Formalization and community investment in wikipedia's regulating texts: the role of essays

ABSTRACT

This poster presents ongoing research on how discursive and editing behaviors are regulated on Wikipedia by means of documented rules and practices. Our analysis focuses on three types of collaboratively-created policy document (policies, guidelines and essays), that have been formalized to different degrees and represent different degrees of community investment. We employ a content analysis methodology to explore how these regulating texts differ according to a) the aspects of editor behavior, content standards and community principles that they address, and b) how they are used by Wikipedians engaged in 'talk' page discussions to inform, persuade and coordinate with one another.

REFERENCES

• 1: Zachry, M. Regulation and communicative practices http://www.baywood.com/intro/372-7.pdf. "Communicative practices in workplaces and the professions: Cultural perspectives on the regulation of discourse in organizations". In M. Zachry and C. Thralls (Eds.). Amityville , NY : Baywood Publishing, 2007. v--xv.
• 2: Beschastnikh, I., Kriplean, T., and McDonald, D. W. 2008. Wikipedian Self-Governance in Action: Motivating the Policy Lens, In Proceedings of the 2008 AAAI International Conference on Weblogs and Social Media, ICWSM 2008.
• 3: Kriplean, T., Beschastnikh, I., McDonald, D. W. and Golder, S. A. 2007. Community, consensus, coercion, control: cs*w or how policy mediates mass participation, In Proceedings of the 2007 international ACM conference on Supporting group work, GROUP 2007.

INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  H. Information Systems
  H.5 INFORMATION INTERFACES AND PRESENTATION (I.7)
      H.5.3 Group and Organization Interfaces
          Subjects: Computer-supported cooperative work

Additional Classification:
  H. Information Systems
  H.5 INFORMATION INTERFACES AND PRESENTATION (I.7)
      H.5.3 Group and Organization Interfaces
          Subjects: Web-based interaction; Theory and models; Evaluation/methodology

General Terms:
Documentation, Experimentation, Languages, Management, Standardization

Keywords:
computer-mediated communication, computer-supported cooperative work, sociotechnical systems, wikis