Baytiyeh, H., & Pfaffman, J. (2010). Volunteers in Wikipedia: Why the Community Matters. Educational Technology & Society, 13 (2), 128–140.

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Volunteers in Wikipedia: Why the Community Matters

Hoda Baytiyeh and Jay Pfaffman1 College of Education, American University of Beirut, Beirut, Lebanon // hb36@aub.edu.lb

1College of Education, University of Tennessee-Knoxville, Knoxville, TN, USA // jay@utk.edu ABSTRACT

Wikipedia is a reliable encyclopedia with over seven million articles in several languages all contributed and maintained by volunteers. To learn more about what drives people to devote their time and expertise to building and maintaining this remarkable resource, surveys with Likert-scaled items measuring different types of motivations were completed by 115 Wikipedia administrators. The survey also included comments and open-ended questions that were used to check the validity of the Likert-scaled items and allow participants to express their reasons for being a Wikipedian. The Likert-scaled items showed that Wikipedia administrators are largely driven by motivations to learn and create. The comments and open-ended questions indicated that altruism — the desire to create a public repository for all knowledge — is one of the most important factors.

Keywords

Collaboration, Online communities, Motivation, Community of practice Introduction Wikipedia is created, edited, and maintained by thousands of volunteers from all over the world. Anyone using Wikipedia can modify the content of the encyclopedia at any time without even revealing their identity. Unlike the other encyclopedias, the volunteer authors of articles in Wikipedia may not be experts or scholars. Regular contributors to Wikipedia form a community connected by not only the pages they edit, but also forums about particular pages and the management of Wikipedia itself. Members of this community identify themselves as “Wikipedians.” Wikipedia is one of the most-used sites for getting information. A Pew study found that 36% of online American adults consult Wikipedia regularly; using Wikipedia is more frequent by groups with higher education levels and increased income (Rainie & Tancer, 2007). Also, this study showed that Wikipedia draws six times more traffic than the next most-used education and reference site (Yahoo! Answers). Wikipedia's popularity may be due to sheer volume of material available or because Google is likely to point to Wikipedia pages. Though Wikipedia has no formal review process and does nothing to vet the expertise or identity of its contributors, it is surprisingly accurate. A study in Nature selected forty two articles from both Wikipedia and Encyclopedia Britannica and sent them to experts for analysis (Giles, 2005). In the entire set of articles, each encyclopedia had four errors that reviewers considered “serious.” When evaluating the articles individually, Britannica was somewhat ahead — entries averaged about three errors per entry where Wikipedia had four. The same study also surveyed 1,000 Nature authors; 70% had heard of Wikipedia, 17% consulted it weekly and less than 10% updated it. Another study compared Wikipedia with another user-contributed encyclopedia, Everything2, and the Columbia Encyclopedia (Emigh & Herring, 2005). Unlike Wikipedia, in Everything2, a single author owns each article and the original author possess the complete editorial control. In the study, fifteen articles were selected from both Wikipedia and Everything2, 10 of which also existed in Columbia Encyclopedia. The analysis included a measure of formality (e.g., the number of contractions) and word counts of the articles. The findings revealed that the articles in Columbia Encyclopedia averaged 475 words, Wikipedia 963, and Everything2 1339. Also, a qualitative analysis found that Wikipedia was found similar in formality as well as in content and do not differ stylistically from the other print traditional encyclopedia Columbia. Other research on Wikipedia has tested its minute-to-minute validity.. An informal unpublished study introduced thirteen “provably incorrect” errors and found that all of these errors were removed within about two hours (Halavais, 2004). Later, an Esquire magazine editor, A.J. Jacobs (2005), uploaded a version of an article to the Wikipedia site. Jacobs had included 15 intentional errors in his original version. The article remained three days for modifications. During that time, the flawed article was edited by 76 users for a total of 576 changes. Jacobs wrote that the Wikipedia volunteer editors left only one uncorrected mistake.

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Who Keeps Order in Wikipedia? Most mistakes or bad edits in Wikipedia are corrected by regular users who notice them because they “watch” the pages (so they receive an email when an edit is made) and check to see that any edits actually improve the page. Some editors will devote less time to editing and more to correcting errors and removing obscenities from the site. Some tools are available for Wikipedians such as recent changes and personal watchlist that help editors track edits by sending an email notification when changes are made. One type of problem is vandalism, in which someone deletes or modifies a page with the apparent intention of making it less useful or unfairly critical of the page's subject. Pages about controversial topics (e.g., “George Bush”) can become objects of edit wars where editors change an article back and forth continually. One of Wikipedia's fundamental principles is having a “neutral point of view,” so special procedures and roles are in place to limit unknown users' ability to edit particularly controversial pages. Those who have these special privileges are administrators, an unpaid position that requires a nomination and a vote of approval by other administrators. When many people are working to compile information on a given topic, disputes will inevitably arise. Other problems involve ideological disagreements and escalate into intense debates that may never be resolved. At first, Jimmy Wales, Wikipedia’s founder, was handling the issues himself, but he was reluctant to ban anyone from the site (Schiff, 2006). As the number of users increased, so did the editing wars and the incidence of vandalism. In October, 2001, Wales appointed a small team of administrators, called admins, to monitor the site for abuse. Admins are users who have access to technical features that help with maintenance such as deleting articles or protecting them from further changes as well blocking users from editing. In 2004, Wales formalized another rule; any user who reverts the same text for more than three times in a twenty-four-hour period will be blocked from editing for a day. These administrators are chosen through community discussion to enforce the Wikipedia policies and guidelines. Purpose This study inquires the rationale of motivation behind joining and staying involved in a community of volunteers using psychological theories. The Wikipedia administrators in particular were examined as an example of working for free. Administrators were targeted with the assumption that those who had been promoted to this role were significantly devoted to the project. Participants completed an online survey that included demographic questions as well as thirty Likert-scaled questions about factors that might help understanding people's motivation to contribute to Wikipedia. Participants were given the opportunity to include comments to each of the questions as a means to validate their answers as well as to gather reasons about being involved in such community in their own words. Moreover, two open-ended questions were included inquiring about the most exciting factor behind being a Wikipedian. Knowledge Communities A community of practice is a group of people who engage in a shared activity Wenger (1998). They argue that social interaction is a critical component of learning. Lave and Wenger (1991) believe that learning is a function of the activity, context, and culture in which it occurs. Also, they assume that participants become more proficient through their practice and their identity is developed while moving from the periphery to the center. A similar model of community into schools, Community of Learners (CoL), was conceived by Brown and Campione (1996), in which “the essential underlying principle is that all members [of the learning community] are co-researchers, co-learners, and co-teachers, who listen to and respect each other” (p. 300). Luppicini (2007) distinguishes between five types of formal and informal virtual learning communities depending on the community purpose: knowledge building, inquiry, practice, culture, socialization, and counseling-development. The core of all of these communities is the concept of practicing a common professional discipline, a skill or a topic

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while sharing, acquiring, and creating knowledge. Each community is context dependent and has a shared purpose with a set of parameters (Schwier, 2007). Joining a public online community and being committed to participation may incorporate some formal knowledge integrated with informal practice. Advances in networking technology enable worldwide communication that supports social interaction, cooperation, and collaboration for learning and knowledge building (Friedman, 2005). In Wikipedia, members are free to choose their own roles. Some people upload images; others translate pages to other languages; some work on correcting grammar; others work on testing the hyperlinks; etc… Still others are administrators who are responsible for administrative tasks and provide support and maintenance of the website. Computer mediated communication obscures race, ethnicity, and social classes (Pfaffman, 2007). Perhaps these communities are special in that members can have equal opportunities and prospects of roles and positions. Such communities recognize the importance of teamwork collaboration where each member is welcome and can have somehow a positive impact. Moreover, contributors can have the freedom to express themselves to an appreciative audience and have their talents recognized. Hence, the shared nature of learning and experience may be a reason to be a member of the Wikipedia community. The acquisition of knowledge becomes a resource accessible to people worldwide. These communities, regardless of their names, might be knowledge communities where the collective knowledge of the group is greater than the individual’s knowledge (Bielaczyc & Collins, 1999; Gherardi & Nicolini, 2000). Social Constructivism in Wikipedia Brown and Adler (2008) argue that perceptions about learning are changing from Cartesian “I think therefore I am,” to social “We participate, therefore we are.” Participating in a community such Wikipedia allows to develop two aspects of collaboration: peer interaction that enables negotiation and co-construction of artifacts, and expert-to-apprentice interaction which is known as “legitimate peripheral participation” that requires collaboration and mixing different types of expertise (Bielaczyc & Collins, 1999). Constructivist techniques via the collaboration of thousands to build a repository such Wikipedia enables learning to take place. Learning occurs collaboratively and interactively in a relevant context that focuses on learners’ needs. Although Wikipedia community may differ from traditional learning environments because it is a virtual community bridging time zones and geographical locations, constructivist learning seems to recreate this social interdependence. Members share goals and negotiate the process of creating the artifact which helps increasing both interest and learning. Theories of Motivation Social researchers have explored theories of motivations and distinguished between the intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. Intrinsic motivation refers to a learner’s internal desire to perform a task for no definite reward other than personal satisfaction. On the other hand, when the learner is motivated by incentives external to his/her interest, the factors will be called extrinsic motivators. In Self-Determination Theory individuals’ competence and self-determination are strongly connected to emotions and enjoyment (Ryan & Deci, 2000). They defined intrinsically motivating activities to be those performed for their innate satisfaction rather than a consequential recompense. Hence, having fun in exercising an activity is the main idea of intrinsic motivation. Some research indicates that activities initially intrinsically motivating can be made less so by offering a reward for them and subsequently removing the reward (Deci, Koestner, & Ryan, 1999). On the other hand, Frey (1997) claimed that identifying the effect of extrinsic and intrinsic motivations on task performance is not systematically simple. Individuals may enjoy performing any activity while they are paid. In the same stream of thoughts, Lindenberg (2001) has recommended the need of a new conceptualization for the relationship between the extrinsic and intrinsic motivation while separating the intrinsic motivation into two components: enjoyment and obligation to the community. His theory assumed that people possess a diversity of objectives while achieving their activities. People can have the two types of motivations that balance one another for a single activity.

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With the above suggestions, this study focused on five motivational theories: learning, flow, creation, social, and extrinsic factors. Learning Factor Dewey (1915) argued that humans possess an innate desire to learn. People might be attracted by new software applications or games to learn the latest innovation. In the case of Wikipedia, some people might be interested in learning new techniques of wiki-related technology. Learning new features and practicing new tools might provide satisfaction which makes the process more engaging. Moreover, Knowles (1980) defined “Andragogy” assuming that adults are self-directed. Adults use their accumulation of experience from the “growing reservoir,” have their own social role, and tend to be more problem-centered than subject-centered. Flow factor Csikszentmihalyi (1975) who was one of the first psychologists to study the enjoyment-based motivation suggested a state of “flow” where enjoyment is maximized. Csikszentmihalyi (1991) established this concept by surveying people periodically. He was interested in the activities that people were exercising and to what degree they were engaged in the activity (Csikszentmihalyi & Lefevre, 1989). He proposed that the challenge within the activity is associated with the engagement state and the perceived ability. This state that he has called “flow” is accompanied with clear goals, feedback, and feeling of control. Also, time was an essential factor because people in a flow state are completely engaged and can lose track of time. Satisfaction will be characterized with an intense focus and concentration, an integration of action and awareness, self-confidence in abilities, and the satisfaction of the activity itself (Nakamura & Csikszentmihalyi, 2003). Creation factor Another aspect of motivation is the sense of creativity in task achievement (Amabile, 1996). Amabile theorizes that creativity is a combination of a heuristic task that has no identifiable solution with the conception of a new and suitable solution to a specific task. Amabile has linked the creativity with an objective assessment done by expert observers and a subjective self-assessment to understand the impact of the creative production. Another theory that puts an emphasis on creation is constructionism which asserts that learning is particularly effective when constructing something for others to experience. In the case of Wikipedia, contributors create new pages and share new ideas for improving the website. Social factor The third level Maslow’s (1987) hierarchy of needs is belongingness or love, typically provided by colleagues , family, or friends. Wikipedia community may provide its members with some of these needs for feeling connected. Similarly, self-determination theory (SDT) includes social aspects like the desire to belong to a group (Ryan & Deci, 2000). Lindenberg (2001) also found that part of what motivates people is the desire to socialize when they work and conform to the norms of a group. Closely related to the group commitment, Kollock (1999) identified four social aspects that could trigger users’ motivations to contribute for free: augmentation of one’s reputation, expectation of reciprocity, sense of efficacy, and commitment to the group. Kollock’s analysis found that the expectation of reciprocity is grounded in most communities’ beliefs and values. It is like a closed circle of people connected to each others where everyone feels rewarded by keeping the community alive, active, and strong. Other possible social motivators might include the desire to be liked by others and to have a means to stimulate conversation within the community. Extrinsic Factor Lerner and Tirole (2000) posited that participants may gain several types of payoffs: immediate payoff (the own use of the product itself), current benefits (the need for the product), current cost (the time invested in the task), and

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delayed payoff (the future potential opportunities for recognition and reputation.) These motivations include identification and integration in the activity where the benefits are the final goals. Likewise, one's social stature within the Wikipedia community can be related to the performance in the group's activity. These extrinsic rewards may drive not only a desire to perform but also a desire to increase social stature. Another possible motivator for participation in Wikipedia is the ambition to be better than others. Feeling the control and power could be one of the reasons behind the membership in an online community. Another extrinsic motivator is Murray's (1938) notion of dominance assuming that individuals like to command, lead, and act as an exemplar for others. Method This study included 115 Wikipedia administrators who responded to an online survey that included demographics, Likert-scaled items about their engagement, and open-ended questions about how and why they contribute. Factor Analysis of the Likert-scaled items identified six motivational factors. The constant comparative analysis of the open-ended comments offered additional evidence for the validity of the motivational constructs and provided insights into why people begin to contribute to Wikipedia and persist in being members of the community. Participants Administrators were solely targeted since they are supposed to be the most active and dedicated within the community. A random sample of 300 people (Krejcie & Morgan, 1970) listed as administrators in October 2007 were asked to participate. Materials The instrument was an online 40-question survey based on questionnaires employed in other motivational studies of open source projects and hobbyists (Hars & Ou, 2002; Pfaffman & Schwartz, 2003; Wu, Gerlach, & Young, 2007). The first section of the survey included 10 questions related to demographic characteristics and the degree of commitment to the project. The second section included 30 Likert-scaled questions on a scale of 7 (1 being unimportant and 7 being very important) related to motivational factors along with comments to check validity of the items while providing further insight into participants' motivations. Also, two open-ended questions were included in the survey to allow participants expressing their own reasons behind joining the Wikipedia community and the most exciting aspect about being a Wikipedian. Procedure The 300 administrators were asked to participate by two leaving messages, a month apart, on their Wikipedia “talk pages”; 155 (38%) completed the survey. Table 1 shows the respondents’ demographics.

Table 1: Participants’ demographics and their activity in Wikipedia Frequency Percent Gender Male 101 87.8

Female 14 12.2 Age 18-29 57 49.6

30-49 46 40.0 50-64 8 7.0 64+ 4 3.5

Occupation Full time student 38 33.0 Full time job 64 55.7 Part time student/job 13 11.3

Education level High school diploma 11 9.6

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Some college 34 29.6 Bachelors 34 29.6 Masters 18 15.7 Ph.D/J.D/M.D 18 15.7

Number of years of contribution to Wikpedia 1-2 31 27.0 3-5 77 67.0 6+ 7 6.1

How rewarding the membership in Wikipedia is I don’t care 3 2.6 Unrewarding 1 0.9 Not very rewarding 4 3.5 Sort of rewarding 31 27.0 Rewarding 53 46.1 Very rewarding 23 20.0

Hours/week spent on searching in Wikipedia <1 30 26.1 2-5 51 44.3 5-10 25 21.7 10-20 5 4.3 >20 4 3.5

Hours/week spent on participating in discussion for Wikipedia

<1 31 27.0 2-5 49 42.6 5-10 23 20.0 10-20 10 8.7 >20 2 1.7

Hours/week spent on editing articles in Wikipedia <1 15 13.0 2-5 45 39.1 5-10 32 27.8 10-20 15 13.0 >20 8 7.0

Hours/week spent on finding information to include <1 36 31.3 2-5 51 44.3 5-10 21 18.3 10-20 7 6.1

Because we knew only the pseudonyms of the administrators in our sample, we have no indicators of how the demographics of those who responded may differ from the whole sample. Findings and discussions The respondents were mostly male (88%), half of whom were 18-39 years old; most of the rest were 30-49. Only 55% of the respondents reported being employed full-time. The majority (66%) reported that being a Wikipedian is “rewarding” or “very rewarding” and (73%) revealed being involved for more than three years. These Wikipedians, though, don’t spend much time completing wiki-related tasks such as participating in discussion, searching in the wiki, or finding information to include in the website. Apparently, they spend more time proofreading the articles. A one way repeated measures ANOVA indicated that the main effects between the different types of contribution — searching in Wikipedia, participating in discussion, editing the pages, and finding information to include in the site — were significant, (F(3, 342) = 13.00, p < .001). A mixed ANOVA showed no interaction between the type of contribution and number of membership. However, editing the Wikipedia pages is constantly the most significant type of contribution regardless of the seniority of the participants (see Figure 1).

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Figure 1: Estimated means of contribution type/years of contribution

Also, a great part of the participants declared that they find the needed information to include from the online libraries, newspapers, periodicals, journals, encyclopedias, and books in order to obtain information for addition or improvement of the Wikipedia website. Motivational Factors The 30 Likert-scaled questions related to the potential motivational factors revealed a reliability of 0.907. Descriptive statistics were calculated to obtain the measures of central tendency as well as the measures of variability of each of the identified items. Though the potential motivators were grouped a priori according the motivational theories that informed them, we did not expect it to be the case that all items based on a particular motivational theory would have equal importance to respondents. An exploratory Factor Analysis (FA) was employed in order to determine which of the thirty items formed related subsets. FA combines into factors variables that are correlated with one another but largely independent of other subsets of items (Kim & Mueller, 1978; Rummel, 1970; Tabachnick & Fidell, 2007; Thurstone, 1945). This method was used as an expedient way to identify a smaller number of constructs (subsets) that represent the Likert-type items. The first step to form the potential factors was performed by applying FA with principal components extraction, eigenvalues greater than 1.00, and absolute value more than .40 (Field, 2005; Ho, 2006). Both results of Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) measure of sampling equal to .825 , and Bartlett’s test (p<.001) showed that using FA is appropriate for this study (Field, 2005; Kaiser, 1970). The maximum likelihood extraction was used to find the factor solution which would best fit the observed correlations. Six factors were retained while ensuring the Chi-Square goodness of fit test between the model and the data (Harris, 1975; Kim & Mueller, 1978). As a means to check the validity of questions, we first looked at their variance, since high variability could be an indicator that respondents feel very differently about that item or it was misunderstood. Based on the variance of the items as well as the comments provided by participants for each question, eight items were discarded. A final FA using the reduced set of 22 items with the principal components extraction yielded six factors accounting for 65.7% of the total variance.

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Table 2 shows the rotated factor loadings, which are the correlations between the variable and the factor. The sizes of the loadings reflect the extent of relationship between each variable and each factor. The higher the factor loading, the more the particular item contributes to the given factor. For items that were loaded under two factors, only the highest loading was retained. By evaluation of the items loaded under each factor, we generated descriptive names. Factor 1 with a variance (σ2 =28.8%) was labeled Dominance, factor 2 (σ2 =12.5%) labeled Creation, factor 3 (σ2 =7.4%) labeled Benefit, factor 4 (σ2 =6.2%) labeled Learning, factor 5 (σ2 =5.6%) labeled Social, and factor 6 (σ2 =4.9%) labeled Flow. Six new variables were computed based on the mean of the items falling under each factor. A one-way repeated measures ANOVA was conducted to detect the main effects between the located variables. The results revealed significant differences among the six factor scores, (F(5, 570) = 118.81, p < .001). Figure 2 shows the Learning factor as the most powerful motivator for contributing to Wikipedia (μ=5.47 on a scale of 7) followed by the Creation factor (μ=5.08), the Flow factor (μ=4.89), the Social factor (μ=4.48), the Benefit factor (μ=3.21) and the Dominance factor (μ=2.88).

Table 2: Rotated factor matrix: principal component extraction. Component Items Dominance Creation Benefit Learning Social Flow To gain social stature 0.780 To feel a sense of control 0.747 To be liked 0.737 To enter competitions with others 0.627 To do something that few others know how to do 0.613 To express myself 0.565 To see fruits of labor 0.799 To find or create something new or rare 0.742 To see my work/achievements 0.624 To overcome new challenges 0.589 To nurture or sustain to completion or maturity 0.530 To learn strategies and methods in Wikipedia 0.714 To belong to a group 0.697 To adjust or personalize methods 0.668 To learn about tools 0.650 To know about dates, places, people, things 0.847 To read about my areas of interest 0.817 For my personal growth 0.660 As a commitment to the Wikipedia community 0.798 To help others appreciate or participate 0.700 For fun/enjoyment 0.720 To have clear goals and feedback 0.589 These data suggest that Wikipedians are motivated most by their desire to learn. Since adults are able to identify their needs, they may engage in learning situations to meet a goal and to achieve competence because social competencies might affect their academic achievement (Knowles, 1980; Wentzel, 1994; Wlodkowski, 1989). Another indication of their desire to learn is that respondents rated highly reading and their desire for personal growth. For instance, the Wikipedia community has its own guidelines for contribution that encompasses a set of regulations. One participant noted that “My penchant for learning is illustrated by my habits on Wikipedia: not only do I refine thousands of pages, but I read many articles on topics which I find interesting, increasing my knowledge of the world and its contents.” Other participants provided comments such as “excuse to learn new things all the time” and “adding to my own knowledge while updating content.” The second highest-rated factor is the creation of a public artifact. Constructionism or “learning by making” is shown to be a significant motivational factor that might help contributors acquiring skills through personal creation and

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innovation (Harel & Papert, 1991). Wikipedians develop and proofread pages for others to experience. Also, the act of creation itself might provide satisfaction through the process itself: from the initial stages to the completion of the project in order to witness the end of the course of action. Contributors to Wikipedia might be exercising their autonomy in the website design by creating something new and overcoming new challenges. The comments from participants show the importance of the creation factor through “creating an encyclopedia with infinite pages,” “seeing your changes appear immediately online,” and “creating world’s single best general knowledge reference work.”

Figure 2. Estimated Means of Motivation (scale of 7). The flow-driven motivation comes after the creation factor significance. Wikipedians considered fun and enjoyment with their Wikipedia-related activities. Hence, flow can arise when the challenge of the task matches the contributors’ skills (Nakamura & Csikszentmihalyi, 2003). One of the participants reported “It’s the best way I’ve found so far to kill time while I’m at work.” Another comment was “having an ongoing project to work on.” The social factor was next. Wikipedians seem to contribute as a commitment to the community since being a member of a community is one of the fundamental human needs (Deci, Vallerand, Pelletier, & Ryan, 1991; Maslow, 1987; Ryan & Deci, 2000). Therefore, social factors might affect motivation just as they affect learning. For instance, (Anderson, Manoogian, & Reznick, 1976) showed that childrens’ motivation to work is to share their activity of drawing. Hence, members in the Wikipedia community could be interested in helping others to appreciate the contribution in order to expand the group or to share their knowledge. Some typical comments show the social motivational factor such as, “the realization that others share my obscure interests,” “collaborating with others,” and “interaction with the community.” Somewhat surprising is that the dominance as well as the benefit factors were not as important as the other incentives. Such findings indicate that having a social stature or possessing powerful qualifications inside the community is not the most significant objective for administrators. Obviously, some administrators might have strong benefit or dominance driven motivational factors. However, their percentage appears to be very modest compared with others within the sample. One typical comment from one participant was “While it’s certainly a nice boost to the self-esteem to be recognized as an authority on a subject, that’s not what I’m here for.”

What Excites Wikipedians To confirm the findings of the motivational indicators and provide check for motivators that may have been overlooked, we included two open-ended questions. These comments were analyzed inductively using the constant

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comparative method (Bodgan & Biklen, 2007). We coded for patterns related to the motives of Wikipedia administrators and refined and revised these indicators of Wikipedian's goals and satisfactions. The themes that evolved address particular activities that administrators find compelling: “altruism,” “sharing knowledge,” “reverting vandalism,” and “creating a well-respected resource.” These findings are expanded below using illustrative quotes and examples from the participants' comments. Altruism A consistent theme expressed by most participants was the notion of “all working together for the greater good” by “building a repository of information for the next generation.” Wikipedians have a great passion for bringing knowledge to everyone; as one of the participants noted, “I continue to contribute because I have a thirst for knowledge and I want to add to the worldwide knowledge pool. I believe that the improvement of worldwide knowledge is a critical issue, which everyone should attempt to improve. My contributions to Wikipedia are a way for me to give to the world.” Others took pride in knowing that they had helped even one person; one respondent liked “hearing from someone who has benefited from an article I wrote.” For many respondents, Wikipedia provided an outlet for contributing to the common good (or a “long-term benefit to the world”) that was lacking elsewhere in their lives. For example, one respondent said: “I'm a senior IT consultant of 30 years standing who returned to teaching as a late career. However, classrooms are unruly nowadays— and Wikipedia gives me a chance / way to contribute to the next generation without having to face down a class.” The ability to make valuable and tangible contributions offers these administrators a sense of fulfillment. Sharing knowledge Another consistent theme was “being able to share a useful and interesting knowledge with the whole world.” The Wikipedians identify Wikipedia as a community that plays an important role; it is an involvement combined with “interaction” and “collaboration.” To one participant, the most exciting about being a Wikipedian is

“cooperation, and the idea that anyone can contribute to a growing body of information. It's cross-cultural, multinational, and largely apolitical. It reminds me of the old idea that scientists (theoretically at least) could contribute with other workers in their field worldwide, irrespective of the political climate in their countries, since unbiased research itself was more important. It never worked with science - politics always became involved. Wikipedia is an attempt to show that it can work.”

Another aspect of sharing knowledge was expressed this way: “The beauty and appeal of a wiki is that you are working collaboratively with others. This is especially true for administrators who focus on policies or conflict resolution.” Reverting Vandalism Though its appeal may not be readily understandable to those outside of this community, “reverting vandalism” was frequently reported as a favorite activity. For example, one stated “[Some] days I do nothing but revert vandalism.” The motivation for that would probably be “defending the wiki” or “defeating the vandals, the competition can be fun.” Wikipedia administrators are likened to janitors, not only in the comments we analyzed, but also on the Wikipedia page describing administrators, yet curiously, this work is satisfying. One respondent's indicated that what he found most exciting was “being insulted and called racist for attempting to keep some nut material out of Wikipedia.” Creating a Well-Respected Resource Another theme was the importance of the having a good quality encyclopedia. One participant stated,

“Considering that Wikipedia has been criticized for being unreliable, I strive to correct this problem. For me, it is not enough for Wikipedia to be just a good starting point for research – I want it to become a

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respected encyclopedia known for its accuracy sometime in the future. In my education, I strive for excellence and perfection, so likewise, I want to continue to refine and perfect the encyclopedia. The dedication I have shown so far on Wikipedia will carry over to my postsecondary education, as will my dedication to excellence and service.”

Respondents were proud how quickly Wikipedia continues to grow and liked being part of “a highly structured community with altruistic value, the community moves at a breakneck pace.” This comment is exemplary,

“The term ‘Wikipedia’ was not even a recognizable word prior to 2001. Six years later, the English Wikipedia (and its two million articles) is the largest encyclopedia ever compiled and one of the top ten most-visited websites in the world. The most interesting part about the world's largest encyclopedia is that it was created entirely by volunteers.”

Administrators value maintaining Wikipedia and “keeping the work tidy for the readership to enjoy.” They consistently reported pride in “seeing [Wikipedia] grow to be one of top websites in the world.” Limitations This study included only Wikipedia administrators because they were assumed to be an especially dedicated group of Wikipedia contributors. It is conceivable, though, that there are other groups who are equally dedicated who instead focus on other aspects of Wikipedia. For example, there could be a class of contributors who do nothing but write new pages or otherwise focus solely on writing who do not become involved in the forums and other Wikipedia features that support community building. Surveys are a convenient way for gathering information from a large number of participants, but the few open-ended questions, though useful for our purposes of establishing validity, are not enough to gain a complete understanding of individual contributors’ motivations. Interviews may be appropriate to gain a more complete picture of users' lived experience. Interviews may confirm that Wikipedia is a community of practice and more fully document members' trajectory from legitimate peripheral participant to full-fledged mentor and leader in the community. Also, the notion of altruism and contributing to a greater good was not among the motivations that we had anticipated, so interviews would also be useful in gaining a better understanding of this notion of altruism. Also, the participants were solely members in the English Wikipedia. Further investigations of Wikipedia's other-language sections are needed to see the degree to which the findings presented here are somehow limited to English-speakers. Conclusion This study showed that Wikipedia administrators were driven largely by their desires to learn and create. These participants also indicated a strong connection to the community of Wikipedia contributors in general and administrators in particular. Also, the open-ended questions revealed that Wikipedians contribute out of a sense of altruism and the desire to have a thorough and accurate source of information for everyone. The desire to have Wikipedia recognized and respected was also a strong motivator for some; though others seemed resolved that Wikipedia would never gain respect of educators and the academy. This paper described a community eager for learning in a constructivist environment. Wikipedia can be a prototype for schools by developing a community of teachers and students who can work, plan, and take decision collectively in order to increase everyone’s motivation to learn. The objective is to reduce teachers’ isolation from students while increasing the goals of teaching and learning. Such community would enhance understanding of teachers’ roles while creating a shared responsibility among students because it identifies education through practice. Such would engage motivated learners who are willing to construct a shared vision through trust and respect to promote a community of continuous learning.

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