Wikipedia:Wiki magic
According to Ben Kovitz, Wiki Magic is "the mysterious process by which communities with common interests work to improve wiki pages by incremental contributions".[1] Wiki Magic has been described by Jimmy Wales as a phenomenon whereby an author may write the beginnings of an article at the end of the day, only to wake up in the morning and find the stub converted into a much more substantial article. Wales considered this as one of the reasons why Wikipedians were so willing to contribute to Wikipedia. According to Wales "Someone may write a three sentence [Wikipedia] article in the evening. And then something wonderful happens. Because in the next morning it may have grown to a seven paragraph article. This creates enthusiasm and involvement in the community."[2]
Wiki Magic can be considered an example of collective intelligence as it not only increases Wikipedia content volume, but also article quality. Noteworthy in this context are Good Samaritans (one- or few-time contributors to Wikipedia), as their collective contributions have the most significant impact on content quality.[3]
References
edit- ^ Poe, M. (September 2006). "The Hive". Atlantic Monthly.
- ^ Prasarnphanich P. and Wagner C. (2009). "The Role of Wiki Technology on Altruism in Collaborative Knowledge Creation", The Journal of Computer Information Systems, Summer, pp. 33-41.
- ^ Kittur, A., Kraut, R. E. (2008). "Harnessing the wisdom of crowds in Wikipedia: quality through coordination." Proceedings of CSCW 2008, ACM Press.