Peer Production Research Articles

KNOWLEDGE EXTERNALITIES AS COMMONS FOR INNOVATION: A CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF PUBLIC EXPENDITURE ON EDUCATION

Objective: This paper analyzes how knowledge externalities function as common resources that foster innovation. Theoretical framework: The existing studies often frame the problem of knowledge externalities as a problem of knowledge market failures and recommend public intervention, such as public expenditure on education which is a simple solution. However, the experience from OECD countries shows that there is an inherent trade-off between public and private expenditures at every level of the education system which indicates the commonality of these resources. Method: This paper uses a semi-systematic literature review and quantitative analysis of public and private expenditures on education and their impact on patents generated across OECD countries. Results and discussion: This article argues that: first, knowledge externalities are complex common resources that require collective action, facilitated by public policy to address associated social dilemmas. This means, the commonality of the knowledge externality is in fact that no one is excluded to benefit from knowledge externalities except those who lack capabilities, however, due to lack of funding, these resources can be depleted; secondly, Public expenditure on education must not only account for the positive externalities generated but also recognize education as a component of the complex commons. The complexity of these resources justify why government intervention is required; third and finally, knowledge externalities contribute to social learning society which is an imperative to innovation processes. Research implications: This recognition can foster peer production and a learning society, both of which are essential for driving innovation. Originality/value: This paper assesses and synthesizes the literature on knowledge externalities and their policy such as public expenditure on education in a way that enables to understand knowledge externalities as common resources that enable holistic social learning which boost innovation.

Timely Quality Problem Resolution in Peer-Production Systems: The Impact of Bots, Policy Citations, and Contributor Experience

Online peer-production systems create value by enabling people to participate in the production of a common good such as an open encyclopedia by building freely on each other’s work. Fixing quality problems in peer production in a timely manner is critical because millions of people rely on peer-produced content for learning and decision making. The longer low-quality content remains in place, the more it can harm the reputation of a peer-production system and diminish the capability of the system to maintain its contributor base. We study different mechanism affecting the timeliness of quality problem resolution in Wikipedia and find that the speedy resolution of quality problems depends on the successful integration of software robots (bots) and the careful calibration of policy citations to the different levels of experience among contributors. Most control mechanisms found in firm-based production do not apply to peer production, and instead, quality control in peer production must leverage the strengths of different contributors and harness the benefits of technological support and adaptive policy frameworks to improve productivity and achieve high-quality outcomes.

Navigating the inception stage in online peer production communities: a comparative study on community building activities, user roles and interaction dynamics

PurposeThis exploratory, descriptive study examines the factors that might influence the success or failure of online peer production communities during their inception stage. It focuses on community-building activities, the roles of users and the dynamics of user interaction, aiming to shed light on practices that could contribute to a community's success at the inception stage.Design/methodology/approachBy comparing two Stack Exchange Q&A communities with the same timelines but opposite outcomes during their beta testing phases, the research utilizes quantitative methods to categorize community activities, define user roles via k-means cluster analysis and examine interaction networks using social network analysis.FindingsOur findings suggest the successful Mathematics Q&A community exhibited several distinct practices during its inception, such as the utilization of both external and internal tools, the development of community-specific tutorials and the strategic use of flagging functions for moderation. Eight user roles were discerned, with roles like content editors, metadata curators and gatekeepers being particularly prominent in the successful community. Additionally, a more densely interconnected user network characterized by active participation was observed in the successful community.Originality/valueConcentrating on the inception stage of online communities, this study uncovers insights into the dynamics at play in the early life of peer production environments and provides empirical observations that may assist in shaping strategies for new online communities. It stands out by comparing communities within the same period to understand factors that may influence their early success.

Leveraging Recommender Systems to Reduce Content Gaps on Peer Production Platforms

Leveraging Recommender Systems to Reduce Content Gaps on Peer Production Platforms

Countering underproduction of peer produced goods

Peer produced goods, such as online knowledge bases and free/libre open source software rely on contributors who often choose their tasks regardless of consumer needs. These goods are susceptible to underproduction: when popular goods are relatively low quality. Although underproduction is a common feature of peer production, very little is known about how to counteract it. We use a detailed longitudinal dataset from English Wikipedia to show that more experienced contributors—including those who contribute without an account—tend to contribute to underproduced goods. A within-person analysis shows that contributors’ efforts shift toward underproduced goods over time. These findings illustrate the value of retaining contributors in peer production, including those contributing without accounts, as a means to counter underproduction.

Between the Camp and the Makerspace: Commoning Practices, Temporal Autonomy and Care

ABSTRACT The paper explores the chronopolitics of place-making in the refugee makerspace Habibi-Works and the neighbouring Katsikas refugee camp in Ioannina, in Northern Greece. Camps are created to be ephemeral and this ephemerality is reflected in their materiality and conditions the possibilities available to those that inhabit them. Camp temporalities work by way of destabilising the residents' sense of self in the present, severing their connections with the past and limiting their future aspirations. In sheer antithesis to the camp, the makerspace disrupts these (temporal) dynamics: it enables the camp residents to manage time as a common resource (commoning), creating autonomous communities of collective care. Through mundane encounters and practices, the makerspace plays an instrumental role in enacting the residents' autonomy by facilitating access to digital technologies, low-tech manufacturing tools, and skills to reproduce a sense of lost normality. We adopt an ethnographic approach to engage with the makerspace and the camp as well as the various people involved (migrants, volunteers, makers) and understand how migrants narrate their past, negotiate their present and imagine their futures in the context of everyday life. Building on the concepts of peer production, temporal autonomy and radical care, we argue that Habibi-Works opens up a new socio-political space between the camp, the makerspace and the world.

Productivity or Equity? Tradeoffs in Volunteer Microtasking in Humanitarian OpenStreetMap

Microtasking, the decomposition of tasks into small units of work, is prolific in human computation and crowdsourcing. Some peer production systems are beginning to leverage this same technique in volunteer contribution-based settings. While early research suggests that focusing volunteer work in this way using microtasking may be fruitful, the effects of microtasking on contributor behavior in volunteer peer production settings, like OpenStreetMap, remain unclear. This paper takes advantage of a natural experiment facilitated by the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap's Tasking Manager, a microtasking system, and employs causal inference analysis to evaluate the effects of a microtasking intervention on contributor dynamics. Our study systematically leverages a global dataset to analyze peer production dynamics, building on prior research to address a gap in peer production literature and informing the design of the microtasking interfaces. We causally show that, indeed, microtasking can be an effective intervention in peer production settings, but it may exacerbate power-law patterns that are common in such settings. By further analyzing project design decisions and characteristics, we develop implications for platform practitioners, with a focus on addressing engagement and contribution inequity issues prevalent in settings like OpenStreetMap.

The Entrainment of Task Allocation and Release Cycles in Open Source Software Development

In this study we identify a process of “entrainment” around open source software (OSS) development release cycles to capture patterns of self-organized task allocation among developers. We conducted an abductive, computationally intensive study of eight OSS projects, using relational event modeling to analyze 1,169,489 actions covering 93 major software releases. The process of entrainment that we identify involves three task allocation mechanisms: (1) developer-issue inertia, (2) developer contribution frequency, and (3) issue popularity. Our analysis demonstrates that these mechanisms and the phases of the release cycle entrain each other. Before a major release, developers engage in a concentrated mobilization phase, whereby they democratize development activity and increasingly allocate community contributions to the set of issues related to the release. After a major release, the extended cleanup phase garners a greater share of development work from recently highly active developers and dilutes the activity of these developers across a wider range of issues. Our theorizing suggests that major releases constitute important events around which OSS communities self-organize and we characterize how this occurs. Our research contributes to theorizing on organizing in OSS communities by explaining how self-organizing task allocation interacts with release cycles through the mechanism of entrainment. We also contribute to the literature on entrainment by showing how it may unfold in the context of online peer production communities such as OSS.

Moving from coproduction to commonization of digital public goods and services

AbstractThe hybridization of digital commons and public administration institutions led by bureaucratic entrepreneurs is a relatively recent phenomenon that has received limited attention in the literature. The term coined to describe this evolution is the “commonization” of digital public goods and services. I define commonization as the integration of shared property, peer production, and self‐governance into public administration. To explore the democratizing potential of commonization, I conducted a qualitative study comparing two case studies in France and Spain (Barcelona). My approach involves 44 semistructured interviews and online observations analyzed through the analytical framework of institutional work. The findings highlight five factors that enhance, and two that hinder, citizen power in co‐governance arrangements. In conclusion, I identify the theoretical and practical implications of commonizing digital public goods and services, providing valuable insights for practitioners and scholars, particularly in the New Public Governance paradigm.

Cautious hope: Prospects and perils of communitarian governance in a Web3 environment

In the context of extreme societal polarization, activists have mobilized to protest injustices and claim their rights, yet such efforts often fall short of goals because demands normally are directed to government or firms that offer superficial responses. Communitarianism, which broadly strives for autonomy from established institutions, promises the development of self-provisioning communities based on cooperative networks and participatory, democratic governance that prioritizes use over exchange value and redistribution over profitable activity for individuals. The emergence of Web3 and blockchain technology has ushered in new affordances such as scaling a communitarian enterprise and exchange of value independent of banks or other institutions. Whereas market-based organizations use Web 3 affordances for accounting purposes for profit, communitarian organizations aim to link accounting with designs to inject capital into a commons to support self-governing communities in community-based peer production (CBPP). To exemplify the broad range of approaches to the multifaceted goals of CBPP, I focus on FairCoop and Sensorica. Despite considerable differences, these organizations nonetheless share problems and generally are illustrative of longstanding challenges to communitarian enterprises – digitalized and non-digitalized alike. Perennial problems such as the fraught capitalist/postcapitalist relation, self-interest, uneven power relations, lack of diversity, and the challenge of responding adequately to societal needs combine with effects of automated governance and associated effects of technocracy that can dissolve founding values to threaten the integrity of a communitarian collective. CBPP as well as its non-digitalized counterparts are important contributions to humanity, but goals and actual practices can diverge. CBPP requires vigilant designs that complement rather than replace human decision making with algorithmic governance and pay attention to reflexivity and positionality, continual re-design to engage unanticipated problems, and distancing actually existing projects from discourses that reify patterns such as decentralization with the consequence of missing crucial contextual knowledges.

Peer Production as Mindful and Responsible Innovation: The Case of Fabricademy

Peer Production as Mindful and Responsible Innovation: The Case of Fabricademy

Increasing Participation in Peer Production Communities with the Newcomer Homepage

For peer production communities to be sustainable, they must attract and retain new contributors. Studies have identified social and technical barriers to entry and discovered some potential solutions, but these solutions have typically focused on a single highly successful community, the English Wikipedia, been tested in isolation, and rarely evaluated through controlled experiments. We propose the Newcomer Homepage, a central place where newcomers can learn how peer production works and find opportunities to contribute, as a solution for attracting and retaining newcomers. The homepage was built upon existing research and designed in collaboration with partner communities. Through a large-scale controlled experiment spanning 27 non-English Wikipedia wikis, we evaluate the homepage and find modest gains, and that having a positive effect on the newcomer experience depends on the newcomer's context. We discuss how this impacts interventions that aim to improve the newcomer experience in peer production communities.

Peer Produced Friction: How Page Protection on Wikipedia Affects Editor Engagement and Concentration

Peer production systems have frictions-mechanisms that make contributing more effortful-to prevent vandalism and protect information quality. Page protection on Wikipedia is a mechanism where the platform's core values conflict, but there is little quantitative work to ground deliberation. In this paper, we empirically explore the consequences of page protection on Internet Culture articles on Wikipedia (6,264 articles, 108 edit-protected). We first qualitatively analyzed 150 requests for page protection, finding that page protection is motivated by an article's (1) activity, (2) topic area, and (3) visibility. These findings informed a matching approach to compare protected pages and similar unprotected articles. We quantitatively evaluate the differences between protected and unprotected pages across two dimensions: editor engagement and contributor concentration. Protected articles show different trends in editor engagement and equity amongst contributors, affecting the overall disparity in the population. We discuss the role of friction in online platforms, new ways to measure it, and future work.

"Why do you need 400 photographs of 400 different Lockheed Constellation?": Value Expressions by Contributors and Users of Wikimedia Commons

Understanding the values that collaborators bring to a collaboration is important for the design of new systems. In collaborative systems understanding differing values could help design solutions to mitigate conflicts and more effectively coordinate collaboration. We review prior studies of Commons-Based Peer Production (CBPP) identifying four common value dimensions previously noted as present in CBPP: usage value, social value, ideological value, and monetary value. We use this synthetic framework to analyze a dataset of 32 interviews with contributors to Wikimedia Commons and editors of Wikipedia who use Commons resources. Our analysis supports the prior values categories while expanding how some dimensions are expressed by participants. We also highlight four additional value dimensions that were not previously identified in CBPP: cultural heritage value, rarity value, aesthetic value, and administrative value. We discuss the implications of our findings for the design of collaborative systems.

Taboo and Collaborative Knowledge Production: Evidence from Wikipedia

By definition, people are reticent or even unwilling to talk about taboo subjects. Because subjects like sexuality, health, and violence are taboo in most cultures, important information on each of these subjects can be difficult to obtain. Are peer produced knowledge bases like Wikipedia a promising approach for providing people with information on taboo subjects? With its reliance on volunteers who might also be averse to taboo, can the peer production model produce high-quality information on taboo subjects? In this paper, we seek to understand the role of taboo in knowledge bases produced by volunteers. We do so by developing a novel computational approach to identify taboo subjects and by using this method to identify a set of articles on taboo subjects in English Wikipedia. We find that articles on taboo subjects are more popular than non-taboo articles and that they are frequently vandalized. Despite frequent vandalism attacks, we also find that taboo articles are higher quality than non-taboo articles. We hypothesize that stigmatizing societal attitudes will lead contributors to taboo subjects to seek to be less identifiable. Although our results are consistent with this proposal in several ways, we surprisingly find that contributors make themselves more identifiable in others.

Prefiguring the counter-hegemony of open cooperativism: The case of Open Food Network

Drawing on Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe's discourse theory of hegemony, the paper introduces a chain of equivalence that articulates discourses such as “commons-based peer production”, “partner state” and “ethical market entities” around the counter-hegemony of open cooperativism vis-à-vis the current hegemony of neoliberalism. The paper sets out to empirically test its theoretical premises by reviewing the Open Food Network as an illustrative case-study of open cooperativism. The Open Food Network deploys the digital commons to launch short food supply chains and bring about systemic change in agriculture. Τhe paper suggests that for the Open Food Network to contribute to systemic change in agriculture and beyond it may create cross-sectoral synergies across the economy, civil society and politics to help articulate a chain of equivalence linking up ethical market entities, the commons and a partner state around the model of open cooperativism.

Socialized leadership and improvisational responding to COVID-19 supply voids

A centrally initiated but collectively improvised voluntary network of disaggregated actors, professionals and non-professionals spread across the globe, in an example of socialized leadership in the form of Open Source Medical Supplies (OSMS). Drawn globally from universities, governments, firms and individuals, OSMS, was a digitally networked project platform to remedy medical supply shortages through the ethos of peer production. We demonstrate how such a globally distributed, but digitally interconnected, network can improvise solutions to grand challenges such as COVID-19. From a practical standpoint, our study offers invaluable insights on effectively mobilizing distributed communities to initiate swift, purposeful projects to mitigate disruptive crises. The dual focus on a central digital platform and its role in facilitating numerous localized, globally distributed initiatives, provides key learning for future responses to widespread issues, such as the PPE shortages witnessed during the COVID-19 pandemic.

A game-theoretic analysis of Wikipedia's peer production: The interplay between community's governance and contributors' interactions.

Peer production, such as the collaborative authoring of Wikipedia articles, involves both cooperation and competition between contributors. Cooperatively, Wikipedia's contributors attempt to create high-quality articles, and at the same time, they compete to align Wikipedia articles with their personal perspectives and "take ownership" of the article. This process is governed collectively by the community, which works to ensure the neutrality of the content. We study the interplay between individuals' cooperation and competition, considering the community's endeavor to ensure a neutral point of view (NPOV) on articles. We develop a two-level game-theoretic model: the first level models the interactions between individual contributors who seek both cooperative and competitive goals and the second level models governance of co-production as a Stackelberg (leader-follower) game between contributors and the communal neutrality-enforcing mechanisms. We present our model's predictions regarding the relationship between contributors' personal benefits of content ownership and their characteristics, namely their cooperative/competitive orientation and their activity profile (whether creators or curators of content). We validate the model's prediction through an empirical analysis, by studying the interactions of 219,811 distinct contributors that co-produced 864 Wikipedia articles over a decade. The analysis and empirical results suggest that the factor that determines who ends up owning content is the ratio between one's cooperative/competitive orientation (estimated based on whether a core or peripheral community member) and the contributor's creator/curator activity profile (proxied through average edit size per sentence). Namely, under the governance mechanisms, the fractional content that is eventually owned by a contributor is higher for curators that have a competitive orientation. Although neutrality-seeking mechanisms are essential for ensuring that ownership is not concentrated within a small number of contributors, our findings suggest that the burden of excessive governance may deter contributors from participating, and thus indirectly curtail the peer production of high-quality articles.

From creative destruction to convivial innovation - A post-growth perspective

In this paper, we argue that the notion of Creative Destruction underpinning classical innovation management theory as well as having crystallised into technological determinism and productivism has come to a dead-end. Framing innovation's ultimate goal as the endless pursuit of economic growth is unrealistic if we wish to address pressing environmental challenges. We show that Creative Destruction historically emerged as an ideology from a specific set of values and worldviews at the cradle of Western capitalism and its need for valorisations. Capital valorisation imposes its logic on innovation, definition of needs, consumption, and organisation of work. The mantra of ‘innovate or die’ and its underpinning values represent a hegemonic view on technology aligned with the capitalist mode of production. We argue that a counter-hegemonic view emphasising conviviality and use-value is possible instead and needed to address the environmental and social challenges of our time. We posit that the (re-)emerging mode of production, commons-based peer production (CBPP) has such potential. Indicative cases show that innovation underlined by counter-hegemonic values already exists, albeit in the cracks of the dominant system and in constant danger of co-optation. Governmental institutions need to support these alternative practices of innovation.

European Wikipedia platforms, sharing economy and national differences in participation: a case study

The following exploratory study considers which macro-level factors can lead to the sharing economy being more popular in certain countries and less so in others. An example of commons-based peer production in the form of the level of contributing to Wikipedia in 24 European countries is used as a proxy for participation in the sharing economy. Demographic variables (number of native speakers, a proxy for population) and development ones (Human Development Index-level and internet penetration) are found to be less significant than cultural values (particularly self-expression and secular-rational axes of the Inglehart-Welzel model). Three clusters of countries are identified, with the Scandinavian/Baltic/Protestant countries being roughly five times as productive as the Eastern Europe/Balkans/Orthodox ones.