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Why it "works" Network Effect Wikipedia benefits tremendously from the network effect. The network effect is when a user of a product benefits more from a product if other people also use the product. Telephones are a textbook example. If only a few dozen consumers have telephones, then the telephones aren't very useful. But if millions of consumers have telephones, they become more useful since each telephone owner can contact many people. The large number of Wikipedia users benefits Wikipedia. First, the more editors there are, the the higher the accuracy and quality of the articles. Secondly, it gives an incentive to users to edit. Since editors know the each article will be read by thousands of users, the sheer influence of each article is a strong enough incentive to edit, even though Wikipedia is free. Openness Wikipedia is free and open for any user to edit, even anonymously. This means there is a very large number of editors. This helps Wikipedia ensure accuracy since each mistake and inaccuracy will have to get by hundreds of editors. With so many writers, the scope of Wikipedia articles is very large, minimizing the amount of missing information. Although the openness of Wikipedia provides a powerful self-correcting method, it also makes Wikipedia vulnerable to vandalism. In addition, editors are anonymous and may have a conflict of interest, or might have inadequate knowledge of the article's subject. Yet, because Wikipedia is open to any edits, it is also likely to be corrected. It operates by a system of checks and balances from many editors. However, it has some guidelines to protect it against misinformation and bias: 1. Verifiability principle. To prevent bias and to protect the encyclopedic quality of its articles, all edits on Wikipedia must in theory be a verifiable fact. Moreover, it must have a reliable source to verify each fact. 2. No Original Research. As an encyclopedia, it is mean to be a secondary source of infor

Emotional expression and linguistic style in online collaboration differ substantially depending on the contributors' gender and status, and on the communication network. This should be taken into account when analyzing collaborative success, and may prove insightful to communities facing gender gap and stagnation in contributor acquisition and participation levels.

lubajong and taylor_cole thank you for your comments. From my part I will add a critical evaluation of this resource as well. The talk pages of Wikipedia provide a rich source for researchers to study communication patterns. On Wikipedia talk pages they have found signals for status differences between groups of participants, notably between admins and ordinary contributors. Those findings support in general the theories of the researchers about status differences and communication style differences between managers and employees in firms. They have also found differences in communication style bases on gender, which also support their general theories about gender (which is a social construct). What I - as a Wikipedian insider - finds missing in the article is the selection bias. Wikipedia admins aren't appointed by Jimmy Wales or some other body. Admins are community selected. The exact process differs per language version. On the English Wikipedia admin selection is by a community consensus process. Future admins are selected who show the preferred communication style of admins by other contributors including existing admins. For me, the patterns in communication style do not explain the gender gap on Wikipedia. There is a gender gap in many language versions of Wikipedia, but not in all. The Armenian language version of Wikipedia is a notable exception, showing a gender balance in the conbtributor base. An explanation of that exemption requires further research. What taylor_cole notes about neutrality and bias is a valid point. People volunteer to write for Wikipedia, and volunteer in topic choice. My guess is that in general people will opt to write about something they like, care about, know about. A lack of diversity in contributors will naturally reflect in lack of diversity of topics. For example nerdy males will write about things male nerds like. In general females tend to be interested in other topics than nerdy males. A lack of topics covered in Wikipe

Levels of participation influences emotional expression and phrasing? has the function of sex and status of the taxpayer. 4 strands to study and find a result! Interesting!

Researchers found out that " Wikipedia is significantly more biased than Britannica by their measurement, and a bit more left-leaning." But isn't the biggest and the most important thing of Wikipedia is their neutral point of view policy? This is introduced by the Wikipedia founder as the core principle of the community in our lecture video. However, researchers also found out that, the research result is influenced by their measurement, "Wikipedia articles are longer, on average, than Britannica articles, and on a per word basis Wikipedia is actually slightly less biased. Wikipedia articles which have received more revisions tend to be more neutral. The more the crowd works on an article, the less biased it is."

Does that mean it has created a platform for all the political foes to meet, under one roof and voice out their views.

I followed a trail about Wikipedia that led me to their funding model. This is an interesting rebuttal to their strategy of asking users for donations atop the page (sort of a PBS/NPR model for those in the US). Interesting to think about how advertising or marketing might play into the Wikipedia model, and how it might change the dynamic of the conversation.

Thanks for the post! I also thought it was interesting to read the arguments for and against an ad-driven business model at the link below: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Funding_Wikipedia_through_advertisements A limited advertising model actually makes a lot of sense to me. I think the real obstacle to changing business models is how passionately and adamantly Jimmy Wales has rejected even the future possibility. Strong wording sound heroic, but not allowing some flexibility could greatly limited Wikipedia's positive impact.

This is a Wikipedia book on health care, a collection of Wikipedia articles that can be easily saved, rendered electronically, and ordered as a printed book

Wikipedia and its stated ambition to "compile the sum of all human knowledge" are in trouble.

This article shows some aspects that lead to the fact that Wikipedia is not yet accepted as a resource in sciences.

This article is interesting. It explains the problems encountered in its sustainability of Wikipedia. Great work and great achievement. It is prime source of information for public even though it's "compile the sum of all human knowledge" are in trouble

Wikipedia provides Internet users with millions of articles on a broad range of topics, and commonly ranks first in search engines. But its reliability and credibility fall well short of the standards for a school paper.

Me parece que wikipedia sigue siendo un recurso de importancia, y los diez puntos por los que no habria que utilizar o citar Wikipedia, pueden transformarse ne los diez puntos a considerar al consultar y citar Wikipedia. Escritores de la talla de Gabriel Zaid la usan extensivamente y aparece citada en sus artículos y ensayes, sobre todo en Letras Libres; de modo que la vigilancia heurística debería permitirnos usar este recurso.

However, it offers a valuable starting point from which students can go from understanding the topic, to thoroughly researching it in primary sources.

Regarding Open Source/Access, good article on whether students consider Wikipedia a good source for information. Since its introduction in 2001, Wikipedia has grown to host more than 19 million articles with 82,000 contributors in more than 270 languages. Wikipedia has 400 million unique viewers each month as of March 2011, According to ComScore, an Internet marketing research company that provides marketing data to large Internet businesses.

Lu Xiao, a researcher in collaborative and social computing, carried out a study of academic perceptions of Wikipedia and open access publishing. Survey results showed that researchers’ lack of experiences with Wikipedia and/or open access journals negatively affected their perceptions of the open access publishing model. Compared to tenur...

Wikipedia made by government is not what "wiki" concept is about.

interesante revisión de los aportes de estudios académicos en relación con el uso de wikipedia, cómo un cierto número de editores controlan lo que el usuario ve y evalúa entre otros datos que nos permiten reflexionar sobre el futuro de wikipedia como recurso libre.

This paper seeks to provide reference librarians and faculty with evidence regarding the comprehensiveness and accuracy of Wikipedia articles compared with respected reference resources.

Actually the article conforms our Wikipedia research field work results.

An interesting story about an initiative how to contribute to the development of Wikipedia content for a small country in its language.

Varios son los servicios icónicos del internet, pero uno de los más gigantes, además de YouTube o Facebook, sin lugar a dudas es Wikipedia y su revolucionaria manera de brindar información al mundo. Gozando de un término adquirido similar a "Googleando", Wikipedia es sinónimo de diccionario, enciclopedia y es la primera vía a la que cualquiera recurre ante una duda informativa.

Wikipediocracy.com hosts articles examining Wikipedia's editorial failings and the governance flaws that lead to them, as well as a forum dedicated to criticism of Wikipedia's administrative culture.

Wikipediocracy's mission is so negatively stated, that one wonders when someone will have to create a site to examine it: "We exist to shine the light of scrutiny into the dark crevices of Wikipedia and its related projects; to examine the corruption there, along with its structural flaws; and to inoculate the unsuspecting public against the torrent of misinformation, defamation, and general nonsense that issues forth from one of the world's most frequently visited websites, the 'encyclopedia that anyone can edit.'" Oversight of Wikipedia et al is a good thing. A more open minded approach is needed. As I've not yet read any of the articles in depth, I reserve judgment of the site itself. I'm only critiquing the mission statement.

For any teachers out there: I'm probably going to use this at some point with my students. Brief but informational.

Very interesting and easy to understand by younger students!

It is really a very interesting manner to conceive how Wikipedia was created and how it evolved.

"Unnoticed by most of its readers, Wikipedia continues to undergo dramatic changes, as its sister project Wikidata introduces a new multilingual "Wikipedia for data" (http://www.wikidata.org) to manage the factual information of the popular online encyclopedia. With Wikipedia's data becoming cleaned and integrated in a single location, opportunities arise for many new applications."