Decentralization in Wikipedia Governance.

Author List: Forte, Andrea; Larco, Vanesa; Bruckman, Amy;
Journal of Management Information Systems, 2009, Volume 26, Issue 1, Page 49-72.
How does "self-governance" happen in Wikipedia? Through in-depth interviews with 20 individuals who have held a variety of responsibilities in the English-language Wikipedia, we obtained rich descriptions of how various forces produce and regulate social structures on the site. Although Wikipedia is sometimes portrayed as lacking oversight, our analysis describes Wikipedia as an organization with highly refined policies, norms, and a technological architecture that supports organizational ideals of consensus building and discussion. We describe how governance on the site is becoming increasingly decentralized as the community grows and how this is predicted by theories of commons-based governance developed in offline contexts. We also briefly examine local governance structures called WikiProjects through the example of WikiProject Military History, one of the oldest and most prolific projects on the site.
Keywords: governance; online communities; self-organizing systems; Wikipedia
Algorithm:

List of Topics

#277 0.205 structure organization structures organizational centralized decentralized study organizations forms decentralization processing communication sharing cbis activities appropriate provide identify organizing communications
#45 0.180 community communities online members participants wikipedia social member knowledge content discussion collaboration attachment communication law virtual membership structures forms activities
#122 0.119 attention utilization existing codification model received does limitations theories receiving literature paying causes additional building examine examination focusing technological initial
#77 0.109 information systems paper use design case important used context provide presented authors concepts order number various underlying implementation framework nature
#259 0.084 identity norms identification symbolic community help sense european social important verification set identities form obtained properties deterioration mixed match emphasis
#76 0.077 governance relational mechanisms bpo rights process coordination outsourcing contractual arrangements technology benefits view informal business formal exchange hybrid complementarity flexibility
#33 0.060 web site sites content usability page status pages metrics browsing design use web-based guidelines results implications portal loyalty navigability addition