SUBSCRIBE
SUBSCRIBE
EXPLORE +
  • About infoDOCKET
  • Academic Libraries on LJ
  • Research on LJ
  • News on LJ
  • Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Libraries
    • Academic Libraries
    • Government Libraries
    • National Libraries
    • Public Libraries
  • Companies (Publishers/Vendors)
    • EBSCO
    • Elsevier
    • Ex Libris
    • Frontiers
    • Gale
    • PLOS
    • Scholastic
  • New Resources
    • Dashboards
    • Data Files
    • Digital Collections
    • Digital Preservation
    • Interactive Tools
    • Maps
    • Other
    • Podcasts
    • Productivity
  • New Research
    • Conference Presentations
    • Journal Articles
    • Lecture
    • New Issue
    • Reports
  • Topics
    • Archives & Special Collections
    • Associations & Organizations
    • Awards
    • Funding
    • Interviews
    • Jobs
    • Management & Leadership
    • News
    • Patrons & Users
    • Preservation
    • Profiles
    • Publishing
    • Roundup
    • Scholarly Communications
      • Open Access

April 26, 2016 by Gary Price

Report: Wikipedia Is Basically A Corporate Bureaucracy, According To New Study

April 26, 2016 by Gary Price

From Engadget:

Even in the brave new world of online communities, the Who had it right: “Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.”
This may seem surprising, since there is no policing authority on Wikipedia — no established top-down means of control. The community is self-governing, relying primarily on social pressure to enforce the established core norms, according to co-author Simon DeDeo, a complexity scientist at Indiana University. He likens the earliest Wikipedia users — most of whom hailed from the ultra-nerdy Usenet culture of the 1990s — to historical figures like Rousseau, Voltaire and Thomas Jefferson. “But what happens when a tiny Thomas Jefferson Libertarian fantasy has to grow up?” he told Gizmodo.
To find out, he and Indiana University undergraduate Bradi Heaberlin decided to examine the emergence of social hierarchy and online behavioural norms among the editors of Wikipedia. They examined 15 years of Wikipedia data, involving tens of thousands of individuals, from 2001 to 2015. Their conclusion: “[It] looks like a university system, or like General Electric, or AT&T,” said DeDeo.
[Clip]
A January paper published in Physical Review E by physicists at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology would seem to support that finding. That study found that a fairly small number of Wikipedia editors exert a major influence on the site. And just as DeDeo and Heaberlin’s analysis predicts, that editing inequality is increasing over time. It’s now quite rare for a newcomer to break into the upper echelons of so-called “super-editors”.
This, in turn, may be hindering further growth of the community. As lead author Jinhyuk Yun told Physics Focus, “There are already reports that the growth of Wikipedia is slowing down, and our observation indicates that this will continue unless something is done about it.” He recommended active recruitment of new members to break the monopoly those few super-editors have on managing content. DeDeo agrees: “A social world has to open itself up in order to thrive.”

Read the Complete Engadget Article
Direct to Full Text Paper by Bradi Haberlin Mentioned in Article, “The Evolution of Wikipedia’s Norm Network” (via Future Internet 8.2; 2016)

Filed under: Data Files, Journal Articles, News, Patrons and Users, Reports

SHARE:

About Gary Price

Gary Price (gprice@gmail.com) is a librarian, writer, consultant, and frequent conference speaker based in the Washington D.C. metro area. He earned his MLIS degree from Wayne State University in Detroit. Price has won several awards including the SLA Innovations in Technology Award and Alumnus of the Year from the Wayne St. University Library and Information Science Program. From 2006-2009 he was Director of Online Information Services at Ask.com. Gary is also the co-founder of infoDJ an innovation research consultancy supporting corporate product and business model teams with just-in-time fact and insight finding.

ADVERTISEMENT

Archives

Job Zone

ADVERTISEMENT

Related Infodocket Posts

Report: "Australian Authors to Receive Compensation for E-Book Loans for First Time"

From The Sydney Morning Herald: Authors, illustrators, and editors will be compensated for e-book and audiobook library borrowings for the first time, in a move by the federal government to ...

National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) Publishes  Customer Research Agenda

From the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA): The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) has posted its . A draft Customer Research Agenda was open for public review and comment ...

Report: "A Watermark for Chatbots Can Expose Text Written by an AI"

From MIT Technology Review: Hidden patterns purposely buried in AI-generated texts could help identify them as such, allowing us to tell whether the words we’re reading are written by a ...

The Accessibility of Federal Information and Data: A Brief Overview of Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act (Updated...

From the Congressional Research Service: Nearly one in four Americans has a disability, according to 2018 estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau. Congress has recognized that in addition to making ...

NY Times: "New York Public Library Acquires Joan Didion’s Papers"

From The NY Times: When [Joan] Didion died in 2021 at age 87, the news set off an outpouring of tributes to a writer who fused penetrating insight and idiosyncratic personal voice, ...

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill: María Estorino Named Vice Provost for University Libraries and University Librarian

Below, Find the Full Text of a Letter Sent to the Carolina Community From Kevin M. Guskiewicz University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Chancellor Kevin M. Guskiewicz and J. ...

Boston Public Library Celebrates Black History Month with Annual “Black Is…” Booklist & Special Events

From the Boston Public Library: The Boston Public Library is proud to contribute to the celebration of Black History Month with its annual “Black Is…” booklist. The booklist aims to commemorate ...

Research Resources: New Online Tool Provides Health Snapshot of All 435 U.S. Congressional Districts (Congressional District Health Dashboard)

From NYU Langone: Researchers at NYU Grossman School of Medicine, in partnership with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, unveiled the Congressional District Health Dashboard (CDHD), a new online tool that ...

Report: "cOAlition S Confirms the End of Its Financial Support for Open Access Publishing Under Transformative Arrangements After...

From a cOAlition S  Announcement: Transformative arrangements – including Transformative Agreements and Transformative Journals – were developed to encourage subscription journals to transition to full and immediate open access within a defined timeframe (31st December 2024, ...

Library of Congress: Hannah Sommers Appointed New Associate Librarian for Researcher and Collections Services

From the Library of Congress: The Library of Congress announced today the appointment of Hannah Sommers as the new Associate Librarian for Researcher and Collections Services in the Library Collections and Services Group. In this role, Sommers will lead the future of the Library’s collections and the services it delivers to researchers and users. She will be central ...

Virginia Tech: University Libraries Dean Tyler Walters Appointed Board Chair of Academic Preservation Trust; IEEE Computer Society 2023...

As Book Bans Increase Across the Country, a Boston University Scholar is Fighting Back Core’s Library Resources & Technical Services Journal Goes Fully Open Access Digital Image Processing: It’s All ...

Funding: Library Freedom Project Receives $1 Million Grant Award From the Mellon Foundation to Advance Critical Privacy and...

Here’s the Full Text of the Library Freedom Project (LFP) Announcement:   Library Freedom Project (LFP) has been awarded $1,000,000 from the Mellon Foundation to expand the program’s work. For ...

ADVERTISEMENT

FOLLOW US ON TWITTER

Tweets by infoDOCKET

ADVERTISEMENT

This coverage is free for all visitors. Your support makes this possible.

This coverage is free for all visitors. Your support makes this possible.

Primary Sidebar

  • News
  • Reviews+
  • Technology
  • Programs+
  • Design
  • Leadership
  • People
  • COVID-19
  • Advocacy
  • Opinion
  • INFOdocket
  • Job Zone

Reviews+

  • Booklists
  • Prepub Alert
  • Book Pulse
  • Media
  • Readers' Advisory
  • Self-Published Books
  • Review Submissions
  • Review for LJ

Awards

  • Library of the Year
  • Librarian of the Year
  • Movers & Shakers 2022
  • Paralibrarian of the Year
  • Best Small Library
  • Marketer of the Year
  • All Awards Guidelines
  • Community Impact Prize

Resources

  • LJ Index/Star Libraries
  • Research
  • White Papers / Case Studies

Events & PD

  • Online Courses
  • In-Person Events
  • Virtual Events
  • Webcasts
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Advertise
  • Subscribe
  • Media Inquiries
  • Newsletter Sign Up
  • Submit Features/News
  • Data Privacy
  • Terms of Use
  • Terms of Sale
  • FAQs
  • Careers at MSI


© 2023 Library Journal. All rights reserved.


© 2022 Library Journal. All rights reserved.