The Work of Sustaining Order in Wikipedia: the Banning of a Vandal

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The Work of Sustaining Order in Wikipedia: the Banning of a Vandal - scientific work related to Wikipedia quality published in 2010, written by R. Stuart Geiger and David Ribes.

Overview

In this paper, authors examine the social roles of software tools in the English-language Wikipedia, specifically focusing on autonomous editing programs and assisted editing tools. This qualitative research builds on recent research in which authors quantitatively demonstrate the growing prevalence of such software in recent years. Using trace ethnography, authors show how these often-unofficial technologies have fundamentally transformed the nature of editing and administration in Wikipedia. Specifically, authors analyze "vandal fighting" as an epistemic process of distributed cognition, highlighting the role of non-human actors in enabling a decentralized activity of collective intelligence. In all, this case shows that software programs are used for more than enforcing policies and standards. These tools enable coordinated yet decentralized action, independent of the specific norms currently in force.