The Social, Cultural and Economic Implications of the Wikipedia

The Social, Cultural and Economic Implications of the Wikipedia - scientific work related to Wikipedia quality published in 2006, written by P S Cathy.

Overview

Wikipedia is a non-profit online project that aims at building an encyclopedia for everyone. It has attracted thousands of users to contribute and collaborate on a voluntary base. In this paper Author argue that Wikipedia poses a new model of collaboration founded on three assumptions--trust, openness and reduced barrier of participation as opposed to more conventional models of collaboration based on authority and hierarchy. With this new-found social structure in mind, the cultural implications of the Wikipedia will be discussed in relation to the notion of Commons-Based Peer Production (CBPP) as proposed by Benkler in 2002, concluded with an analysis of the challenges that are facing the Wikipedia project.