A study seemed to indicate that the majority of Wikipedians, through their participation, are compensating for 'something' (the study showed negative behavior, compensation was suggested as the explanation).

THESIS: Regardless of any flaws in the study, the psychology and motivations of Wikipedians should be considered rather than assumed.

  1. Assumption: study only showed negative behavior and presumed unspecified compensation as explanation.
  2. Jobs: Most Wikipedians may contribute in their pre-established fields or in deep hobbies with nothing to prove aside from what comes necessary from the anonymity of the internet.
  3. Howard Hughes: better to compensate through a contribution than through taking.

Important questions include:

  • How do people read into conversations they literally read?
  • How do people respond to conflict?

Motivations

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Possible positive motivations include:

  • Anal retentiveness
  • Sociality
  • Joy in knowledge
  • Fun – enjoying the activity[1]
  • Ideology – expressing support for what is perceived to be the underlying ideology of the activity (e.g. the belief that knowledge should be free)[1]
  • Values – expressing values to do with altruism and helping others[1]

Possible negative motivations include:

  • Competitiveness

Positive or negative:

  • To gain recognition within the community[2]
  • Addictiveness

Rewards

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Wikipedia appears to offer no award aside from:

  • Joy in collaboration
  • Satisfaction in completion of activities or correction of errors
  • Occasional thanks from other contributors

Inhibitors

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Inhibitors to contributions include:

  • Complexity/difficulty
  • Fighting
  • Bias and discrimination

In stone

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How does it affect editors that all interactions are permanently recorded?

See also

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Sources

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  1. ^ a b c Nov, Oded (2007). "What Motivates Wikipedians?". Communications of the ACM. 50 (11): 60–64. doi:10.1145/1297797.1297798.
  2. ^ Forte, Amy; Bruckman, Andrea (2005). "Why Do People Write for Wikipedia? Incentives to Contribute to Open-Content Publishing". SIGGROUP 2005 Workshop: Sustaining Community: 6–9. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.120.7906.
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