Project management in the Wikipedia community

A feature of online communities and notably Wikipedia is the increasing use of managerial techniques to coordinate the efforts of volunteers. In this short paper, we explore the influence of the organization of Wikipedia in so-called projects. We examine the project-based coordination activity and find bursts of activity, which appear to be related to individual leadership. Using time series, we show that coordination activity is positively correlated with contributions on articles. Finally, we bring evidence that this positive correlation is relying on two types of coordination: group coordination, with project leadership and articles editors strongly coinciding, and directed coordination, with differentiated online roles. Keywords Wikipedia, online communities, project-based organizations, leadership. Categories and Subject Descriptors K.4.3 [Organizational Impacts]: Computer-supported collaborative work

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2010
• Where: WIKIS
• Authors: Hang Ung, Jean-Michel Dalle
• Keywords: Coordination Activity, Internet Technology, Online Communities, Project-based Coordination Activity, WIKIS 2010