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Sociologist Confirms Altruism on Wikipedia: Really?
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by ScienceDave | October 17, 2007 at 09:03 am
880 views | 57 Recommendations | 12 comments
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A recent press release from Dartmouth Univ. has supposedly confirmed the power of altruism on wikipedia, the open source encyclopedia and (unfortunately) often cited reference tool for students.
Denisa Anthony, Sociologist at Dartmout, along with then-undergraduate computer science student Sean Smith, analyzed the "quality" of submissions by infrequent anonymous users, frequent anonymous users, and registered users (which are typically frequent users).
They found that "good samaritans", anonymous users that "happen to pass by and contribute" are "as reliable as the people who update constantly and have a reputation to maintain.", according to the press release.
Yes, I purposely put "quality" in quotations. Why? Well, here's how they defined "quality":
They examined Wikipedia authors and the quality of Wikipedia content as measured by how long and how much of it persisted before being changed or corrected.
I think, then, in this case that "quality" should be more explicitly defined as, "Information the community is happy with, or has ignored, or as not bothered to edit or make outside reference too." Thus, quality by no means refers to accuracy. Ultimately, verifiable references must be included, which from my experience is lacking on Wikipedia (or, if not lacking, making reference to another website which fails to make proper references - i.e. peer-reviewed information).
Their work has yet to be published in a peer reviewed publication, only presented at a conference (which seems 2 years old already?)
What do you think?
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Most RecentMost Recommended Comments (12)
at 09:12 on October 17th, 2007
Good stuff. I frequently use Wikipedia as a way of finding more sources -meaning, I use other people citations to get my own citations and references to check. As a professor once said: it's a good place to start, but otherwise, you are better off hitting the books yourself.
The only thing that I think is benificial to the cencept of Wiki-theory is: if a part of an article becomes inaccurate (research changes, studeis prove otherwise) it is a great place to keep a single article summary of what is current on a given topic. That is...as long as someone is updating it with accurate information!
at 09:15 on October 17th, 2007
ScienceDave, true that quality according to this definition is not synonymous with accuracy but isn't wikipedia the ultimate in peer reviewed information and thus meets and perhaps even exceeds the peer-reviewed nature of journals - as journals have a select few reviewing material while wikipedia is open to the world.
Does your definition of peer-review mean acredited experts?
at 09:25 on October 17th, 2007
Does your definition of peer-review mean acredited experts?
Indeed, it does. I do not think wikipedia is the ultimate source for peer-reviewed information - in order to be effective, EVERYONE would have to be participating, which is obviosuly not the case. Otherwise, you have a few select (100, 1000, whatever) active users with the capability to edit anything - hence so-called "editing wars"
at 09:40 on October 17th, 2007
Doesn't every wikipedia user have the power to edit? I know I do.
at 09:48 on October 17th, 2007
Ah, that came out wrong.
However, I still think for Wikipedia to be a true ultimate, be-all-end-all in peer review, everyone must participate equally (that is, in the areas they are informed on). Otherwise, the scope of the information present is biased to those who contribute and edit most often.
at 09:53 on October 17th, 2007
In practice you are totally right. However I think the fundamental nature of an open information source is the ultimate in truth. From a news perspective, even though articles on NowPublic are not open in the same way as on wikipedia, the comments are open and as such accuracy is maintained when multiple wittinesses to an event can freely identify errors and inaccuracies. I think the same could be said about wikipedia - perhaps it's specifically because academics do not use the site that the theory doesn't correspond to the reality of it.
at 10:36 on October 17th, 2007
Good stuff, ScienceDave. I was wondering about the idea of altruism being attributed to Wikipedia, which I assumed to mean like a sort of selfless act, in this case, of maintenance, contributing and sharing of information.
In that case, the motives of those posting may be unclear, making it difficult to determine if the poster(s)' posts are seeking to share through some act of benevolence out of concern for the welfare of others, as the term altruism tends to imply.
Then again, maybe I'm over analyzing.
at 10:19 on October 17th, 2007
A big problem with the "quality" of Wikipedia is not so much what is already there in the articles (some deliberate fraud notwithstanding and relatively rare). Instead, it's the incompleteness of scope. In areas I feel informed about, I have noticed that the coverage is sometimes less than comprehensive. For example, the "Hunchback of Notre Dame" article does list some interesting works in its "Other Adaptations" section: La Esmeralda (1844 ballet) • Notre Dame de Paris (1998 musical) • Der Glöckner von Notre Dame (1999 musical) -- but it does not mention the opera Notre Dame (1904-06) by Franz Schmidt -- which has been recorded commercially and recently.
So what? Well, sins of omission count to some people who have high regard for true quality of information.
at 10:34 on October 17th, 2007
My issue with their definiton of "quality" lies in "how long or how much of it persisted before being changed or corrected." So, If I write a BS article about fuzzy-nosed snipes, then, if nobody comes along to correct it (as I am the world's only self-named expert on the beautiful and elusive creatures), then it's therefore "high-quality"? What I mean is that obscure topics would hit the wuality criteria easiest, since fewer folks will be coming by to correct them...
This is great- thanks for posting this! I agree with babblingdweeb's assessment of the wiki article value.
at 13:49 on October 17th, 2007
ScienceDave, thanks for this.
To me, the true wonder in what happens on Wikipedia comes in their sections about the community (which I recently studied in detail when building NP's Flaming Policy). The ability for the community to talk plainly and openly about how they govern themselves says a lot to me. Many groups like to feel like they govern themselves, or make things work, but are reticent to say how they do so or plan to do so. Wikipedia impresses me its willingness to lay bare its works.
I agree about the "quality" assessment, however. It's a bit limited, and limiting to the scope of the study.
at 14:45 on October 17th, 2007
ScienceDave, Interesting topic. I use Wikipedia all the time. I am sure that for the majority of people it is as accurate as any popular (non-academic) print publication. If the distance between the earth and moon it out by, say, 2 metres, I would not notice or be bothered by it. I think people (the majority of us) enjoy making positive contributions without tangible rewards, to a project they perceive as worthwhile and valuble - Wikipedia and NP. Good stuff.
at 14:53 on October 17th, 2007
ScienceDave, good stuff.
If they wanted to make this study a little more scientific they could have controlled for how many people look at a page before the correction is changed. Some pages may only get a page view once a month while others are seen many times a day. Time would not be the best baramoter for this test.
And I generally agree with you that free labor working under the guise of altruism usually doesn't work for long. There needs to be a carrot at the end of the stick for most people.