[Air-l] wikipedia research?

[Charlie Balch]

I started to research the Wikipediests awhile back but did not pursue the
topic as I was convinced by faculty that academic snobbery would never allow
a paper to be published on this topic. It is a fascinating culture:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_editor#Authorship_and_management_proc
ess

As usual with Wikipedia, the information has changed since last I looked. I
recall a culture that included Fairies who corrected grammatical errors
quietly in the background, Police (probably not the term used) who checked
for copyright infringement, vandals (also probably not the term used) who
changed pages and other colorful descriptors.

The times they are a changing,

Charlie Balch
Doctoral Candidate, Instructional Technology
LSU

Professor of CIS
Arizona Western College


-----Original Message-----
From: air-l-bounces at listserv.aoir.org
[mailto:air-l-bounces at listserv.aoir.org] On Behalf Of Barry Wellman
Sent: Saturday, October 07, 2006 2:24 PM
To: aoir list
Subject: [Air-l] wikipedia research?

Having had several experiences with Wikipedia entries and edits this week, I
am curious if anyone is doing research on:

the social structure and reward structure of Wikipedists -- item enterers,
editing others, administrators, etc. (I don't know the structure well enough
to know the nomenclature).

 Barry Wellman
 _____________________________________________________________________

  Barry Wellman   S.D. Clark Professor of Sociology   NetLab Director
  Centre for Urban & Community Studies          University of Toronto
  455 Spadina Avenue    Toronto Canada M5S 2G8    fax:+1-416-978-7162
  wellman at chass.utoronto.ca  http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~wellman
        for fun: http://chass.utoronto.ca/oldnew/cybertimes.php
 _____________________________________________________________________


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