Susan L Bryant Becoming Wikipedian Transformation of Participation

Susan L. Bryant, Becoming Wikipedian: Transformation of Participation in a Collaborative Online Encyclopedia

Why did we chose this article? We wanted to look at certain aspects that can be closely related to our own project, which has similar user generated information n Motivation, What motivates people to contribute without financial benefits n How can we insure that the information is valid and correct. n And how do we build damage control, and how can we prevent ¡ ¡ ¡ Malicious content Mass deletion Can the system be repaired if broken

What is Wikipedia? n Wikipedia is an open-content encyclopedia n The content is user generated n Prolific collaborative authoring project n publicly editable web space

What are the key benefits n Rapid Growth n Nearly always updated n Articles are worked on in collaboration

What are the key benefits 2 n Wikipedia is cost efficient to maintain due to the self repairing nature of the system / community n Articles live or die by community consensus n Ownership does not exist

Wikipedia as a reliable source n Frequently used by students n Frowned upon by many academics and especially librarians n Banned as a reliable source in many universities and high schools

Studies on Wikipedia 1 n History flow Visualization n Legitimate peripheral participation (LPP) n Activity Theory

History flow Visualization n n Devised by MIT and IBM researchers Designed to recognize and describe four patterns of cooperation and conflict on the site: ¡ ¡ Vandalism and repair Anonymous vs. named authorship Negotiation Content stability

History flow visualization concludes that: n n The Wikipedia interface is designed to encourage surveillance of others’ contributions Community run watch lists are used to repair vandalism Separate discussion pages are used for reaching consensus, when an editing war is raging on a certain topic emphasis on neutral point of view helps to provide an underlying principle which guides dispute resolution

Legitimate peripheral participation (LPP) n Legitimate peripheral participation (LPP) is a theoretical description of how newcomers become members of communities of practice n newcomers become members of a community initially by participating in peripheral yet productive tasks that contribute to the overall goal of the community n From novice to old-timer: ¡ Starts out with simple activities that carry low risk to the community as a whole. ¡ Gradually expand as confidence and experience is built ¡ Finally achieve status as a recognized member of the community

LPP n LPP suggests that membership in a community of practice is mediated by the possible forms of participation to which newcomers have access, both physically and socially. If newcomers can directly observe the practices of experts, they understand the broader context into which their own efforts fit.

Activity theory n n Activity theory is most often used to describe activity in a socio-technical system as a set of six interdependent elements: ¡ • Object - the objective of the activity system as a whole ¡ • Subject - a person or group engaged in the activities ¡ • Community - social context; all people involved ¡ • Division of Labour - the balance of activities among different people and artefacts in the system ¡ • Tools - the artefacts (or concepts) used by subjects to accomplish tasks ¡ • Rules - the code and guidelines for activities and behaviours in the system These six elements and their mutual interdependencies are often depicted by the activity triangle diagram:

Activety theory diagram

How do people contribute to wikipedia? As users move from peripheral to full participation , their activity is transformed in many dimensions. n Lurkers: Contribute little, but are often avid users of the system. A novice is usually a Lurker before he or she start editing pages. n Novices: Edit what they know and open new pages where there are none n Experts: Once a user has become an expert wikipedian, the user’s focus often shifts from the concern of individual articles to the reliability of wikipedia as a whole. The user is still editing and improving articles, but this is secondary to the higher goal that is wikipedia itself.

What motivates the wikipedians? n It is important that the Wikipedia is public, and that Wikipedians’ work is available to anyone n work as contributing to a greater good, offering knowledge to the world at large n Wikipedians seem to contribute because they believe in the product that the community produces. n It’s a challenge to see how well they can put an article together on a subject… n To a writer getting something “published” and reviewed in an environment that is more likely to correct your mistakes than reject your stuff might have a certain appeal. n To publish something even without getting worldwide credit for it. The community does recognize those who contribute, so it is just like publishing any other research article in terms of respect and credit from your peers n Watch list junkie, I just have to follow what happens to certain pages. n Wikipedians’ goals as maintaining the Wikipedia—both as a community and as a reliable information resource. In general, .

Conclusion n The creators of wikipedia hoped to create a place where volunteer writers would find few barriers to contributing. They little imagined that the response would be as overwhelming as it was; nor did they anticipate that the quality of articles on a wiki would reach the current standards n The inner workings of the wikipedian community is opaque to outsiders. Outsiders might believe that the wikipedians don’t have any valid motivation for contributing, but that is obviously not the case. The wikipedians share the motivational aspect of most other writer, except for financial ones. n The concept of wikipedia might be counterintuitive in it self, but it is actually working and is constantly growing in size, quality and participation.

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