: 2009) but grew into a vast community whose main reference is the Internet and the discourse with which the world has been telling its story in recent years.Its challenges include guaranteeing the sovereignty and sustainability of its organisations, the representativeness of the movement’s diversity, and continuity in the face of internal or external threats.Such an ecosystem naturally has challengesof governance and representativeness, as the Internet is a direct product of the economic and social conditions that dominate its connections and powers, and Wikipedia is not unaware of this.Challenges of governance and representativeness in the global movementThe rst disagreement between the US end that structures the movement and the most powerful Wikimedia organisations, those of Europe, surfaced in 2011, during the Wikimania meeting held in Israel. As the Wikimedia Foundation grew, other smaller organisations such as Wikimedia Deutschland and Wikimedia France, among others, developed into signi cant entities within the movement, with organisational and economic capabilities, if not with respect to the size of the mother organisation at least with the possibility of generating long-term projects.It is not known for certain what led the Wikimedia Foundation to turn around the model of chapters adopted since 2005, when itimplemented and even encouraged the creation of national organisations to shape a new model of a liates divided into emerging groups of users or groups linked by common interests or regional capabilities. Such was the clash that within the network of chapters the incident was dubbed the ‘Haifa drama’ and triggered antagonism between the two organisationsfor a few months. It was even attempted unsuccessfully at the Wikimedia Conference in Berlin in 2012, attended by representatives of the Wikimedia chapters, to set up a confederation of chapters in reaction to these measures.According to a survey conducted by Wikimedia Deutschland in 2014 as part of the Wikimedia Chapters Dialogue,18 there is full perception of collaboration and con dence aside from certain issues such as the lack of mutual perception, communication and lack of understanding in some aspects.This movement faces many challenges; for example, guaranteeing the sovereignty and sustainability of its support organisations, guaranteeing the representativeness of the movement’s diversity, and ensuring that the movement itself remains governable even in the face of internal or external threats.Wikipedian in residenceBeginning in 2010, the movement’s interest in the culture sector grew and developed into more organised projects. In 2010 Wikipedian Liam Wyatt started up the rst museum internship in order to broaden the English- language version of Wikipedia’s knowledge of traditional repositories, in this case the famous British Museum. These collaborations seekto explore in depth the holdings of museums, libraries, galleries and archives chie y and see them re ected in Wikipedia and Wikimedia projects in a more structured manner in order to foster understanding between both forms of disseminating knowledge.AC/E DIGITAL CULTURE ANNUAL REPORT 201619Smart Culture: Impact of the Internet on Artistic Creation