 Crowdsourcing not all sourced by the crowd: An observation on the behavior of Wikipedia participantsJung Lee and DongBack Seo Technovation, 2016, vol. 55-56, 14-21 Abstract: This study investigates the behavioral patterns of Wikipedia participants to obtain a picture of internal dynamics of the world's largest crowdsourcing platform. It observes the responses of people when “other” people enter a crowd where internal and external controls are mostly absent. From the analysis of 342 Wikipedia articles, this study shows that the overall tone of Wikipedia articles is mostly decided by a dominant few rather than by a trivial many, and such domination worsens as the number of participant increases and the article matures. This result contradicts a common belief on crowdsourcing that Wikipedia would reflect the voices of a vast majority, obtain a balanced solution, and attain democracy on the Internet. Therefore, this study contributes to the literature by analyzing how effectively Wikipedia functions as a crowdsourcing platform within the context. It also implies that developing a proper crowdsourcing strategy such as effective management of a platform is necessary, especially when an organization has a specific goal to achieve throughout a project. Keywords: Crowdsourcing; Wikipedia; Crowdsourcing motivation; Crowdsourcing participants; Wiki war (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:techno:v:55-56:y:2016:i::p:14-21 DOI: 10.1016/j.technovation.2016.05.002 Access Statistics for this article Technovation is currently edited by Jonathan Linton More articles in Technovation from Elsevier |
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