Wikimedia Product/Perspectives/Trust

Overview
Trust is a fundamental building block of community and culture, and is therefore critical to consider as we define next stage strategy toward 2030 goals. In commercial contexts, mutual interest and mutual concern mandate some level of trust between individuals or entities engaged in trade. In civic contexts, trust is often a by-product or outcome of the process by which collective good is determined—and a baseline criteria in selecting who can represent or advocate for that good. In interpersonal contexts, trust is the social lubricant that allows us to progress, step by step, from strangers to acquaintances to intimates.

In each of these contexts (all of which have parallels in the open knowledge ecosystem ) the rituals of trustworthy engagement share the same basic characteristics. Parties in trustworthy relationships...


 * take an interest in or are curious about one another
 * act in good faith and assume good faith
 * share relevant information voluntarily
 * take information that is shared at face value
 * behave respectfully toward one another
 * strive for equitable value exchange
 * are reliable and honor their agreements
 * sometimes share mutually beneficial objectives

These characteristics, and the relative weight placed on each, are manifest at cultural, social and transactional levels in ways that have the potential to significantly impact our Movement and its goals. And, as a global organization, it’s important to understand how our predominantly northern/western model of trust-building may be reflected at each level.

In the papers that follow we explore three vectors of trust: reliability of content, accountability at all levels of engagement and transparency of the content, the Foundation and the Movement.

Investment in Trust means the Movement, the Foundation and every community must cultivate awareness and facility with the cultural, social and transactional aspects of trust-building interaction. That is, in order to empower and activate all communities to take part in the creation of knowledge we must develop an actionable model for building trust and strengthening alliances - one that is effective across projects and between cultures. This will require awareness of our own trust-building paradigms, and a fluency with reading and sending trust-signals in our governance practices, our community norms and policies, and via our content. We will need to consciously define and embody trustworthy practices at every touchpoint of the Movement.

Aspects

 * Reliability
 * Transparency
 * Accountability

Examples

 * Copyvio Tools
 * Archive Bots
 * Interaction Timeline

Areas of Impact

 * Community Development
 * Content
 * Anti-harassment Tools
 * Citations

Resources

 * D. Kamir, 2011 USER DRORK: A CALL FOR A FREE CONTENT ALTERNATIVE FOR SOURCE https://www.networkcultures.org/_uploads/%237reader_Wikipedia.pdf Page 288


 * R. Faulkner, 2012 Etiquette in Wikipedia: Weening New Editors into Productive Ones http://www.opensym.org/ws2012/p17wikisym2012.pd


 * H. Ford, 2013 Getting to the source: where does Wikipedia get its information from? https://drive.google.com/open?id=1i3NkQatHG7mR7InP-iGomJi__4H5hpm6
 * J. Reagle, 2012 Good Faith Collaboration: The Culture of Wikipedia https://books.google.com/books?id=msLxCwAAQBAJ&dq=wikipedia+%22assume+good+faith%22&lr=
 * D. Laniado, 2012 Emotions and dialogue in a peer-production community: the case of Wikipedia http://chato.cl/papers/laniado_kaltenbrunner_castillo_fuster_2012_emotions_wikipedia.pdf
 * A. Menking, 2015 The Heart Work of Wikipedia: Gendered, Emotional Labor in the World’s Largest Online Encyclopedia https://drive.google.com/open?id=1ahvgXf-knzaEE-YTiIQbKL-9W046r4Ki
 * J. Reagle, 2008: In Good Faith: Wikipedia Collaboration and the Pursuit of the Universal Encyclopedia https://reagle.org/joseph/2008/03/dsrtn-in-good-faith.pdf
 * J. Antin, 2011: Gender Differences in Wikipedia Editing http://pensivepuffin.com/dwmcphd/syllabi/info447_wi14/readings/03-GenderAndWikipedia/antin.et.al.GenderDiffInEditing.WikiSym11.pdf
 * S. Das, 2018 Pushing Your Point of View: Behavioral Measures of Manipulation in Wikipedia https://arxiv.org/pdf/1111.2092.pdf
 * S. Kumar, 2016 Disinformation on the Web: Impact, Characteristics, and Detection of Wikipedia Hoaxes http://infolab.stanford.edu/~west1/pubs/Kumar-West-Leskovec_WWW-16.pdf
 * C. Keating, 2018 Tensions facing movement strategy https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:The_Land/Tensions_facing_movement_strategy
 * A. Shaw, 2014 Mind the skills gap: the role of Internet know-how and gender in differentiated contributions to Wikipedia https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B500zraS_1RvR0RhOG1MYjRCWkxDNEN6NjZ6Mjk5RDlWUTI0
 * A. Shaw, 2018 The Pipeline of Online Participation Inequalities: The Case of Wikipedia Editing https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B500zraS_1RvOVBXanNHb3VUYU9jM2Z0ei02MHJPTG5wY1RJ
 * M. Redi, 2018: What are the ten most cited sources on Wikipedia? Let’s ask the data. https://blog.wikimedia.org/2018/04/05/ten-most-cited-sources-wikipedia/