The most controversial topics in Wikipedia: A multilingual and geographical analysis

We present, visualize and analyse the similarities and differences between the controversial topics related to "edit wars" identified in 10 different language versions of Wikipedia. After a brief review of the related work we describe the methods developed to locate, measure, and categorize the controversial topics in the different languages. Visualizations of the degree of overlap between the top 100 lists of most controversial articles in different languages and the content related to geographical locations will be presented. We discuss what the presented analysis and visualizations can tell us about the multicultural aspects of Wikipedia and practices of peer-production. Our results indicate that Wikipedia is more than just an encyclopaedia; it is also a window into convergent and divergent social-spatial priorities, interests and preferences.Comment: This is a draft of a book chapter to be published in 2014 by Scarecrow Press. Please cite as: Yasseri T., Spoerri A., Graham M., and Kert\'esz J., The most controversial topics in Wikipedia: A multilingual and geographical analysis. In: Fichman P., Hara N., editors, Global Wikipedia:International and cross-cultural issues in online collaboration. Scarecrow Press (2014

The (In)Difference engine: explaining the disappearance of diversity in the design of the personal computer

At the time of writing there is a clear perception of all office computers as being more or less identical. Discussion with users entails repetitive rhetoric as they describe a landscape of boring beige boxes. The office PC is indeed a ‘clone’ - an identical, characterless copy of a bland original. Through the exploration of an archive of computer manufacturer’s catalogues, this article shows how previous, innovative forms of the computer informed by cultural references as diverse as science fiction, accepted gender roles and the discourse of status as displayed through objects, have been systematically replaced by the adoption of a ‘universal’ design informed only by the nondescript, self-referential world of office equipment. The acceptance of this lack of innovation in the design of such a truly global, mass-produced, multi-purpose technological artefact has had an enormous effect on the conception, perception and consumption of the computer, and possibly of information technology itself. The very anonymity of the PC has created an attitude of indifference at odds with its potential.</p

Real geographies and virtual landscapes: exploring the influence on place and space on mortality Lexis surfaces using shaded contour maps

This paper describes how shaded contour plots, applied to mortality data from the Human Mortality Database, can be used to compare between nations, and start to tease out some of the ways that place and space matters. A number of shaded contour plots are presented, in order to describe the age, period and cohort effects which are apparent within them. They show variations between different subpopulations within the same nation, over time, and between nations. In illustrating these intra- and international variations in the patterns, we hope to encourage the development of hypotheses about the influence of such factors on mortality rates. We conclude with a brief discussion about how such hypotheses might be developed into statistical models, allowing for more rigourous testing of hypotheses and projection across time, place and space

Computer Art in the Former Soviet Bloc

Documents early computer art in the Soviet bloc and describes Marxist art theory.Comment: 28 page

Artificial Intelligence as a Means to Moral Enhancement

This paper critically assesses the possibility of moral enhancement with ambient intelligence technologies and artificial intelligence presented in Savulescu and Maslen (2015). The main problem with their proposal is that it is not robust enough to play a normative role in users’ behavior. A more promising approach, and the one presented in the paper, relies on an artifi-cial moral reasoning engine, which is designed to present its users with moral arguments grounded in first-order normative theories, such as Kantianism or utilitarianism, that reason-responsive people can be persuaded by. This proposal can play a normative role and it is also a more promising avenue towards moral enhancement. It is more promising because such a system can be designed to take advantage of the sometimes undue trust that people put in automated technologies. We could therefore expect a well-designed moral reasoner system to be able to persuade people that may not be persuaded by similar arguments from other people. So, all things considered, there is hope in artificial intelli-gence for moral enhancement, but not in artificial intelligence that relies solely on ambient intelligence technologies

Taking apart the roads ahead: user power versus the futurology of IT

How often have futurologists ever succeeded in making accurate global predictions? Bell’s utopian vision of a leisure-laden ‘Post-Industrial’ society now seems hopelessly naive; Fukuyama’s ‘End of history’ thesis was arguably just a fleeting Reaganite delusion about the stabilization of post Cold War politics. Notwithstanding the failure of such widely hailed prophesies, and despite the lack of any well-attested laws about the historical development of information technologies, a brazenly upbeat futurology pervades many debates on new IT. This is most obviously the case in Bill Gates’ recently updated The Road Ahead. To challenge Gates’ prognostications about the future of information technologies, I will argue for the importance of users (vis-à-vis producers) in the social shaping and ‘consumption’ of IT, especially the power of many (if not necessarily all) such users to resist falling into futures that others prescribe for them. I contend that the non-passivity of IT users undermines the cogency of any claims about the inevitability of technological change, and helps to explain why so many past ‘futures’ of IT have never fully materialized

Got Women? Hiring and Retaining Female Information Technology Professionals Through Effective Human Resource Marketing

The current pipeline for information technology (IT) professionals is dismal, with increasing jobs and decreasing applicants. We propose that one solution to this problem is encouraging women to pursue careers in IT. Today, women are underrepresented, and as a result, they comprise an untapped market segment. After discussing the current state of the industry, we propose that HR professionals should take a proactive, marketing approach to the recruitment and retention of women in the IT field. Lastly, we provide specific recommendations and discuss approaches taken by several companies to address this dilemma