Research:Wikimedia Summer of Research 2011
This page documents a research project in progress.
Information may be incomplete and change as the project progresses.
Please contact the project lead before formally citing or reusing results from this page.
The Wikimedia Foundation Summer of Research has brought eight academic researchers to study longterm participation trends in Wikipedia. In light of the results of the strategy:Editor Trends Study and the Board's 'resolution on openness, this multidisciplinary team will be using week-long group sprints to answer pressing and practical questions related to participation. From June through August 31st of 2011, the project will produce sprints that provide both qualitative and quantitative explanations of how new editors interact with Wikipedia, as well as data-driven recommendations for exactly what can be done to improve retention.
Led by Diederik van Liere, Maryana Pinchuk, and Steven Walling from the Community Department, the team includes:
- R. Stuart Geiger is a PhD candidate, UC Berkeley School of Information, focusing on knowledge production in distributed and decentralized environments -- specifically Wikipedia and scientific research networks. He has been a Wikipedia editor since 2004 has been studying the project as an ethnographer since 2007. His current research explores the relationship between technical infrastructures and social structures, and he has written on bots, vandal fighting, administration, and the history of Wikipedia.
- Aaron Halfaker is a PhD candidate of Computer Science at the University of Minnesota, GroupLens Research, focusing on Computer-mediated human interaction. Aaron started editing Wikipedia four years ago and quickly found his niche creating user scripts to find ways of improving the collaborative experience. His research explores mechanisms for motivating and supporting volunteer collaboration.
- Fabian Kaelin is a Master of Science candidate from McGill University, focused on machine learning.
- Melanie Kill is Assistant Professor of English at the University of Maryland, specializing in digital rhetoric and genre studies. She is currently at work on a book on Wikipedia and the history of the genre of the encyclopedia. She earned her PhD in Rhetoric and Language Studies from University of Washington and previously has taught at Texas Christian University.
- Giovanni Luca Ciampaglia is a PhD candidate at the University of Lugano in Switzerland. Giovanni is a computer scientist who studies user involvement in commons-based peer production communities, group consensus and collective deliberation processes.
- Yusuke Matsubara is a PhD student, University of Tokyo (Japan), studying computational linguistics. His research focus is in analysing how people write and read from a computational and empirical point of view. Since 2008, he has been an occasional writer, translator and programmer for Wikimedia.
- Jonathan Morgan is a PhD candidate, University of Washington, studying social interaction on collaborative online creative environments. As a researcher, he is particularly interested in tracing connections between the things people say (and the way they say them) and their roles, goals and activities online. He also works on the design of tools for improving public deliberation on the web, and on practical tools for internet researchers.
- Shawn Walker is a PhD candidate at the University of Washington iSchool, and studies digital government and public engagement.
If you're interested in an example of the kind of work that the summer will be producing, Maryana Pinchuk and Steven Walling produced three preliminary sprints on the topic of Communication to New Editors 2004-2011. Current sprints from the project will be listed on this page.
Research questions
This draft set of research questions is still evolving, but is a good look at the set of topics this summer will focus on. Please feel free to comment on on the question set, especially looking to point out existing research and ways that the questions can be clearer to those outside the Summer of Research team.
Wikimedia Foundation Summer of Research Questions
Sprints
To create a create a new sprint:
- Use this form to create the sprint page. Make sure to give your sprint a name.
- Add a link to the sprint page under the appropriate week below.
- Start researchin'
May 16-20
- Quality of PPI editor work -- Drdee
- Newbie reverts and article length -- EpochFail
- Generating a common editor sample -- Zack