Hi Amit, Thanks for your email. I'll contact you privately.
Kind regards, Hector On Jan 4, 2017 9:44 AM, "AMIT KUMAR JAISWAL" <[email protected]> wrote: > Hello Hector, > > This all sounds very exciting. Kudos to you!! > > According to my own opinion, I would say Wikiopinion.org fall under a > non-profit project under Wikimedia Foundation. > Yes, I'm up for this and would like to join as a > volunteer(Developer/Community Liaison). > I'll help Wikiopinion.org to fund raise. > > Looking forward to join your team. > > Regards, > Amit Kumar Jaiswal > > On 1/4/17, Hector Perez <[email protected]> wrote: > > Hi all, I proposed to create Wikiopinion.org based on our work on > AgreeList > > that might fit into Wikidata [1]. I paste it here: > > > > Storytelling was the most important way to share knowledge for thousands > of > > years — before writing was invented — so our brains evolved to be > > influenced by stories. As Conor Neil explains, many times we are still > > “more easily persuaded by one clear and concrete anecdote than by data > and > > expert statistical analysis”. He says that, “an anecdote is a one off. It > > is not data. It is not science. It is dangerous”. > > > > This made me think about two things: > > > > Firstly, people such as Lydia Pintscher of Wikidata and Dario Taraborelli > > of Wikicite are working on projects that improve considerably the quality > > of Wikipedia and they could even accelerate world’s research. > > > > Wikidata is a collaboratively edited knowledge base: > > ... > > > > And Wikicite is building a repository of all Wikimedia citations and > > bibliographic metadata. The sum of all citations: > > ... > > > > Secondly, it also made me think about how this relates to the work we > have > > been doing with AgreeList.com With AgreeList, we are creating a ‘platform > > for informed opinions’ that gathers the opinions of leading experts and > > influencers and favors the building of rational opinions on issues of key > > importance. Our first issue was ‘Brexit’ where we collected the opinions > of > > almost 2000 opinion-makers on the impact of Brexit to the UK economy, > > immigration, politics, and education, and built a summary of opinions on > > both sides to inform the public during the referendum. In other words, we > > believe in the value of informed opinions over anecdotes and the data of > > who agrees on what and why can help us to build our own opinion. E.g. if > > NASA, the Royal Society, Obama, the Pope and a friend of mine who knows > > more about climate change than me think that it’s real and we should do > > more to tackle it, I believe it. > > > > Similarly, if I read something health-related, I can check the number of > > doctors who agree or disagree as fast as I see the number of likes on > > Facebook. If it is more than 95%, I believe it straight away. Done. I > > learned a new thing today. This way we could fight the fact that false > > health content seems to be more popular on social media and we could get > > informed of more topics than ever. > > > > When we are interested in a topic and have time, we read about it and > > contrast different points of views. But when we don’t have time or are > not > > interested in something, we believe what our culture, friends and > > influencers say. And we are so bombarded with information nowadays that > we > > can’t get informed about everything all the time. > > > > However, when we want to have an educated opinion about a complex topic > > such as Universal Basic Income, we can read the arguments and even go to > > the sources where we can find more information. We are still building up > > the database on Basic Income and it is currently biased towards opinions > in > > favour given that it is easier to find them given how early stage the > > public debate and the AgreeList tool are, but you can see below what > > different opinion-makers say about Universal Basic Income via Agreelist: > > ... > > > > And when there are many opinions, such as on Brexit, we organise them in > a > > board or summary that aggregates the arguments per categories. > > > > We can also filter them by profession, university, awards (e.g. Nobel > Prize > > winners), etc. E.g: > > ... > > > > How did we get this data? First, the data from occupations comes from > > Wikidata. Second, the data of who agrees on topics such as these ones is > on > > AgreeList. These lists are crowdsourced — people add influencer’s > opinions. > > Users only need to provide a source, for example an article in the New > York > > Times or the tweet of the person. Moreover, users of the site can vote > and > > add their own opinions and, at some point, we could aggregate opinions > > automatically by semantic analysis. This way we might organise all the > > opinions in the world on key topics or statements. AgreeList or > Wikiopinion > > could one day become ‘The sum of all opinions’. > > > > We can also play with Google BigQuery to do joins of AgreeList’s tables > > with Wikidata’s ones. For example, in order to get all Nobel laureates in > > economics that agreed or disagreed on Brexit before the referendum we > did a > > query and we got: > > ... > > > > Extent is the degree to which they agree (at least for now it can only be > > 100=agree or 0=disagree). Therefore we got that from all Nobel laureates > in > > economics that have ever given their opinion on Brexit (on the BBC, their > > twitter account or whatever), all 11 of them disagreed. As every > > opinion/vote on AgreeList has a source, we see then that 10 of them > signed > > a letter published on The Guardian and the other one is Paul Krugman who > > gave his opinion in The New York Times. > > > > Then, if for example we go to Paul Krugman’s Wikidata page, we see that > he > > worked for the MIT in the past. What if we want now to get all the public > > figures that supported Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump who work or have > > worked for the MIT? Easy, we just change the property to P108 (employer), > > set it in the where clause to Q49108 (MIT) and select the > statement_id=182 > > (or we could add a new join and specify the title) and the result of this > > new query is: > > ... > > > > We see that from 7 people who are or have been employed by the MIT, 6 of > > them preferred Hillary Clinton to Donald Trump. > > > > This is what we have done until now. > > > > The next natural step of AgreeList is to add social network features > where > > you can see what people you follow are discussing, opinions from the > topics > > you follow, etc. Next, if I post/agree that governments should do more to > > tackle climate change, other users could add then that I also agree that > > climate change is real and that we need to act on climate change — > > organising in this way the opinions. > > > > Other important aspect could be that AgreeList questions your opinions. > > Besides having the list of people who disagree with you (and why) just > > there, it could tell you, do you know that Tim Berners-Lee and your > friend > > from school disagree with you on this? Would you like to see why? > > Therefore, this could be a social network which challenges what you post > > and help to tackle the fact that the Internet is allegedly full of myths > > and mis-truths — as pointed out by Tim Berners-Lee says. Similarly, > > Facebook recently said that it must do more to stop the spread of > > misinformation on its platform. > > > > This could be specially important because on mainstream social media > there > > is a filter bubble — as described by Eli Pariser in one of his books. > > Social media networks tend to hide the opinions that differ from what we > > think. We only listen to the media that agrees with what we think. > > > > This is so significant that Tom Steinberg said that social media giants > > will be remembered, not by their business successes, but by how well they > > tackle the problem of the filter bubble. > > > > This filter bubble makes the polarisation of opinions worse. You can see > > Barack Obama talking about polarisation of opinions: > > ... > > > > Taking all of this into account, we are considering whether the best > > approach for Agreelist is a non-profit project in a new organisation or > > under Wikimedia Foundation if they like the idea — it could be renamed as > > Wikiopinion.org — or a for-profit startup. > > > > As a non-profit project it would focus on its social impact and it would > > follow the three golden rules of the Internet: nobody owns it, everybody > > uses it, and anybody can add services to it — which are what > distinguished > > the Internet from any previous communications medium according to Vinton > > Cerf— so initially that seems to make sense. > > > > On Wikipedia, Wikidata and the other Wikimedia projects, facts precede > > opinions. So it is not clear if Agreelist (or Wikiopinion.org) would be a > > good fit as a non-profit project under the Wikimedia umbrella. > > > > In fact, my friend Ángel Alberich — CEO @QuibimBiomarker & MIT Innovator > > Under 35 — says that facts should not be opinable. However, I argue that > > knowing exactly who has a different opinion (and why) might be really > > useful. For example, more than 100 Nobel laureates signed a > letterendorsing > > Genetic Modified Organisms (GMO) and challenging the environmental NGO > > Greenpeace to halt its anti-GMO campaigns to prevent the introduction of > > potentially life saving options for the world’s poor. Ángel said that > there > > is not a single scientific paper which says that they present a hazard > for > > human health. But as Greenpeace and many governments are so reluctant, > > isn’t there a clear need for something else that facilitates discussion? > > Would it not be useful to know which ones of your friends and > > representatives disagree and try to convince them? > > > > Similarly, despite the fact that almost all scientists agree that climate > > change is real and that we need to act, there are still many politicians > > who deny it or don’t do enough to tackle it. > > > > However, as Greg Mankiw — Harvard professor in economics — said in > Leonardo > > DiCaprio’s recent film about climate change, if we want to change > > politicians view on something, we have to change people’s view first. > > > > Therefore, a social network which organises opinions and challenges what > > you think might help to do so. Actually, Barack Obama recently said on > > Wired that at some point we might make voting and civic activism as > > addictive as scrolling through your Twitter feed. > > > > Let’s do exactly that, a social network where we discover, share and > > organise a plurality of opinions where the objective could be to help us > > make up our mind. In other words, to accelerate quality decision making. > > > > And this could be really important because of three reasons: > > > > As the MIT professor Alex Pentland said: > > > > The biggest problem in the world is not global warming, is not war, but > how > > can we organise among ourselves to make good decisions and carry them > out. > > ... > > > > 2. According to Terry Jones— disruption occurs when new technology allows > > us to deliver new forms of asynchronous communication. And this is what > > AgreeList is about. Until now, if you wanted to get a quick opinion on > > Basic Income and the arguments on both sides, you had to go to many > > different sites or talk to multiple people. Not any more. > > > > 3. As the economist Jeffrey Sachs said in his book The End of Poverty, > the > > single most important reason why prosperity spreads is the transmission > of > > technologies and the ideas underlying them. But currently we don’t need > > more bridges or faster communications (in the privileged part of the > > world), but making up our mind accurately in the myriad of the new topics > > that arise in our hectic lives. > > > > To sum up, we think that a social network that challenges what you post > and > > organises who agrees on what and why would complement Wikipedia and the > > traditional story telling. What do you think? Would you like to join us? > > Should this project be non-profit or for-profit? Would you donate or help > > us to fund raise? > > > > Kind regards, > > > > Hector > > > > [1]. Original post: https://medium.com/@HectorPere > > z/wikipedias-social-network-578b0257b8ae > > > > > -- > Amit Kumar Jaiswal > [Mozilla Reps](reps.mozilla.org/u/amitkumarj441) > [Fedora Contributor](https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/User:Amitkumarjaiswal) > Kanpur | Uttar Pradesh | India > Contact No.- +91-8081187743 > [Web](http://amitkumarj441.github.io) | Twitter: @amit_gkp > LinkedIn: http://in.linkedin.com/in/amitkumarjaiswal1 > PGP Key: EBE7 39F0 0427 4A2C > > _______________________________________________ > Wikidata mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikidata >
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