GLAM/Newsletter/November 2019/Contents/Poland report
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Transgressing the boundaries of internal academic discourse
Wikiplatonism
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The WikiPlato project reconstructed Plato's position and developed a high-quality article about the Greek philosopher for Polish Wikipedia. The outcome of WikiPlato initiative is the longest articles about Plato and Platonizm among all language versions of Wikipedia. The article is a co-creation of Polish experts in ancient philosophy – doctors and professors, as well as students of philosophy, who participated in the “Platonic Academy” in Lanckorona during the last September. Photos from the “Platonic Academy” can be seen on Wikimedia Commons.
The Academy is co-organized by the “Kronos. Philosophical Journal”, the Józef Tischner Institute and the Institute of Philosophy and the Institute of Sociology at the Pedagogical University of Cracow. The organizers of the “Platonic Academy” decided to take a step forward and facilitate collaboration among professors, doctors and philosophy students to develop this encyclopedic article for Wikipedia. Dr. Andrzej Serafin writes:
This year we have decided to reach out towards the world and transgress the boundaries of internal academic discourse. Wikipedia is an ideal tool to achieve such a purpose as the place of first contact with ideas, allowing an operation on collective consciousness, an intervention into public discourse that defines our way of understanding the world. Introducing radical change into a single article seems little, but it actually means a lot. Much can be achieved on such a fundamental level. One can, therefore, say that Wikipedia is a realization of the Platonic project by giving access to the domain of ideas through modern technology as the medium, with cooperation of those who are closely acquainted with certain ideas and with their description and systematization make them accessible to a wider audience. Such a materialization of the domain of ideas is a technological reenactment of the project of enlightenment.
The article is the gate to volume of knowledge accessible to those that are interested in the figure of a Greek philosopher. After entering the keyword: “Plato” into Polish search engine they are likely to find this article . It is the realization of the principle to disseminate knowledge, by using modern means of communicating in additional to traditional ways such s books and magazines. It is the pursuit of the idea that Wikipedia can become an essential tool for academics to share knowledge and their work.
As a continuation of the project Andrzej Serafin from the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology of the Pedagogical University in Crakow leads a course a, in which his students create articles on Platonic ideas for Polish Wikipedia.
