Wikipedia and its quirks Cathy Ma, Yahoo! Europe http://cathyma.com Twitter: cathyma

Classic Long tail Most edited Wikipedians (data: 20 November 2008 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:List_of_Wikipedians_by_number_of_edits/latest)

Taxonomy of Communities

User Support Traditional Community-based Model Customer Care Community Moderation Resolution Many-to-One Many to Many Interaction Users:Customer Care Users:Users User:Customer Care Visibility (resolution) Low High Communication loop Closed Open Response Lead Time Long (24hr) Real-time, 24/7 Customer care Cost High Vary

User Support

Taxonomy of Communities

Vandal Fighter Wikipedia

Taxonomy of Communities

Trust “ The expectation that arises within a community of regular, honest, and cooperative behavior, based on commonly shared norms , on the part of other members of that community” Francis Fukuyama

“ The expectation that arises within a community of regular, honest, and cooperative behavior, based on commonly shared norms , on the part of other members of that community”

Francis Fukuyama

Why Social Capital? Access to resources: Information: input and output Human Capital: skills, knowledge, creativity Ability to Mobilise Resources

Access to resources:

Information: input and output

Human Capital: skills, knowledge, creativity

Ability to Mobilise Resources

Social Capital ‘ It’s not what you know, it’s who you know.’ Network Cluster of Norms Sanctions (rewards & punishments)

‘ It’s not what you know, it’s who you know.’

Network

Cluster of Norms

Sanctions (rewards & punishments)

Networks on Wikipedia General Surfers Contributors Causal Contributors Recurrent Contributors Sysops (administrators) – 1,565 (en) Stewards – 36

General Surfers

Contributors

Causal Contributors

Recurrent Contributors

Sysops (administrators) – 1,565 (en)

Stewards – 36

Networks - Coleman’s idea on Closure A E C B D A B C D E Linear Network Open Network

Social Network on Wikipedia Anonymous Wikipedians Less Active Wikipedians V. Active Wikipedians Multiple memberships Key community nodes Facilitates information flow Groups ‘bridgers’

Multiple memberships

Key community nodes

Facilitates information flow

Groups ‘bridgers’

Taxonomy of Communities

Core Policies on Wikipedia Be Bold Assume Good Faith Neutral Point of View

Sanctions Rewards - Social Reinforcement Community recognitions Barnstar/Compliments Nominations Punishments Edit Reverts/Wars IP/account ban Desysoped

Rewards - Social Reinforcement

Community recognitions

Barnstar/Compliments

Nominations

Punishments

Edit Reverts/Wars

IP/account ban

Desysoped

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Arbitratoin Committee Snapshot Data gathered from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Arbitration_Committee as of 29 Jan 2009) Edited Count generated from Soxred93’s Tool http://tinyurl.com/arvtfk Current 16 members and their EN Edit Count Example segmentation of the actual edits done by User:Wizardman

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