Casual compulsions and compulsive casualities: a characterization of user-contributions to Wikipedia

Matthijs Den-Besten ()
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Matthijs Den-Besten: CRG - Centre de recherche en gestion - X - École polytechnique - IP Paris - Institut Polytechnique de Paris - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique

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Abstract: Participation in online communities is obviously key, but the concrete interplay of the heterogeneous motivations of participants in those peer production communities has yet to be inquired in appropriate depth. We know about the existence of core and peripheral members, but how the heterogeneity of motivations and online roles results in a division of online labor, and furthermore in the peer production of higher or lesser quality products, is still largely an open question. Focusing here on a part of the inner core of the Wikipedia community - registered users who declare themselves as 'Wikipediholics' by displaying an userbox accordingly on their user pages, and who self-measure their level of Wikipediholism - we show that these users are not only more active but that the pages to which they contribute also seem associated with higher levels of readability, in a sense although thse pages are more active and receive a larger number of contributions including more contributions from anonymous users. Furthermore, the self-declared level of Wikipediholism seems to be positively correlated to increased levels of readability, as if the more Wikipediholic users had self-committed themselves, and their reputation, to produce higher quality pages.

Date: 2009-05-11
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Published in 9th EURAM Conference: renaissance and renewal in Management studies., May 2009, Liverpool, United Kingdom

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:hal-00403223

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