Why do people write for Wikipedia? Incentives to contribute to open-content publishing.

#1 FARNAZ SHAMS on 18 Mar 12

(Bruckman, A, & A. Forte. (n.d). Why do people write for Wikipedia? Incentives to contribute to open-content publishing.Georgia Institute of Technology, College of Computing. 6. Retrieved 2012, March 17th from http://jellis.org/work/group2005/papers/forteBruckmanIncentivesGroup.pdf

We know authors of Wikipedia cannot publish any article with their own name, so I think it is very interesting to know why they are spending even up to 30 hours per week on Wikipedia to publish their article/articles?

It is not important for most of the Wikipedia's authors, they cannot be holder of have been published articles, the most important thing to them is sense of the credibility (Credibility for them means publishing powerful, true and efficiency article/articles), having some credits in Wikipedia motivate them to be more and more active and publish more beneficial articles about the world. In addition, Wikipedia has some active users, who are editing others content, so, authors will learn more from active users. It is true that Wikipedia is ownership of all of its content, but all of the publishers have their own user page and they can distinguish wich articles published by them (Bruckman and Forte, n.d).
In addition, if Wikipedia's published their articles with using multiple sources and add links and provide reliably assess to those sources for other users, Wikipedia knows them as a trustable user (Wikipedia checks the validity of published and edited articles by its soft wares), so, by each valuable publishing, the authors can archive more credibility from Wikipedia. As you see, the meaning of credibility for authors in Wikipedia is really different from the credibility in broader social contexts. Using discussion pages, mailing list, meta-pages, announcement pages are another advantage of Wikipedia for Wikipedia's who gathered some credit from Wikipedia and this credibility is gathering by publishing, editing and spending time in Wikipedia. (Bruckman and Forte, n.d).

<div class="cArrow"> </div><div class="cContentInner">(Bruckman, A, & A. Forte. (n.d). Why do people write for Wikipedia? Incentives to contribute to open-content publishing.Georgia Institute of Technology, College of Computing. 6. Retrieved 2012, March 17th from <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" jquery16409293159316641845="4" href="http://jellis.org/work/group2005/papers/forteBruckmanIncentivesGroup.pdf">http://jellis.org/work/group2005/papers/forteBruckmanIncentivesGroup.pdf</a>  <br />  <br /> We know authors of Wikipedia cannot publish any article with their own name, so I think it is very interesting to know why they are spending even up to 30 hours per week on Wikipedia to publish their article/articles?  <br />  <br /> It is not important for most of the Wikipedia's authors, they cannot be holder of have been published articles, the most important thing to them is sense of the credibility (Credibility for them means publishing powerful, true and efficiency article/articles), having some credits in Wikipedia motivate them to be more and more active and publish more beneficial articles about the world. In addition, Wikipedia has some active users, who are editing others content, so, authors will learn more from active users. It is true that Wikipedia is ownership of all of its content, but all of the publishers have their own user page and they can distinguish wich articles published by them (Bruckman and Forte, n.d).  <br /> In addition, if Wikipedia's published their articles with using multiple sources and add links and provide reliably assess to those sources for other users, Wikipedia knows them as a trustable user (Wikipedia checks the validity of published and edited articles by its soft wares), so, by each valuable publishing, the authors can archive more credibility from Wikipedia. As you see, the meaning of credibility for authors in Wikipedia is really different from the credibility in broader social contexts. Using discussion pages, mailing list, meta-pages, announcement pages are another advantage of Wikipedia for Wikipedia's who gathered some credit from Wikipedia and this credibility is gathering by publishing, editing and spending time in Wikipedia. (Bruckman and Forte, n.d).</div>

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#2 FARNAZ SHAMS on 18 Mar 12

Sorry for any gramatical mistake.

#3 Dean Strautins on 25 Mar 12

The paper is 7 years old, comes from an Architechture institution, focuses on the mentality to collaborate from a scientific perspective, contains some interesting phrases.

#4 Tamlin Dobrich on 05 Apr 12

I I found this article a very useful and informative resource. In my own research on Wikipedia, I was particularly interested to read about the reasons why people contribute to the encyclopedia given that authors seem to receive no direct credit for their contributions.
In one of the articles I researched it claimed that editors are motivated by the "rush of joy" they received when contributing their unique wisdom to an audience of 300 million people (Manjoo, 2009). In other words Wikipedia benefits from the emotion of its contributors.
A year ago in one of my Net Comm. classes we were challenged to make a valuable contribution to a Wikipedia article. My contribution was minute and fairly insignificant yet I still felt a sense of pride and brag about my (tiny) contribution to anyone who will listen today.

From this article my understanding is that there are two main reason as to why Wikipedia authors contribute their time and effort: one, they feel compelled to help create an encyclopedia that is perceived as being a reliable resource adopting a mainstream view of classless knowledge production, or two, seek pride, ownership and credit for their contributions which can be acknowledged indirectly through Wikipedia technology (Bruckman & Forte, n.d.).

Reference:

Bruckman, A, & A. Forte. (n.d). Why do people write for Wikipedia? Incentives to contribute to open-content publishing. Georgia Institute of Technology, College of Computing. Retrieved from http://jellis.org/work/group2005/papers/forteBruckmanIncentivesGroup.pdf

Manjoo, F. (2009, September 28). Is Wikipedia a Victim of Its Own Success? Time Magazine. Retrieved from http://www.time.com/time/magazine

<div class="cArrow"> </div><div class="cContentInner">I I found this article a very useful and informative resource. In my own research on Wikipedia, I was particularly interested to read about the reasons why people contribute to the encyclopedia given that authors seem to receive no direct credit for their contributions. <br /> In one of the articles I researched it claimed that editors are motivated by the "rush of joy" they received when contributing their unique wisdom to an audience of 300 million people (Manjoo, 2009). In other words Wikipedia benefits from the emotion of its contributors. <br /> A year ago in one of my Net Comm. classes we were challenged to make a valuable contribution to a Wikipedia article. My contribution was minute and fairly insignificant yet I still felt a sense of pride and brag about my (tiny) contribution to anyone who will listen today.  <br />  <br /> From this article my understanding is that there are two main reason as to why Wikipedia authors contribute their time and effort: one, they feel compelled to help create an encyclopedia that is perceived as being a reliable resource adopting a mainstream view of classless knowledge production, or two, seek pride, ownership and credit for their contributions which can be acknowledged indirectly through Wikipedia technology (Bruckman & Forte, n.d.). <br />  <br /> Reference: <br />  <br /> Bruckman, A, & A. Forte. (n.d). Why do people write for Wikipedia? Incentives to contribute to open-content publishing. Georgia Institute of Technology, College of Computing. Retrieved from <a href="http://jellis.org/work/group2005/papers/forteBruckmanIncentivesGroup.pdf" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://jellis.org/work/group2005/papers/forteBruckmanIncentivesGroup.pdf</a> <br />  <br /> Manjoo, F. (2009, September 28). Is Wikipedia a Victim of Its Own Success? Time Magazine. Retrieved from <a href="http://www.time.com/time/magazine" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://www.time.com/time/magazine</a></div>

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#5 theresia sandjaja on 09 Apr 12

This paper discusses the reasons why people would voluntarily share their knowledge to the online community. In the first section of the paper, the author uses theory based on the scientific community and their incentive to collaborate. The theory is then implemented to the case of an online collaboration platform, Wikipedia. The theory explains how the scientific community would share knowledge through an incentive system called 'the cycle of credit'. The credit is a reward mechanism to encourage online contributions. The credit is not a straightforward reward system, but acts as motivation for the contributor to have a sense of credibility, power and efficacy within the community. Similar reading by Castells (2007) claimed that 'media has become the social space where power is decided', which means that productions that are available online have political meaning in online society.

The Wikipedia case included in the reading has a different approach when questioning why people voluntarily contribute to knowledge sharing as there is no distinct feature to acknowledge the contributor. The case has a different perspective on voluntary contributions when compared to my research on Youtube. This is because on Youtube, the contributors can provide ownership information to the viewer to achieve their credibility. Although the case study has a different perspective to my research project, I found the theory included in the reading useful to assist me to understand the fundamental sociology of why people would like to share knowledge and voluntarily contribute in online environment.

Castells, M. (2007), 'Communications, Power and Counter-power in the Network Society', International Journal of Communications. 1, 238-366. Available online at http://ijoc.org/ojs/index.php/ijoc/article/view/46

<div class="cArrow"> </div><div class="cContentInner">This paper discusses the reasons why people would voluntarily share their knowledge to the online community. In the first section of the paper, the author uses theory based on the scientific community and their incentive to collaborate. The theory is then implemented to the case of an online collaboration platform, Wikipedia. The theory explains how the scientific community would share knowledge through an incentive system called 'the cycle of credit'. The credit is a reward mechanism to encourage online contributions. The credit is not a straightforward reward system, but acts as motivation for the contributor to have a sense of credibility, power and efficacy within the community.  Similar reading by Castells (2007) claimed that 'media has become the social space where power is decided', which means that productions that are available online have political meaning in online society.  <br />  <br /> The Wikipedia case included in the reading has a different approach when questioning why people voluntarily contribute to knowledge sharing as there is no distinct feature to acknowledge the contributor. The case has a different perspective on voluntary contributions when compared to my research on Youtube. This is because on Youtube, the contributors can provide ownership information to the viewer to achieve their credibility. Although the case study has a different perspective to my research project, I found the theory included in the reading useful to assist me to understand the fundamental sociology of why people would like to share knowledge and voluntarily contribute in online environment. <br />  <br /> Castells, M. (2007), 'Communications, Power and Counter-power in the Network Society', International Journal of Communications. 1, 238-366.  Available online at <a href="http://ijoc.org/ojs/index.php/ijoc/article/view/46" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://ijoc.org/ojs/index.php/ijoc/article/view/46</a></div>

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Why do people write for Wikipedia? Incentives to contribute to open-content publishing. - 45 views