“A wound that has been festering since 2007”. The Burma/Myanmar naming controversy and the problem of rarely challenged assumptions on Wikipedia
| Published date | 10 July 2017 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/JD-09-2016-0109 |
| Pages | 689-699 |
| Date | 10 July 2017 |
| Author | Brendan Luyt |
| Subject Matter | Library & information science,Records management & preservation,Document management,Classification & cataloguing,Information behaviour & retrieval,Collection building & management,Scholarly communications/publishing,Information & knowledge management,Information management & governance,Information management,Information & communications technology,Internet |
“A wound that has been festering
since 2007”
The Burma/Myanmar naming controversy and
the problem of rarely challenged assumptions
on Wikipedia
Brendan Luyt
Division of Information Studies,
Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information,
Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
Abstract
Purpose –The Burma/Myanmar naming controversy on Wikipedia stands as an exemplary debate at
least in terms of the politeness and civility of discourse. It was also one of the longer running debates on
Wikipedia beginning almost at the same time as the creation of the article in 2003. But this debate has other
lessons for those interested in one of the world’s key pieces of information infrastructure. The paper aims to
discuss these issues.
Design/methodology/approach –The author’s approach to the study of the Wikipedia talk pages devoted
to the Burma/Myanmar naming controversy is qualitative in nature and explores the debate over sources
through textual analysis.
Findings –Editors brought to their work a number of underlying assumptions including the primacy of the
nation-state and the nature of a “true”encyclopedia. These were combined with a particular interpretation of
neutral point of view (NPOV) policy that unnecessarily prolonged the debate and, more importantly, would
have the effect, if widely adopted, of reducing Wikipedia’s potential to include multiple perspectives on any
particular topic.
Originality/value –The study clearly shows how editors tend to uncritically reproduce the dominant
assumptions of their societies. When combined with positivist readings of NPOV policy, this has grave
implications for Wikipedia’s potential to open up representation to a wider set of knowledge producers and
perspectives. Much of this potential cannot be realized if the assumptions of editors, especially their flawed
understanding of NPOV, cannot be challenged effectively.
Keywords Information literacy, Myanmar, Asia, Wikipedia, Reference, Encyclopedias, Burma
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
Central to Wikipedia’s operation are the debates taking place on its talk pages. It is on these
pages that editors thrash out the arguments underpinning the site’s representation of
knowledge on any given topic. Hence, talk pages provide an important resource for those
interested in Wikipedia as a social phenomenon as they record the tensions, struggles, and
conflicts takingplace within (Tkacz, 2007; Kriplean et al., 2007; Goldspink, 2010; Konig, 2013;
Fullerton and Ettema, 2014). However, talk pages are not uniform. Some contain very little
content, suggesting that the articlesto which they are attachedare attracting little attentionor
what attention they are receiving does not generate much controversy. Other talk pages are
voluminous, recording the engagement of numerous editors over substantial periods of time.
In this paper, I will examine a particularly long running talk page debate over the choice of
Myanmar or Burma as an article title. This debate ran from 2004 to 2015, completely
overshadowingdiscussion on other aspects ofthe article and helping to generate13 talk page
archives. It spawned a large number of move requests and requests for mediation and in
general consumed vast amounts of editor time and energy. At the same time, this was not a
particularly acrimonious debate. The co-founder of Wikipedia, Jimmy Wales, noted in a
Journal of Documentation
Vol. 73 No. 4, 2017
pp. 689-699
© Emerald PublishingLimited
0022-0418
DOI 10.1108/JD-09-2016-0109
Received 14 September 2016
Revised 17 January 2017
Accepted 19 January 2017
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/0022-0418.htm
689
Wound that
has been
festering since
2007
To continue reading
Request your trial