Submissions/Wiki Ecology

Most wiki researrch has looked within wikis — usually within Wikipedia. This talk describes three examples of research-in-progress that compare wikis and treat the projects as the unit of analysis. First, we describe a study that asks whether wikis compete with each other for volunteer time and effort. Second, we look at wiki governance — considering whether large wikis seem to embrace more or less participatory forms of organization as they grow. Third and finally, we use a series of design changes and code breakages to look at the effect of small technical inconveniences (like needing to creating an account) on editor activity.

Detailed proposal

Most wiki research has looked within wikis — usually within Wikipedia. This talk describes three examples of research-in-progress that compare wikis and treat the projects themselves as the unit of analysis.

First, we describe a study that asks whether wikis compete with each other for volunteer time and effort and suggest that the dynamics are complicated and more symbiotic than many have suggested. In fact, the results suggest a positive feedback loop as increased contributions to one wiki on a particular topic correlate with increased contributions to comparable wikis -- even among the same editors.

Second, we look at wiki governance — considering whether large wikis seem to embrace more or less participatory forms of organization as they grow. In this case, we find that as wikis attract more contributors, the number of administrators stays nearly flat, while the proportion of editing activity becomes more concentrated and more focused on reverting contributions (even from editors with registered accounts).

Third and finally, we use a series of design changes and code breakages to look at the effect of small technical inconveniences on editor activity.

These studies represent early work using a dataset of wikis from Wikia and the Wikimedia Foundation. The work illustrates both the opportunities and challenges of using large, comparative, inter-organizational datasets from free culture communities for empirical social science.

Track

Analysis and Public Engagement

Length of presentation/talk: 25 minutes

25 Minutes if possible, but longer (e.g., 45 minutes) would allow us to cover more research.

Language of presentation/talk

English

Will you attend Wikimania if your submission is not accepted?

Yes.

Slides or further information (optional)

Special requests

Interested attendees

If you are interested in attending this session, please sign with your username below. This will help reviewers to decide which sessions are of high interest. Sign with four tildes. (~~~~).

Pundit (talk) 06:17, 7 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Jtmorgan (talk) 20:03, 19 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Anthonyhcole (talk) 21:37, 30 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Robertpba (talk) 12:35, 8 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Add your username here.