Wikimedia Research/Showcase/Archive/2018/04

April 2018

18 April 2018 Video: YouTube

The Critical Relationship of Volunteer-Created Wikipedia Content to Large-Scale Online Communities

By Nicholas Vincent, Northwestern University

The extensive Wikipedia literature has largely considered Wikipedia in isolation, outside of the context of its broader Internet ecosystem. Very recent research has demonstrated the significance of this limitation, identifying critical relationships between Google and Wikipedia that are highly relevant to many areas of Wikipedia-based research and practice. In this talk, I will present a study which extends this recent research beyond search engines to examine Wikipedia’s relationships with large-scale online communities, Stack Overflow and Reddit in particular. I will discuss evidence of consequential, albeit unidirectional relationships. Wikipedia provides substantial value to both communities, with Wikipedia content increasing visitation, engagement, and revenue, but we find little evidence that these websites contribute to Wikipedia in return. Overall, these findings highlight important connections between Wikipedia and its broader ecosystem that should be considered by researchers studying Wikipedia. Overall, this talk will emphasize the key role that volunteer-created Wikipedia content plays in improving other websites, even contributing to revenue generation.

The Rise and Decline of an Open Collaboration System, a Closer Look

By Nate TeBlunthuis, University of Washington

Do patterns of growth and stabilization found in large peer production systems such as Wikipedia occur in other communities? This study assesses the generalizability of Halfaker etal.’s influential 2013 paper on “The Rise and Decline of an Open Collaboration System.” We replicate its tests of several theories related to newcomer retention and norm entrenchment using a dataset of hundreds of active peer production wikis from Wikia. We reproduce the subset of the findings from Halfaker and colleagues that we are able to test, comparing both the estimated signs and magnitudes of our models. Our results support the external validity of Halfaker et al.’s claims that quality control systems may limit the growth of peer production communities by deterring new contributors and that norms tend to become entrenched over time.