Functional roles and career paths in wikipedia

Ofer Arazy, Felipe Ortega, Oded Nov, Lisa Yeo, Adam Balila

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionpeer-review

Abstract

An understanding of participation dynamics within online production communities requires an examination of the roles assumed by participants. Recent studies have established that the organizational structure of such communities is not flat; rather, participants can take on a variety of well-defined functional roles. What is the nature of functional roles? How have they evolved? And how do participants assume these functions? Prior studies focused primarily on participants' activities, rather than functional roles. Further, extant conceptualizations of role transitions in production communities, such as the Reader to Leader framework, emphasize a single dimension: organizational power, overlooking distinctions between functions. In contrast, in this paper we empirically study the nature and structure of functional roles within Wikipedia, seeking to validate existing theoretical frameworks. The analysis sheds new light on the nature of functional roles, revealing the intricate "career paths" resulting from participants' role transitions.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationCSCW 2015 - Proceedings of the 2015 ACM International Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing
PublisherAssociation for Computing Machinery, Inc
Pages1092-1105
Number of pages14
ISBN (Electronic)9781450329224
DOIs
StatePublished - 28 Feb 2015
Externally publishedYes
Event18th ACM International Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing, CSCW 2015 - BC, Canada
Duration: 14 Mar 201518 Mar 2015

Publication series

NameCSCW 2015 - Proceedings of the 2015 ACM International Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing

Conference

Conference18th ACM International Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing, CSCW 2015
Country/TerritoryCanada
CityBC
Period14/03/1518/03/15

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2015 ACM.

Keywords

  • Peer-production
  • Wikipedia
  • functional roles
  • organizational structure
  • role transitions

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Computer Networks and Communications

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