[Sociam-soton] Re: http://www.technologyreview.com/featuredstory/520446/the-decline-of-wikipedia/?utm_campaign=newsletters&utm_source=newsletter-weekly-web&utm_medium=email&utm_content=20131120

[Brown I.C.]

I wonder about cognitive differences between the engagement of the crowd when they are learning/discovering something new in a system like Zooniverse versus recording/curating what they already know in Wikipedia. Is the level of achievement/gratification different? Is zooniverse fun and wikipedia a chore?

On 20 Nov 2013, at 08:54, Ramine Tinati <rt506 at ecs.soton.ac.uk<mailto:rt506 at ecs.soton.ac.uk>> wrote:

“The foundation can’t order the volunteer community to change the way it operates. But by tweaking Wikipedia’s website and software, it hopes to steer the encyclopedia onto a more sustainable path.”

Interesting approach to manipulating the users/volunteers of Wikipedia – technology-driven changes to engage with a new community of users, or simply, “we shall use flashy Web 2.0 features to get more participants…”

One worry is that this may alienate the already shrinking core group of volunteers, as well as provide a short term fix to increase the number of new ‘volunteers’ (these users will probably stick around for a short while, use the new features, then leave).

>From another perspective, we could consider the shrinking number of volunteers as the community reaching the optimal (…) number of people needed/able to function as a community, and I wonder how this could relate to community dynamics and the size of an individual’s social network (and their capability to interact with larger networks).

Whatever the case, this is a social machine that will provide lots of insight into socio-technical interactions, especially when then implement their system changes.

Thanks,
Ramine

From: sociam-soton-bounces at ecs.soton.ac.uk<mailto:sociam-soton-bounces at ecs.soton.ac.uk> [mailto:sociam-soton-bounces at ecs.soton.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Sackley, Alistair
Sent: 20 November 2013 07:54
To: 'sociam-soton at ecs.soton.ac.uk<mailto:sociam-soton at ecs.soton.ac.uk>'
Subject: [Sociam-soton] http://www.technologyreview.com/featuredstory/520446/the-decline-of-wikipedia/?utm_campaign=newsletters&utm_source=newsletter-weekly-web&utm_medium=email&utm_content=20131120

New crowds and modes of participation?


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alistair sackley
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Ian Brown, PhD Candidate
WAIS Research Group, ECS
Doctoral Training Centre
University of Southampton