Alycia Foss

Professor Gill Creed

English 1111

29 October 2013

Love not Money

It was the middle of the night again. Before I had the chance to reach for my phone to check the time the thought that had woken me so many nights now echoed in my head, “I wonder if anyone has edited or commented on my Wikipedia article?” Up until a couple months ago I was like the majority of Wikipedia users, just a passerby grabbing some of its open-source content for a psychology or English essay. I knew that Wikipedia was an open-source encyclopedia and that the content could be edited willy-nilly by anyone. It still managed, somehow, to maintain credibility and to even be considered superior to its old grandfather counterpart Encyclopedia Britannica (Cathay). How exactly was this possible? I was starting to get a glimpse into the world of Wikipedia and open-source communities in a way I had not anticipated.

The misconception that most people have about Wikipedia is that there are millions of editors out there adding a word, perhaps a sentence, but rarely more than a paragraph to an article on Wikipedia. Somehow all these random people bring Wikipedia to the level of quality it is today. This is not quite how it works. Granted there is truth to this, but what makes Wikipedia actually work is the active community. As is pointed out by single named Cathay from the Delaware Division of Libraries, “There’s a really strong community of people behind the site and they are in constant communication by email and IRC chat rooms and things like this. And so they are monitoring every change that goes to the site – there are people who are looking at it and vetting it and trying to see if it’s good or not.” While contributions to Wikipedia come from every direction, including the casual user, it is the active community that acts as guardians, gatekeepers and editors of the realm of Wikipedia. In 2007 the founder of Wikipedia reported that 2.5% of the contributors were responsible for 80 percent of the content and that 1% was responsible for 50% (Tapscott & Williams, 2007). Without such a presence of Wikipedia experts, it is likely that chaos would ensue and the quality of Wikipedia would quickly decline owing to vandalism and a lack of oversight. During my foray into the jungles of Wikipedia, I was lucky enough to have an online dialogue with some of these experts at the Village Pump. I was even fortunate enough to get some responses to questions about Wikipedia from the renowned Ben Kovitz, the individual whose conversation with Larry Sanger gave rise to Wikipedia. Here is a person who has been a major editor and contributor to Wikipedia for over 10 years. This is a very significant donation of time and effort for no tangible reason; it made me wonder…“Why?” After further research I came across three factors that helped to explain this mystery and my experiences; these factors are intrinsic motivation, social motivation and incentives.

What would motivate an individual to give up their free time and donate it to a cause without any tangible compensation, even further, to a cause that does not even reward them with the credit that they did any work at all? Wikipedia does not provide a place on the article pages to give credit to the author or authors. No article is ‘owned’ by any individual. I can think of almost no better example of intrinsic motivation than this. By definition, intrinsic motivation is, “Motivation based on taking pleasure in an activity rather than working towards an external reward (Psychology Dictionary).” It is countered by extrinsic motivation, of which a clear example is receiving a salary. What is fascinating about these two types of motivation is that intrinsically motivated people almost always outperform those who are extrinsically motivated. In 1970 research psychologist Edward Deci performed what came to be known as the “Soma Cube Experiments.” In these experiments two groups of individuals were asked to solve a wooden cube puzzle however, one group was paid and the other was not. The real test was to see what would happen during an eight-minute break between sessions. Those who were not paid on average spent half of their break time experimenting with the Soma cube. In contrast, those who were paid spent an average of one-eigth their break time. Soma’s experiments lead to further research in different types of motivation and to the conclusion that extrinsic motivations (tangible rewards) aren’t often the most effective ones. In the case of Wikipedia, there is no extrinsic motivation for the contributors; they do it for a personal desire to edit an article competently and to maintain a purity of truth in Wikipedia. It was, for me, a class assignment that quickly expanded beyond the class requirements. For my assignment I was to edit an Album on Wikipedia. I chose an album by Nick Drake titled Pink Moon. While I was familiar with Nick Drake, I was not familiar with the album. To make the article better I read every web page I could find about this artist and this album. I perused radio interview archives and I bought and read a entire books about this author and album. My citations had to be rock solid or other Wikipedians would remove them. I was ecstatic when I happened upon an open-source interview with the producer of the album about this album in particular. A week following my edit of the page, I had a dream that my Wikipedia article was reviewed and my radio interview was removed because it was not open-source, I shot back with fire. I was wholly committed to this work, I was sincerely emotionally invested; I was intrinsically motivated as I had long since fulfilled the class requirement. What is most remarkable about this process to me was the hidden and almost shameful truth behind my article. I am neither a fan of Nick Drake nor the album Pink Moon...I don't care for it much at all. Something different was happening here, and I thought that besides intrinsic motivations, perhaps some social motivations were at work as well.

Wikipedia has acquired both strong loyal advocates and vitriolic adversaries in its relatively short life span. Intrinsic motivation provides one reason why people edit Wikipedia, but it does not explain the phenomenon known as “Wiki Gnomes.” A Wiki Gnome is an individual in Wikipedia that does routine maintenance. They peruse article after article looking for small typos, small formatting errors, the occasional errant comma and the like. It is a mundane and thankless job; why would anyone volunteer their free time for this? Turns out that social motivation is another strong reason why the community of Wikipedia works so hard. There are two components to social motivation as defined by Clay Shirky in Cognitive Surplus, “social motivation [is divided] into two broad clusters – one around connectedness and membership, and the other around sharing and generosity.” What is fascinating about the separation of intrinsic personal motivation and social motivation is that they will reverberate on one another. As Shirky explains, intrinsic motivation is strongly enhanced when authentic social affirmations are received. This is opposed to unauthentic social affirmations, which have a reverse damaging effect. The first component of social motivation, the one of connectedness and membership, is something familiar to us all. People want to belong to a group and feel that they are valued members. Especially as a society of TV watchers where we have lost so much time alone in front of the television, not belonging or participating in any group (besides TV watchers) but just being a recipient of canned information we accepted passively. Wikipedia, along with thousands of wikis, provided a place where there was an actual connection with another person, perhaps a user across the street or across the world. It could almost be seen as a backlash; a society hungry for connectedness and membership after decades of television deprivation. The second component of social motivation, the one of sharing and generosity, relates to the desire of volunteers to give their time, effort and often money to a cause that returns them nothing tangible. Why would a Wiki Gnome spend so much time finding an errant comma just to receive a “Wiki Gnome” title? Behind the motivation is something difficult to understand unless you’ve experienced it. As Shirky points out, “…the internal concerns of any particular community appear picayune to the outside eye; but to be a member of a community of shared interests is to care, deeply and in detail, about things the general public doesn’t spend much time thinking about.” That errant comma reflected on the whole community and it was someone’s picayune job to find it and correct it; they were happy to contribute. My experience socially in Wikipedia was limited. My duration in the community was only a few short weeks during which time I brushed up against some of the most seasoned of Wikipedians as well as many newbies. To get a stronger feeling of community I reached out directly to some individuals of repute for advice, to a community and to the social forum referred to as the Village Pump. I cannot say that my experience was positive, but I can say it was enlightening. Any direct contact with an experienced Wikipedian, no matter how obsequious, was ignored. My emotional investment in my article was intense, despite my afore-mentioned confession that I didn’t much care for the subject. What was it all about? Most assuredly I wanted to be included in the society, I wanted the connectedness and I wanted the membership. Upon seeing the backlog in the peer review and other areas, I thought quite honestly, “If I work on some peer reviews, perhaps someone will work on my peer review.” And in this way, I’d be accepted. I came to respect this group of people and the work they were doing, I wanted to be a part. The culmination of my social motivation came when I started a discussion at the Village Pump concerning the recent cease-and-desist letter from Wikimedia Foundation to Wiki-PR because of their use of advocacy editing. It sparked a long discussion about paid editors and motivation, in which users Benn Kovitz and Mike Cline responded. One seasoned editor responded to me, “You are showing more understanding of the issue than many editors.” After reading this I understood the “feedback loop” of personal intrinsic motivation and social motivation. I became instantly committed, even if it meant being a "Wiki Gnome."

Finally, many Wikipedians are actually motivated by certain incentives. One categorization of Wikipedians separates them into “synthesizers” and “adders” (Majchrzak, Wagner, and Yates). “Synthesizers” are concerned with their reputation and their effect on others in the organization and the organization as a whole. The “adders” are more egalitarian, anonymous and idealistic. In Wikipedia, although no one is to claim responsibility to a particular article, it is often done on the Wikipedian’s userpage. One can often find among the more seasoned Wikipedians elaborate user/resume pages. Take for example user Ceoil, his/her user page is highlighted with 31 Featured-Article stars. While he/she does not claim responsibility for these pages, it is assumed that because they are posted on his/her userpage they are at least partially responsible. Other pages are filled with barnstars, including the infamous Rhodium Editor Star. Barnstars are banners that any user can give another for outstanding work in a variety of areas. The Rhodium barnstar is exclusive only to senior editors, of which there are few. For example, take a look at user DESiegel, hardly an anonymous userpage and filled with a myriad barnstars. Unfortunately, it is difficult if not impossible to determine how many of the active Wikipedia community members are “synthesizers” and how many are “adders,” as the nature of the “adders” is to be altruistic and anonymous. However, one can surmise by perusing the volunteer pages and the peer review pages that the majority of those active users are “synthesizers," owing to nearly all have some sort of dressings on their user/resume page. My experience in the incentive area was also limited owing to my short time in Wikipedia. However, my colleague in my class assignment awarded me a “pink moon” award for great work and I was very pleased to receive it. I have since created my own user page and will likely dress it up rather than remain totally anonymous. In return for my colleague’s kind sentiment I awarded her the WikiProject Albums Barnstar for her work on Pink Moon. She has since joined WikiProject Albums, WikiProject Songs and the R&B and Soul Music WikiProject. There is something to be said for positive feedback.

Wikipedia is a fascinating phenomenon that relies on intrinsic motivation, social motivation and incentives to keep it moving forward. It is a clear illustration of our age…“One thing that makes the current age remarkable is that we can now treat free time as a general social asset that can be harnessed for large, communally created projects, rather than a set of individual minutes to be whiled away one person at a time (Shirky).” In Wikipedia there is no longer a collection of individuals, but a community working towards a common goal. Something that has not been experienced on this scale before in history, when so many could come together for personal and largely altruistic reasons, without any type of overt leadership or management, to have the lofty goal of collecting...

               “…knowledge disseminated around the globe; to set forth its general system to the

               men with whom we live, and transmit it to those who will come after us, so that the

               work of preceding centuries will not become useless to the centuries to come; and

               so that our offspring, becoming better instructed, will at the same time become more

               virtuous and happy, and that we should not die without having rendered a service

               to the human race.” – Diderot.

Works Cited

Cathay. "Division of Libraries' Blog." Division of Libraries Blog RSS. State of Delaware, 05 May 2013. Web. 27 Nov. 2013.

"Psychology Dictionary." Psychology Dictionary. ITS Education, n.d. Web. 26 Nov. 2013.

Majchrzak, A., Wagner, C., & Yates, D. (2006). Corporate wiki users: Results of a survey. Proceedings of the 2006 International Symposium onWikis, Odense.

Shirky, Clay. "Motive." Cognitive Surplus: How Technology Makes Consumers into Collaborators. New York: Penguin, 2010. Print

Tapscott, D., &Williams, A. D. (2007).Wikinomics: How mass collaboration changes everything. New York: Portfolio.

Questions

1) I wanted to take to task some of the comments I've read relating to Wikipedia being biased, ethnocentric and even an "insidious tool of systemic oppression." Considering the community of editors now available, the open-source naure of Wikipedia and the motivations that are at the core of the community, I cannot see how this conclusion is reached. Not to mention, contrast this to the publication and editing process of previous encyclopedias and I'm not sure how one cannot admit to a remarkable improvement in content. I wanted to work in Howard Zinn and his comment about history..."History is important. If you don't know history it is as if you were born yesterday. And if you were born yesterday, anybody up there in a position of power can tell you anything, and you have no way of checking up on it." Sadly...I found no way to work that into my essay besides making into a much much larger piece. Any ideas?

2) I tried to put my personal experience in here at the end of the paragraph about the concept. I'm not sure that works very well. What do you think?

3) I could not again find where in one of my reference wherea I read about intrinsic motivation and social praise causing a feedback loop. Instead, I stated, "As Shirky explains, intrinsic motivation is strongly enhanced when authentic social affirmations are received. This is opposed to unauthentic social affirmations, which have a reverse damaging effect." This is a paraphrase based on memory. How else would you do this if you can't find the exact resource again, but know who said it?