Emerging authorships and organizational authority in network organizations: the case of Wikipedia (original) (raw)
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GOVERNING SOCIAL PRODUCTION IN THE INTERNET: THE CASE OF WIKIPEDIA
2011
In this paper we propose a theoretical framework to understand the governance of internet-mediated social production. Focusing on one of the most popular websites and reference tools, Wikipedia, we undertake an exploratory theoretical analysis to clarify the structure and mechanisms driving the endogenous change of a large-scale social production system. We argue that the popular transactions costs approach underpinning many of the analyses is an insufficient framework for unpacking the evolutionary character of governance. The evolution of Wikipedia and its shifting modes of governance can be better framed as a process of building a collective capability, namely the capability of editing and managing a new kind of encyclopedia. We understand Wikipedia evolution as a learning phenomenon that gives over time rise to governance mechanisms and structures as endogenous responses to the problems and conditions that the ongoing development of Wikipedia itself has produced over the years. Finally, we put forward five empirical hypotheses to test the theoretical framework.
SSRN Electronic Journal, 2000
In this paper we propose a theoretical framework to understand the evolving governance of internet-mediated social production. Specifically, we focus on the emergence of a collective capability that integrates knowledge relevant to large-scale production and coordination. Focusing on one of the most popular websites and reference tools, Wikipedia, we undertake an exploratory theoretical analysis to clarify the structure and mechanisms driving the endogenous change of a massive social production system. We argue that the standard transactions costs approach underpinning many extant analyses is an insufficient framework for unpacking the evolutionary character of governance. The evolution of Wikipedia and its shifting modes of governance can be better framed as a process of building a collective capability of editing and managing a new kind of encyclopaedia. By applying cluster analysis we then submit six propositions derived from this framework to a preliminary empirical testing in order to assess the morphological development of Wikipedia.
Do as I do: : authorial leadership in wikipedia
2007
In seemingly egalitarian collaborative on-line communities, like Wikipedia, there is often a paradoxical, or perhaps merely playful, use of the title "Benevolent Dictator" for leaders. I explore discourse around the use of this title so as to address how leadership works in open content communities. I first review existing literature on "emergent leadership" and then relate excerpts from community discourse on how leadership is understood, performed, and discussed by Wikipedians. I conclude by integrating concepts from existing literature and my own findings into a theory of "authorial" leadership.
Who Leads Collaborative Writing? An Ethnonarrative Approach of Governance on the French Wikipedia
2012
For some years now, many scholars from computer science and engineering or communication fields have commented the Internet as a potential democratic public sphere. In this sense, the collaborative encyclopedia Wikipedia appears to be a paragon of a self-governed organization able to produce knowledge. Paradoxically, it seems that the specific Wikipedian governance as a whole has remained a never opened black box. Going into the details of the processes at stake allows us to show that so-called decentralization of powers is more complex: Wikipedia is ruled by strong power plays where actors might be single or collective and might belong to one or another group depending on individual ideologies and contextual strategies about the decisions to be taken. We also illustrate how an ethnonarrative approach, based on recent studies about theory of mind in narratology, can explain heterogeneous mechanisms of authority.
Wikipedia and the reinvention of authorship through digital media
2010
"One of the most important issues brought out by the advent of Wikipedia is the displacement of the traditional model of the encyclopedia, elaborated by specialist teams and based on enlightenment ideas, and its replacement by a new model - a collective and shared venture, produced by a multitude of people who, whether or not they are recognized specialists, collaborate in a joint effort to compile knowledge. Therefore, what comes to be questioned is the authority (ability or merit) of those who produce knowledge. It is no mere coincidence that the words “ author” and “ authority” share etymological roots (from the Latin, auctor). In this vein, the theme of authorship itself merits further discussion, as we search for a better understanding of Wikipedia as a contemporary cultural phenomenon."
Institutions of Wikipedia - The Orchestration of Volunteered Human Capital
Wikipedia represents an organizational problem that has been triumphantly overcome to create unprecedented value. How does one guide the actions of a vast, global community of individuals to build the largest and most used encyclopedia in the world? This paper examines the underlying principles of Wikipedia as a peer-production based community and the sources of its success. In order to investigate this success, I examine its governance structure, the nature of the interaction between participants and articles, the resulting incentives and the effects these have in practice. I use a simple sequential-choice model from game theory to capture the decisions Wikipedia participants face and discuss how the laws which guide participation affect the payoffs of actions.
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The image of a community shaped in a virtual environment sounded rather ‘psychedelic’ before the advent of the Internet. Rheingold (1993) proposed the term ‘virtual community’ to connote the intense feelings of camaraderie, empathy and support he observed among people in online spaces. In this field, Reagle makes a very good contribution towards undoing the image of online collective action as ‘non-real’ (an image still frequently present among scientific researchers). Furthermore, Reagle’s book is part of the move towards focusing more attention on open content communities (as he refers to them) as specific types of communities with a knowledge-making goal; and he goes beyond the most researched case of free source communities.
Co-authorship 2.0 : Patterns of collaboration in Wikipedia
The study of collaboration patterns in wikis can help shed light on the process of content creation by online communities. To turn a wiki's revision history into a collaboration network, we propose an algorithm that identifies as authors of a page the users who provided the most of its relevant content, measured in terms of quantity and of acceptance by the community. The scalability of this approach allows us to study the English Wikipedia community as a co-authorship network. We find evidence of the presence of a nucleus of very active contributors, who seem to spread over the whole wiki, and to interact preferentially with inexperienced users. The fundamental role played by this elite is witnessed by the growing centrality of sociometric stars in the network. Isolating the community active around a category, it is possible to study its specific dynamics and most influential authors.