Wikipedia in Brazil: between popularity and mistrust.

Beatriz Cintra Martins

Brazilians regard Wikipedia with a combination of interest and mistrust. While on the one hand it stands out as the 17th most visited site in the country, according to Alexa data from December of 2010, on the other, the issue of its credibility stirs disagreement among both the press and educators: while some consider it a valid source of reference, others criticize its fragility and its vulnerability to errors and mistakes. Several examples of press coverage on the matter should help us to perceive just how paradoxical the image of this electronic encyclopedia is in Brazil. poca, one of the magazines with the largest circulation in the country, had a feature article in its January 23rd, 2006 edition entitled, The Pop Encyclopedia, exalting Wikipedia as the biggest publishing phenomenon and the greatest reference source on the planet. The widest updating of data and inclusion of entrances related to mass culture are cited as the publication's outstanding qualities, in relation to others efforts of the same genre. On the other hand, pocas major competitor, Veja magazine, takes a more cautious stance regarding the encyclopedias collaborative model. A report bearing the title, Hard to separate fact from fiction published on March 21st, 2007 alerted readers to how difficult it is to guarantee the veracity of the information that this electronic encyclopedia disseminates, since its system provides shared space to publishers, experts and impostors. Yet one way or another, it is curious to note the contradictory logic of Wikipedia reception in Brazil: the very magazine that casts doubt on its credibility includes, in its on line version, any number of articles with links directing readers toward the encyclopedia's entries. It is important to emphasize that such ambiguity in criteria of credibility is not directed solely to Wikipedia but to the internet as a whole, which in some sectors of the press and of society is seen as a lawless terrain, susceptible to all sorts of vandalism and ripe for criminal activities. Within this context, it is the content of open or collaborative web publications, such as blogs, whose content is devalued and portrayed as absolutely

chaotic, as being put together by just about anyone, without any previous professional or specialized editing.

On the other hand, there is also a current that is considerably active in the country which makes itself felt quite strongly within the university, defending the validity of this new type of production as a means for democratization. We should keep in mind that in Brazil, the media industry is heavily concentrated in the hands of a few economic conglomerates, leaving little space for the expression of diversity. Thus, not only the popularization of the Internet but the lower costs of reproduction using digital means have made it possible to greatly increase access to and circulation of culture and information throughout the country. Although this assertion does not refer specifically to the case of Wikipedia, it can be considered as relevant data to help us understand the context to which the latter belongs.

Students' and professors' views on the matter

Among educators, mistrust of the collaborative encyclopedia is great, yet it is common to find reference to its articles even within post-graduate level academic work. Using Google Scholar, a simple search to identify articles written by Brazilian researchers that have been presented in congresses over a broad range of areas of knowledge reveals a significant incidence of references to Wikipedia as a source. Yet this type of initiative is far from being a widespread practice within university circles, where it continues to cause disagreement.

Research conducted in the year 2008 at a university in the southern state of Santa Catarina1, interviewing 167 students in different programs, revealed that 66,4% of them have used the on line encyclopedia as a source of information for their academic work. Students maintain that while very few professors recommend the publication as a research source, curiously enough, 97% accept references taken from it. Furthermore, among the professors who were interviewed, 66% were not willing to suggest the encyclopedia as a source, yet 55 % admitted that they have no problems accepting

Marli Vick Vieira and Rogrio Christofoletti, Confiabilidade do uso da Wikipdia como fonte de pesquisa escolar, Revista Tecnologias na Educao 1 (2008), http://tecnologiasnaeducacao.pro.br/revista/a1n1/art4.pdf

papers that cite it. Those that do suggest its use also say that they usually advise their students that it should not be used as a sole or primary source of information.

As these brief examples from the university environment in Brazil reveal, although there are more people who are in favor of the usage of this on line encyclopedia, there is also a significant number who take the opposite stance. That is, there is still a considerable contingent of educators who do not accept it as a reliable source of data.

In the face of this scenario in which the encyclopedia fluctuates between popularity and mistrust, the Brazilian government has kept silent. No public organ linked to Education has made any kind of declaration providing support for it or denying its validity. This may be because Brazil has even greater problems to solve in this area: we need not forget that the majority of the population, even among students, still do not have access to Internet. With an estimated population of 192 million, 81,3 million use the computer-based web, whether at home, work, school, in libraries or cyber-cafs (data from November of 2010). This means that almost a half of the country's inhabitants participate in some way in the world of digital communication. Therefore, the government is currently concerned with taking computers into all the nation's schools, particularly in the most remote areas, and training teachers to develop curricular activities using them.

The Lusophone (Portuguese language) Wikipedia

Brazil takes part in the Lusophone Wikipedia, in which the other Portuguese-speaking countries - Angola, Cabo Verde, Guin-Bissau, Mozambique, Portugal, So Tom e Prncipe e Timor Leste also participate. One of the first versions of the electronic encyclopedia to be put into use (created in May 2001), it now incorporates close to 559 thousand approved articles. In September of 2010, records showed the existence of 25.246 contributors (Wikipedians), of whom 1.888 were considered active2.

Data available through http://stats.wikimedia.org/PT/ChartsWikipediaPT.htm

Above and beyond divergences of a political or ideological nature, the conflict that until today has had major repercussions in the Lusophone version of this encyclopedia is the one that has emerged around misunderstandings regarding the ways in which participants from different countries use the language. Yet rather than representing a merely bureaucratic dispute over who uses it correctly, this conflict is revealing of a cultural dispute that unfolds between nationalities, and particularly between Brazil and Portugal. Officially, administrators have from the start indicated that there is no reason for one of the variations to prevail over the other. Each collaborator should be free to write according to the rules of his/her country, even if s/he is only adding a paragraph to an article written in another variation of the Portuguese language.

Yet these recommendations have not been not enough to dispel conflict. In March of 2004, complaints began to appear among contributors over differences in the use of the language, such as words which take on different meanings in Portugal (referred to as European Portuguese) and in Brazil (referred to as Brazilian Portuguese). From everyday vocabulary that may have different meanings in different countries to the more complicated cases of words that may be considered vulgar in one country and commonplace in another, discussions have arisen. An example is the word, puto, which in Portugal simply means boy while in Brazil it means prostitute. Furthermore, the spelling of some words also varies from one country to another and there are also a number of grammatical differences.

Debate around the issues described above continued to sharpen until 2005, at which point a proposal was made to divide the Lusophone Wikipedia, creating a version in Brazilian Portuguese. The proposal, however, was rejected by Wikimedia. Thus, problems went on until another proposal was made, in 2007, to found a version in European Portuguese, which was also denied. Then, on January 1st, 2009, a new

agreement on Portuguese language grammar and spelling was put into place, unifying the way the language is written in the eight countries where it is officially spoken. Nonetheless, this effort has not resolved the problem, since it does not address the semantic variation that the language takes on in each territory and much less, the issues of cultural identity that the process brings out. Therefore, in December of 2009, a new attempt to create a version in Brazilian Portuguese was made, and the proposal was, once again, met with disapproval. Current policies on versions of the encyclopedia

demand that languages proposed have a distinct ISO 639, thereby denying the relevance of linguistic differences between countries that speak the same language as a criterion justifying separation. Yet even though there are no prospects for separation on the horizon, it seems that the conflict is still far from resolved. .

Freakpedia, free and insignificant.

In order to complete this account of the Brazilian Wikipedia experience, we should cite the web art project, Freakpedia (www.freakpedia.org). Freakpedia was designed by the Brazilian artists Edgar Franco and Fbio Oliveira Nunes as a critique of the way in which encyclopedia articles have been excluded, and even of the very concept of encyclopedic value that is used to justify such exclusions. After having entrances on their own work withdrawn by Wikipedia administrators, the artists came to the conclusion that the very encyclopedia which claims to be free in truth underwrites criteria that are too highly subjective and dubious to be used to judge what should or should not be published. Thus, while Wikipedia includes articles on mass culture celebrities who will in no time be forgotten, other entries on artistic groups whose work is less know are eliminated on the basis of lack of relevance. In this sense, a logic that opposes the horizontal communication that the web purportedly promotes is put into effect, providing ample space for personalities and events linked to the mainstream and no room for the expression of lesser known artists, small bands or vanguard art work, which although relatively unknown, may be of significant cultural value.

On the other hand, Freakpedia uses veracity as its sole criteria. In contrast to Wikipedia, the publication is self-defined as free and insignificant, open to small contributions on irrelevant events. As one of its 10 premises, within a sort of user's manual that can be found on its web pages, we find that anything that is of minimum importance for humanity is big enough to fit here. Not only are topics open to free choice; no rules for format are provided. Each person may write what he or she wants, whether accompanied by images or not. For the authors, although the project includes the nonsensical - insofar as it is open to the expression of the spurious- it also points in the direction of something that is not insignificant at all: freedom.

Rather than posed as an alternative to Wikipedia, which is interested in attracting multitudes, Freakpedia is a project that takes a critical stance, consistent with its smaller dimensions, as an attempt to subvert and question the very idea of encyclopedic knowledge.

Concluding remarks.

In this brief summary, I have sought to present a portrait of Wikipedia reception in Brazil, showing on the one hand, its considerable popularity and on the other, the distrust that its slogan, the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit stirs up in sectors of society. While neither the press nor educators arrive at any consensus on its validity as a source of reference, the population in general and students come to their own conclusions regarding its usefulness and, in one way or another, maintain this collaborative encyclopedia in its position as one the most visited sites in the country.

Short Bio: Beatriz Cintra Martins is a Brazilian journalist specialized in Internet projects. Holds a Master's Degree in Communication and Culture from the School of Communication, Rio de Janeiro Federal University, and a PhD in Communication Sciences at the School of Communication and Arts, So Paulo University.