Re: [DIYbio] Wikipedia clean up

Dear Michael, and everyone else,

first, thanks for taking the time to try and align the sentiments
about necessary changes here with Wikipedia policies and such.

Concerning the content (and now I'm going to wildly throw together
bits from this discussion):

* DIYBio, biohacking, biopunk, and amateur biology, I think, are not
interchangeable. You could try to construe them as slightly different
aspects of a larger concept, but I'm not quite sure what that would
be.

* It might be a good idea to keep "Biopunk" as a separate article,
since it is also a literary genre - something that neither biohacking
nor DIYBio are. Personally, I would really like to see this
literary-genre-thing kept out of the biohacking and DIYBio articles,
simply because the conflation of fiction and fact in biohacking/DIYBio
is already enough of a problem (especially in media representations).
Suggestion for a change to the Biopunk article: Focus it on the
literary genre and mention that "biopunk" is sometimes also used to
denote activities of biohacking (link to biohacking article)?

* The DIYBio article isn't that bad the way it is as of today.

* The biohacking article is pretty awful indeed. Put in very general
terms, the changes I'd want to make to that one: Expand the paragraph
on the "first meaning" of biohacking and make it a bit more solid and
less hand-wavy. In particular "In this context, biohacking refers to
mixing and matching genes and characteristics from different species."
really needs to go. "Mixing and matching genes and characteristics
from different species" is plain old transgenic genetic modification
and engineering, and equating "biohacking" with this is just factually
wrong. The paragraph on the "second meaning" of biohacking is also
still pretty mushy. It does belong in the article, though, just like
the separation of the "two types" of biohacking - people on this list
may not identify much with the self-tuning and body modification
aspect, but the term "biohacking" _is_ used to refer to it, so an
encyclopedic article should cover both these uses. One other aspect
that may belong in an article on biohacking is "Biohacking in art" -
after all, artists have engaged in using/subverting biotech long
before the DIYBio thing took off, see Eduardo Kac (the Damien Hirst of
bioart, as he was once called), Luke Jerram, the Critical Art Ensemble
or pretty much anyone whose name is in the book "Tactical
Biopolitics". Including some of this is justified, I think, since
artists have started using the term "biohacking" to describe their
work [citation needed]. Hackteria may be one example here.

* Transhumanism isn't a part of biohacking in the sense of a
"belongs-to" relation, but it is in the sense of an "overlaps-with"
relation. I don't see that transhumanism is a big topic in either
DIYBio or biohacking, but it has come up here on the list, for
example. Some of the mails sent to this list by someone named
"Reason", promoting a clearly transhumanist agenda, may serve as
references.

And just because I'm in the mood for some nitpicking, some remarks on
terminology (responding to Bryan):

I don't think that DIYBio, biohacking, biopunk, and amateur biology
are all the same thing. Amateur biology, in particular, is much older
than biohacking or DIYBio. It's a fairly different culture made up of
fairly different people, and is rooted more in the Victorian idea of
the "gentleman scientist" rather than the 20th century's hacker
culture. I also don't see flocks of amateur ornithologists and amateur
entomologists scrambling to join up with the biohackers. Apart from
the fact that amateur biology and biohacking have very different
underpinnings - socially, historically, and culturally - I'd find it a
little distasteful to unilaterally appropriate this culture.

On Wed, Sep 26, 2012 at 3:23 AM, Michael Turner
<michael.eugene.turner@gmail.com> wrote:
> I do Wikipedia cleanups sometimes. Even decorations, like photos. On
> request, I recently cleaned up
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PechaKucha
>
> I'm Yakushima at Wikipedia.
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Yakushima
>
> But it would help if you could be specific about the changes you'd
> like to see and the priorities you have for them (ideally ratified on
> by senior members of this list, in the case of the DIYbio article at
> least). Then the chore would fit better into my busy schedule, and
> would feel like less a chore and than a community service.[*]
>
> Regards,
> Michael Turner
> Project Persephone
> 1-25-33 Takadanobaba
> Shinjuku-ku Tokyo 169-0075
> (+81) 90-5203-8682
> turner@projectpersephone.org
> http://www.projectpersephone.org/
>
> "Love does not consist in gazing at each other, but in looking outward
> together in the same direction." -- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
>
> ---
>
> [*] I mean the *good* kind of community service, not the kind that a
> judge would sentence you to hours of, when convicting you of a
> misdemeanor.
>
>
> On Wed, Sep 26, 2012 at 10:02 AM, Bryan Bishop <kanzure@gmail.com> wrote:
>> The wikipedia articles are still awful.
>>
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biohacking
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DIYbio
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biopunk
>>
>> At least that last one is somewhat less awful. Anyone want to take cleanup
>> duty?
>>
>> - Bryan
>> http://heybryan.org/
>> 1 512 203 0507
>>
>> --
>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
>> "DIYbio" group.
>> To post to this group, send email to diybio@googlegroups.com.
>> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
>> diybio+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
>> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
>>
>>
>
> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "DIYbio" group.
> To post to this group, send email to diybio@googlegroups.com.
> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to diybio+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
>
>

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "DIYbio" group.
To post to this group, send email to diybio@googlegroups.com.
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to diybio+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.