SOC356Y1 Lecture Notes - Wikinomics, Asteroid Family, Prosocial Behavior
Document Summary
Online motivational factors: incentives for participation & contribution in wikipedia: Cyberspace has introduced new and intriguing means for knowledge sharing as well as new structures of mediated knowledge-building communities. It has unique aspects of users" involvement in the production of content and its function as a community. Wikipedia"s existence and success rely on users" inputs. Our chapter focuses on wikipedians" incentives for contributing to wikipedia. According to alexa. com traffic rankings, wikipedia is among the top fifteen most visited sites. Google top searches of 2006 report that wikipedia and wiki are tied for the tenth position in the list of most searched words. Furthermore, wikipedia content is widely replicated on other websites (answer. com). In trying to understand contribution dynamics, we focus on the individuals who write wikipedia, the so-called wikipedians. Wikis are group-editing tools that allow the formation and maintenance of online linked webpages, created by a group of users(wikipedia-ask. com).
