 | |
| Type | Informal organization of individual contributors |
|---|---|
| Focus | Free,open-content,wiki-basedInternet encyclopedias |
Area served | Worldwide |
| Services | Authoring andeditingWikipedia |
| Website | wikipedia |
TheWikipedia community, collectively and individually known asWikipedians, is anonline community of volunteers who create and maintainWikipedia, anonline encyclopedia. Wikipedians may or may not consider themselves part of theWikimedia movement, a global network of volunteer contributors to Wikipedia and other related projects hosted by theWikimedia Foundation.
In April 2008, writer and lecturerClay Shirky and computer scientistMartin Wattenberg estimated the total time spent creating Wikipedia at roughly 100 million hours.[1] As of August 2023, there are approximately 109 million registered user accounts across all language editions, of which around 120,000 are "active" (i.e., made at least one edit in the last thirty days).[2]
A study published in 2010 found that the contributor base to Wikipedia "was barely 13% women; the average age of a contributor was in the mid-20s".[3] A 2011 study by researchers from theUniversity of Minnesota found that females comprised 16.1% of the 38,497 editors who started editing Wikipedia during 2009.[4] In a January 2011New York Times article,Noam Cohen observed that 13% of Wikipedia's contributors are female according to a 2008 Wikimedia Foundation survey.[5]
Sue Gardner, a former executive director of the Wikimedia Foundation, hoped to see female contributions increase to 25% by 2015.[5] Linda Basch, president of the National Council for Research on Women, noted the contrast in these Wikipedia editor statistics with the percentage of women currently completing bachelor's degrees, master's degrees and PhD programs in the United States (all at rates of 50% or greater).[6]
In response, various universities have hostededit-a-thons to encourage more women to participate in the Wikipedia community. In fall 2013, 15 colleges and universities—including Yale, Brown, and Penn State—offered college credit for students to "write feminist thinking" about technology into Wikipedia.[7] A 2008 self-selected survey of the diversity of contributors by highest educational degree indicated that 62% of responding Wikipedia editors had attained either a high school or undergraduate college education.[8]
In August 2014, Wikipedia co-founderJimmy Wales said in a BBC interview that the Wikimedia Foundation was "... really doubling down our efforts ..." to reach 25% of female editors (originally targeted by 2015), since the Foundation had "totally failed" so far. Wales said "a lot of things need to happen ... a lot of outreach, a lot of software changes".[9]
Andrew Lih, writing inThe New York Times, was quoted byBloomberg News in December 2016 as supporting Wales's comments concerning shortfalls in Wikipedia's outreach to female editors. Lih states his concern with the question indicating that: "How can you get people to participate in an [editing] environment that feels unsafe, where identifying yourself as a woman, as a feminist, could open you up to ugly, intimidating behavior".[10]
In October 2023, a representative survey of 1,000 adults in the U.S. byYouGov found that 7% had ever edited Wikipedia, 20% had considered doing so but had not, 55% had neither considered editing Wikipedia nor done it, and 17% had never visited Wikipedia.[11]
In a 2003 study of Wikipedia as a community, economics Ph.D. student Andrea Ciffolilli argued that the lowtransaction costs of participating inwiki software create a catalyst for collaborative development, and that a "creative construction" approach encourages participation.[12] A paper written by Andrea Forte andAmy Bruckman in 2005, called "Why Do People Write for Wikipedia? Incentives to Contribute to Open-Content Publishing", discussed the possible motivations of Wikipedia contributors. It applied Latour and Woolgar's concept of thecycle of credit to Wikipedia contributors, suggesting that the reason that people write for Wikipedia is to gain recognition within the community.[13]
Oded Nov, in his 2007 paper "What Motivates Wikipedians", related the motivations of volunteers in general to the motivations of people who contribute to Wikipedia.[14] Nov carried out a survey using the six motivations of volunteers, identified in an earlier paper.[15] The survey found that the most commonly indicated motives were "fun", "ideology", and "values", whereas the least frequently indicated motives were "career", "social", and "protective".[14] The six motivations he used were:
To these six motivations he also added:
TheWikimedia Foundation has carried out some surveys of Wikipedia contributors and users. In 2008, the Wikimedia Foundation, alongside the Collaborative Creativity Group atUNU-Merit, launched a survey of readers and editors of Wikipedia.[16] The results of the survey were published two years later on 24 March 2010.[17] The Wikimedia Foundation began a process in 2011 of semi-annual surveys in order to understand Wikipedia editors more and better cater to their needs.[18][19]
"Motivations of Wikipedia Content Contributors", a paper by Heng-Li Yang and Cheng-Yu Lai, hypothesised that, because contributing to Wikipedia is voluntary, an individual's enjoyment of participating would be the highest motivator.[20] This paper suggests that although people might initially start editing Wikipedia out of enjoyment, the most likely motivation for continuing to participate isself-concept-based motivations such as "I like to share knowledge which gives me a sense of personal achievement."[20]
A study in 2014 by Cheng-Yu Lai and Heng-Li Yang explored the reasons why people continue editing Wikipedia content. The study used authors of the English-language version of the site and received 288 valid online survey responses. Their results indicated and confirmed that subjective task value, commitment, andprocedural justice affected satisfaction of Wikipedians; and satisfaction influenced an author's continued intention to edit Wikipedia content.[21]
Editors of Wikipedia have given personal testimonials of why they contribute to Wikipedia. A theme of these testimonials is the enjoyment that editors may get from contributing to Wikipedia and being part of the Wikipedia community. Also mentioned is the potential addictive quality of editing Wikipedia.Gina Trapani ofLifehacker said "it turns out editing an article isn't scary at all. It's easy, surprisingly satisfying and can become obsessively addictive."[22]Jimmy Wales has also commented on the addictive quality of Wikipedia, saying "The main thing about Wikipedia ... is that it's fun and addictive".[23]
Wikipedians sometimes award one another "barnstars" for good work. These personalized tokens of appreciation reveal a range of valued work extending beyond "simple editing" to include social support, administrative actions, and types of articulation work. The barnstar phenomenon has been analyzed by researchers seeking to determine what implications it might have for other communities engaged in some collaborations.[24] Since 2012, the Wikipedia page curation interface has included a tab offering editors a "Wikilove" option for giving barnstars and other such awards to other editors "as a reward for carefully curated work".[25] Wikilove has been described as "an immaterial P2P reward mechanism" that substitutes for a formal reputation-valuing system on the site.[26]
Wikipedia has spawned a number of community news publications. An online newsletter,The Signpost, has been published since 10 January 2005.[27] Professional cartoonist Greg Williams created a webcomic calledWikiWorld which ran inThe Signpost from 2006 to 2008.[28] A podcast calledWikipedia Weekly was active from 2006 to 2009,[29][30] while a series of conference calls titled "Not the Wikipedia Weekly" ran from 2008 to 2009.[30]
Offline activities are organized by theWikimedia Foundation or the community of Wikipedia. These include conference and social events like Wikimania and Wiknic.
Wikimania is an annual international conference for users of thewiki projects operated by theWikimedia Foundation (such as Wikipedia and othersister projects). Topics of presentations and discussions include Wikimedia Foundation projects, other wikis,open-source software, free knowledge and free content, and the different social and technical aspects which relate to these topics. Since 2011, the winner of theWikimedian of the Year award (known as the "Wikipedian of the Year" until 2017) has been announced at Wikimania.
The first Wikimania was held inFrankfurt, in 2005. Wikimania is organized by a committee supported usually by the local national chapter, with support from local institutions (such as a library or university) and usually from the Wikimedia Foundation. Wikimania has been held in cities such asBuenos Aires,[31]Cambridge,[32]Haifa,[33]Hong Kong,[34]Taipei,London,[35]Mexico City,[36]Esino Lario,Italy,[37]Montreal,Cape Town, andStockholm. The 2020 conference scheduled to take place inBangkok was canceled due to theCOVID-19 pandemic, along with those of 2021 and 2022, which were held online as a series of virtual, interactive presentations. The in-person conference returned in 2023 when it was held in Singapore, at whichUNESCO joined as a partner organization.[38]
The annual Great American Wiknic was a social gathering that took place in some cities of the United States during the summer. The Wiknic concept allowed Wikipedians to bring picnic food and to personally interact.[39] There is a yearlyWikiConference North America organized by and forWikipedia editors, enthusiasts, and volunteers.[40][41] The first two events were held atNew York Law School and Washington, D.C.'sNational Archives Building in 2014 and 2015, respectively. Staff from theWiki Education Foundation, which co-sponsored the 2015 event,[42][43] and theWikimedia Foundation also attend each year.[44][45]
There isWikiConference India which is a national conference organised inIndia. The first conference was held in November 2011, inMumbai, the capital of the Indian state ofMaharashtra. It was organised by theMumbai Wikipedia community in partnership withWikimedia India Chapter.[46][47] The conference focus is on matters concerning India on Wikipedia projects and other sister projects inEnglish and otherIndian folk languages.[47][48][49] WikiConference India 2023 took place inHyderabad from 28 to 30 April 2023.[50] Additionally, there isWiki Indaba which is the regional conference for African Wikimedians.[51][52] The conference includes Wikimedia projects such asWikipedia, otherwikis,open-source software,free knowledge, free content and how these projects affect theAfrican continent.
TheSeigenthaler andEssjay incidents caused criticism of Wikipedia's reliability and usefulness as a reference.[53][54][55] Complaints related to the community include the effects of users' anonymity, attitudes toward newcomers, abuses of privileges byadministrators, biases in the social structure of the community (in particulargender bias and lack of female contributors)[56] and the role of the project's co-founderJimmy Wales in the community.[57] One particular controversy with regards to paid contributors to Wikipedia prompted the Wikimedia Foundation to send acease and desist letter to theWiki-PR agency.[58]
Wikipedia's co-founderLarry Sanger (who later founded rival projectCitizendium) characterized the Wikipedia community in 2007 as ineffective and abusive, stating that "The community does not enforce its own rules effectively or consistently. Consequently, administrators and ordinary participants alike are able essentially to act abusively with impunity, which begets a never-ending cycle of abuse."[59]Oliver Kamm ofThe Times expressed skepticism toward Wikipedia's reliance onconsensus in forming its content: "Wikipedia seeks not truth but consensus, and like an interminable political meeting the end result will be dominated by the loudest and most persistent voices."[60]
AWikipedia Monument by sculptorMihran Hakobyan was erected inSłubice, Poland, in 2014 to honor the Wikipedia community.[61] The2015 Erasmus Prize was awarded to the Wikipedia community for promoting the dissemination of knowledge through a comprehensive and universally accessible encyclopedia. To achieve that, the initiators of Wikipedia have designed a new and effective democratic platform. The prize specifically recognizes Wikipedia as a community—a shared project that involves tens of thousands of volunteers around the world."[62]
A version of this article appeared in print on January 31, 2011, on page A1 of the New York edition.
