> Why Wikipedia Works

Newsvine

A good overview of why Wikipedia is not as flat as it seems and why that's an important factor in its success.

http://mike.newsvine.com/_news/2006/05/02/...wikipedia-works

Donny

Let me give a direct URL:

http://www.sourcelabs.com/blogs/ajb/2006/0...edia_works.html

This is interesting, because it describes Wikipedia quite accurately as a kind of video game:

QUOTE

And that's the end game of Wikipedia, power extending over not just article contents, but control extending to every part of the Wikipedia system, a range of control just short of the root level user of Wikipedia: "Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales". And the end result of the edit market is the encyclopedia itself, a vast repository and edit battleground, where the basic reward of editing a page grows more valuable as Wikipedia is used by more people.

Donny

Oh, I agree with you completely. I just thought it was interesting that it compared the motivations of Wikipedians to people playing a multiplayer video game. The author didn't make a very good case that Wikipedia "works" in the sense of getting authoritative encyclopedia articles.

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