Project Management in the Wikipedia community
Track: Open Collaboration TrackAuthors: Hang Ung and Jean-Michel Dalle
Abstract
A feature of online communities and notably Wikipedia is the increasing use of managerial techniques to coordinate the efforts of volunteers. In this short paper, we explore the influence of the organization ofWikipedia in so-called projects. We examine the project-based coordination activity and find bursts of activity, which appear to be related to individual leadership. Using time series, we show that coordination activity is positively correlated with contributions on articles. Finally, we bring evidence that this positive correlation is relying on two types of coordination: group coordination, with project leadership and articles editors strongly coinciding, and directed coordination, with differentiated online roles.