[Air-l] wikipedia research?

[Karim R. Lakhani]

Hi All,

I suspect the motivation structure for wikipedia will be very similar  
to open source.

Denise Anthony from Dartmouth Sociology has a great paper comparing  
"quality" of entries from "good samaritans" vs "zealots." - showing  
that the contributions from anonymous participants tends to be quite  
higher than expected. https://www.dartmouth.edu/~socy/faculty/ 
anthony.html

I also think that Guido Hertel from University of Würzburg Dept of  
Psychology has done some work on motivations in wikipedia - following  
on the footsteps of his study on motivations in the linux kernel  
community.  http://wy2x05.psychologie.uni-wuerzburg.de/ao/research/

I think its a rich place for research on distributed innovation and  
collaboration.

Best

Karim


On Oct 8, 2006, at 7:15 AM, Dr. Christian Stegbauer wrote:

> Recently we have started with a research project to investigate how  
> and
> why people collaborate in wikipedia.
> Why people are engaged in the encyclopedia could not be  explained  by
> individual motivation.
> We hope to find some explanations in the commitment of the core  
> group of
> the activists and in the picture of the different positions of all
> participants .
> We will conduct network analysis of different levels of Wikipeda, like
> the articles, the discussions around articles, different mailing  
> lists etc.
> The project will last two years, but I am sure we can present some of
> our first results at the Sunbelt Conference in Corfu next year.
>
> Christian
>
>
>
> danah boyd schrieb:
>> Aaron Swartz is looking into what constitutes "the community" on
>> Wikipedia through content analysis (challenging the fact that only
>> 500 people edit the majority of Wikipedia).
>>
>> Andrea Forte (Georgia Tech) is doing a qualitative study of Wikipedia
>> culture.
>>
>> Fernanda Viegas & Martin Wattenberg (IBM) have been building
>> visualizations of Wikipedia's editing patterns.
>>
>> These are the key people that i know looking into Wikipedia from
>> different angles.  Andrea's probably your best bet for looking at
>> motivation.  That said, some very interesting bits are coming out of
>> Aaron's work... namely that the kinds of edits made by anonymous
>> folks are very different (and often content more detailed content)
>> than those made from people with accounts who are frequent editors.
>>
>> (Jimmy - do you know of other studies going on?)
>>
>> danah
>>
>>
>> On Oct 7, 2006, at 2:23 PM, Barry Wellman wrote:
>>
>>
>>> 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
>>>   
>>> ____________________________________________________________________ 
>>> _
>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> The air-l at listserv.aoir.org mailing list
>>> is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http:// 
>>> aoir.org
>>> Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://
>>> listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
>>>
>>> Join the Association of Internet Researchers:
>>> http://www.aoir.org/
>>>
>>
>> - - - - - - - - - - d a n a h ( d o t ) o r g - - - - - - - - - -
>> "taken out of context i must seem so strange"
>>
>> musings :: http://www.zephoria.org/thoughts
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> The air-l at listserv.aoir.org mailing list
>> is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http:// 
>> aoir.org
>> Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http:// 
>> listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
>>
>> Join the Association of Internet Researchers:
>> http://www.aoir.org/
>>
>>
>
> -- 
> *************************************************
>
> PD Dr. Christian Stegbauer
> Goethe-Universität Frankfurt
> Fachbereich Gesellschaftswissenschaften
> Institut für Gesellschafts- und Politikanalyse
> 60054 Frankfurt
> Tel.Uni:  069 798-23543
> Tel.priv: 069 55 43 92
> e-mail: stegbauer at soz.uni-frankfurt.de
>
>
>
> Magazin:
> kommunikation at gesellschaft
> Journal für alte und neue Medien aus soziologischer,  
> kulturanthropologischer
> und kommunikationswissenschaftlicher Perspektive
> www.kommunikation-gesellschaft.de
>
> demnächst:
> Stegbauer, Christian / Rausch, Alexander
> Strukturalistische Internetforschung. 2006. Ca. 240 S. Wiesbaden,  
> VS-Verlag,*
> ISBN: 3-531-15110-X
> und
> Stegbauer, Christian
> Geschmackssache? Eine kleine Soziologie für Genießer.
> 2006. Ca. 200 Seiten.ISBN 3-939519-16-2. Hamburg: Merus
>
> *************************************************
>
> _______________________________________________
> The air-l at listserv.aoir.org mailing list
> is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org
> Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http:// 
> listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
>
> Join the Association of Internet Researchers:
> http://www.aoir.org/