Interesting discussion of how to use IRC channels to show people how much Wikipedia is actively curated, without requiring them to reload the recent changes page, connect to some cryptic IRC channels, or dig around in some (wonderfully) detailed statistics. More importantly, could it be done in a playful way?

HASTAC’s fifth international conference, hosted this year by the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, December 1-3, practices what it preaches, experimenting with an array of new forms and formats designed not just to discuss “Digital Scholarly Communication” but to explore how each of those three terms–digital, scholarly, communication–changes the others in ways that presage powerful new possibilities for higher education (both in the academy and for the general public).

I have problems with the idea of infrastructure, particularly that of the e-research variety. It seems like we always end up talking about huge amounts of money and multi-institutional partnerships. It just doesn’t seem like a great model for innovation. As I’ve previously argued, I’d like to see something more like the funding schemes offered by the NEH Office for Digital Humanities. Encourage people with ideas, don’t just reward the good networkers. Build tools and apis, not portals and platforms.

Of course I’d still like to see the digital humanities well represented in the list of Virtual Laboratories and eResearch Tools currently under consideration by NeCTAR. It’s time the digital research needs of the humanities were properly recognised.