{"id":158,"date":"2005-07-08T14:57:48","date_gmt":"2005-07-08T18:57:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/longestnow\/2005\/07\/08\/london-bridges\/"},"modified":"2005-07-08T14:57:48","modified_gmt":"2005-07-08T18:57:48","slug":"london-bridges","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/longestnow\/2005\/07\/08\/london-bridges\/","title":{"rendered":"London Bridges"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a><\/p>\n

I don’t know how human society would function without tragedy<\/span>.  Is
\nthis where so many utopian visions fail?  The drawing-together<\/span>
\naround shared catastrophes is rooted very, very deeply.  <\/p>\n

I like my drawings-together to be international and cleanly archived…
\nI’m writing up a condensed overview of what happened the other week on the
\n#wikinews<\/span> <\/span>channel, as the London bombings were progressing.  <\/p>\n

The first comments on the bombing likely turned up on Wikipedia
\nitself.  Its community is enormous, and it is much easier to add a
\nnote to a Wikipedia article than to figure out how to start a new new
\nstory, or add a tip to the newsroom.<\/p>\n

The first comments on IRC<\/span>, which for Wikipedians (#wikipedia<\/span>) is mainly a channel
\nfor hanging out but for Wikinewsies (#wikinews<\/span>) doubles as a fast-response newsroom for breaking stories,
\nwere incisive and focused.  For the next 10 hours, that channel
\nwas devoted to reporting and refining existing news; sharing news
\nreports as they came in and cross-referencing them with other sources;
\ngriping about how unreliable certain channels were; and posting links
\nto first-hand<\/span> photos and writeups from friends and colleagues at one of
\nthe scenes.<\/p>\n

By the mid-afternoon, Wikinews had a detailed primary article and a
\nsmall cluster<\/span> (since grown to a large cluster<\/a>) of other articles posted, covering both the London
\nbombings themselves and various brief satellite stories, with details
\non how others were reacting, how specific lines of investigation had
\nprogressed, which groups were claiming responsibility for what. 
\nThe news articles were very current, and quickly dated.  <\/p>\n

Wikipedia likewise had an extensive article about the bombings by
\nthe end of the day,
\ndeveloping in a very different, timeless fashion.  The wikinews
\narticle had 300 edits the day it was published, then 30 the next
\nmorning, and none thereafter.  The Wikipedia article, in contrast,
\nhad 3000 edits the first day, 500 the next, and an edit-halflife of two
\nor three days after that.   Joho<\/a> was quick to blog about this<\/a> after I mentioned it to the Berkman mailing list.<\/p>\n

A detailed
\ncomparison is worthwhile; here is a copmarison of their first
\nparagraphs, two weeks later:<\/p>\n

Wikinews<\/span>: “Coordinated terrorist attack hits London<\/a>“<\/p>\n

July 7, 2005<\/b>
\nThree bomb explosions have hit London Underground<\/a> trains, and a further bomb destroyed a bus in the city centre. The Metropolitan Police Service<\/a> has initially confirmed that 33 people have been killed in the four explosions on London<\/a>‘s
\ntransport system this morning, and said the overall number of wounded
\nwas as high as 700, in what are believed to be terrorist attacks. (See
\nlater reports in the box at the side for later announcements made on
\nfollowing days.)<\/p>\n

<\/font><\/div>\n

Wikipedia<\/span>: “7 July 2005 London bombings<\/a>“
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\n
For information on the 21 July<\/a> explosions, see 21 July 2005 London bombings<\/a><\/b><\/i><\/font>\n<\/div>\n

On Thursday<\/a>, 7 July<\/a> 2005<\/a>, a series of four bomb attacks<\/b> struck London’s<\/a> public transport<\/a> system during the morning rush hour<\/a>. At 8:50 a.m. (BST<\/a>, UTC<\/a>+1), three bombs<\/a> exploded within fifty seconds of each other on three London Underground<\/a> trains. A fourth bomb exploded on a bus<\/a> at 9:47 a.m. in Tavistock Square<\/a>. The bombings led to a severe, day-long disruption of the city’s transport and telecommunication<\/a> infrastructure.\n<\/div>\n

\nBoth articles have around six images; the news article give a far more
\nthorough detail of what it was like on the day of the bombings; the
\nencyclopedia article is over twice as long with twice as many
\nreferences and far more historical comparison and analysis.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I don’t know how human society would function without tragedy.  Is this where so many utopian visions fail?  The drawing-together around shared catastrophes is rooted very, very deeply.  I like my drawings-together to be international and cleanly archived… I’m writing up a condensed overview of what happened the other week on the #wikinews channel, as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":135,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[211],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-158","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-international"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/longestnow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/longestnow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/longestnow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/longestnow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/135"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/longestnow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=158"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/longestnow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/longestnow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=158"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/longestnow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=158"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/longestnow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=158"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}