[Air-l] wikipedia research?

[paolo massa]

I don't know if you have heard of WikiMania conferences.
Wikimania 2006 [1], the second annual international Wikimedia
conference, was held August 4–6 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, hosted by
the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at the Harvard Law School
campus.
The list of presentations is online [2].
People in this list might be interested in the Track "Wiki Social Science" [3].

The meta page at wikimedia "Power structure" [4] is also very
interesting, reporting the Wikipedia's (balanced?) mix of Anarchy,
Precedent (tradition), Despotism, Democracy, Republic, Meritocracy,
Plutocracy, Technocracy and more.

If I might add some more links, a bit less about "social structure"
and a bit more about "experts/non experts" issues, I suggest everybody
to read "The Early History of Nupedia and Wikipedia: A Memoir" [5] [6]
written by Larry Sanger, one of the moving forces behind the Nupedia
project, from which Wikipedia originated.
And also the comments of Clay Shirky about Sanger's new recent
project, Citizendium, "Larry Sanger, Citizendium, and the Problem of
Expertise" [7] and Sanger's response [8].

Well, I guess I included too many links but all of them are very
intersting, IMHO.

P.

[1] http://wikimania2006.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page
[2] http://wikimania2006.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proceedings:Index
[3] http://wikimania2006.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Wiki_Social_Science
[4] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Power_structure
[5] http://features.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/04/18/164213
[6] http://features.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/04/19/1746205&tid=95
[7] http://many.corante.com/archives/2006/09/18/larry_sanger_citizendium_and_the_problem_of_expertise.php
[8] http://many.corante.com/archives/2006/09/20/larry_sanger_on_me_on_citizendium.php


On 10/7/06, Barry Wellman <wellman at chass.utoronto.ca> 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
>  _____________________________________________________________________
>
>
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