Network Positions and Contributions to Online Public Goods: The Case of Chinese Wikipedia

Citation: Xiaoquan Zhang, Chong Wang (2012) Network Positions and Contributions to Online Public Goods: The Case of Chinese Wikipedia. Journal of Management Information Systems (RSS)
Internet Archive Scholar (search for fulltext): Network Positions and Contributions to Online Public Goods: The Case of Chinese Wikipedia
Tagged: Network analysis (RSS), Peer Production (RSS), Wikis (RSS), Public Goods (RSS), Causal Inference (RSS), Natural Experiment (RSS), Information Systems (RSS)

Summary

In a paper published in the Journal of Management Information Systems, Xiaoquan (Michael) Zhang and Chong (Alex) Wang use a natural experiment to demonstrate that changes to the position of individuals within the editor network of a Wiki causes changes to their editing behavior. The data for this study come from the Chinese Wikipedia. In October 2005, the Chinese government suddenly blocked access to Chinese Wikipedia from mainland China, creating an unanticipated decline in the editor population. As a result, the remaining editors found themselves in a new network structure and, the authors claim, any changes in editor behavior that ensued are likely effects of this discontinuous "shock" to the network. The authors define each editor as a node (vertex) in the network and a tie (edge) between two editors is created whenever the editors edit the same page in the wiki. They then examine how changes to three aspects of individual editors' connectedness (centrality) to other editors within the network altered their subsequent patterns of contribution.

The main finding of the paper is that changes in the three kids of editors' connectedness within the network result in differential changes to their editing behavior. First, an increase in the number of direct connections between one editor and the rest of the network (degree centrality) resulted in that editor making fewer edits and more work on articles she created. Second, an increase in the overall proximity of an editor to the other members of the network (closeness centrality) resulted in fewer edits and less work on articles she created. Third, an increase in the extent to which an editor connected otherwise isolated groups in the network (betweenness centrality) resulted in that editor making more edits and and more work on articles she created. Overall, these results imply that alterations to the network structure of a wiki can change both the quantity and quality of editor contributions. The authors argue that their findings confirm the predictions of both network game theory and theories of social roles. They also argue that future research should try to analyze the character of the network ties created within platforms for large scale online collaboration in order to better understand how changes to network structure may alter collaborative practices.

Theoretical and Practical Relevance

This article is recently published and has not been cited widely yet.