research-article

Readers are not free-riders: reading as a form of participation on wikipedia

Authors:

Coye CheshireAuthors Info & Claims

CSCW '10: Proceedings of the 2010 ACM conference on Computer supported cooperative work

Pages 127 - 130

https://doi.org/10.1145/1718918.1718942

Published: 06 February 2010 Publication History

Abstract

The success of Wikipedia as a large-scale collaborative effort has spurred researchers to examine the motivations and behaviors of Wikipedia's participants. However, this research has tended to focus on active involvement rather than more common forms of participation such as reading. In this paper we argue that Wikipedia's readers should not all be characterized as free-riders -- individuals who knowingly choose to take advantage of others' effort. Furthermore, we illustrate how readers provide a valuable service to Wikipedia. Finally, we use the notion of legitimate peripheral participation to argue that reading is a gateway activity through which newcomers learn about Wikipedia. We find support for our arguments in the results of a survey of Wikipedia usage and knowledge. Implications for future research and design are discussed.

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Cited By

Wagner CJiang L(2025) Death by AI : Will large language models diminish Wikipedia? Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology10.1002/asi.24975Online publication date: 3-Jan-2025
https://doi.org/10.1002/asi.24975
Brewer RAnkenbauer SHashmi MUpadhyay P(2024)Examining Voice Community UseACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction10.1145/363515131:2(1-29)Online publication date: 5-Feb-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3635151
Fu H(2024)Navigating the inception stage in online peer production communities: a comparative study on community building activities, user roles and interaction dynamicsOnline Information Review10.1108/OIR-07-2023-036049:1(75-96)Online publication date: 11-Jul-2024
https://doi.org/10.1108/OIR-07-2023-0360
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Index Terms

Readers are not free-riders: reading as a form of participation on wikipedia
1. Human-centered computing
  1. Collaborative and social computing
    1. Collaborative and social computing theory, concepts and paradigms
      1. Computer supported cooperative work
2. Social and professional topics
  1. Professional topics
    1. Computing and business
      1. Computer supported cooperative work

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Published In

cover image ACM Conferences

CSCW '10: Proceedings of the 2010 ACM conference on Computer supported cooperative work

February 2010

468 pages

ISBN:9781605587950

DOI:10.1145/1718918

General Chairs:
Kori Inkpen
Microsoft Research, USA
,
Carl Gutwin
University of Saskatchewan, Canada
,
Program Chair:
John Tang
Microsoft Research, USA

Copyright © 2010 ACM.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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SIGCHI: ACM Special Interest Group on Computer-Human Interaction

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Published: 06 February 2010

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February 6 - 10, 2010

Georgia, Savannah, USA

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Cited By

Wagner CJiang L(2025) Death by AI : Will large language models diminish Wikipedia? Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology10.1002/asi.24975Online publication date: 3-Jan-2025
https://doi.org/10.1002/asi.24975
Brewer RAnkenbauer SHashmi MUpadhyay P(2024)Examining Voice Community UseACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction10.1145/363515131:2(1-29)Online publication date: 5-Feb-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3635151
Fu H(2024)Navigating the inception stage in online peer production communities: a comparative study on community building activities, user roles and interaction dynamicsOnline Information Review10.1108/OIR-07-2023-036049:1(75-96)Online publication date: 11-Jul-2024
https://doi.org/10.1108/OIR-07-2023-0360
Randazzo CAmmari T(2023)“If Someone Downvoted My Posts—That’d Be the End of the World”: Designing Safer Online Spaces for Trauma SurvivorsProceedings of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3544548.3581453(1-18)Online publication date: 19-Apr-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3544548.3581453
Ma RGui XKou Y(2023)Multi-Platform Content Creation: The Configuration of Creator Ecology through Platform Prioritization, Content Synchronization, and Audience ManagementProceedings of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3544548.3581106(1-19)Online publication date: 19-Apr-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3544548.3581106
Pyrkina OYudanov A(2023)Free-Rider Problem: Simulating of System Convergence to Stable Equilibrium State by Means of Finite Markov Chain ModelsModeling and Simulation of Social-Behavioral Phenomena in Creative Societies10.1007/978-3-031-33728-4_6(78-93)Online publication date: 26-May-2023
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-33728-4_6
Kaffee LVougiouklis PSimperl E(2022)Using natural language generation to bootstrap missing Wikipedia articles: A human-centric perspectiveSemantic Web10.3233/SW-21043113:2(163-194)Online publication date: 3-Feb-2022
https://doi.org/10.3233/SW-210431
Sipley G(2022)Lurking as literacy practice: A uses and gratifications study in neighborhood Facebook groupsNew Media & Society10.1177/1461444822111799426:7(4277-4296)Online publication date: 22-Aug-2022
https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448221117994
Wang DMuller MYang QWang ZTan MHobson S(2022)Organizational Distance Also MattersProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/35555546:CSCW2(1-18)Online publication date: 11-Nov-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3555554
Hadi Mogavi RHaq EGujar SHui PMa X(2022)More Gamification Is Not Always BetterProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/35555536:CSCW2(1-32)Online publication date: 11-Nov-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3555553
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