hi Zubin, thanks for being a newcomer to Wikimedia, and also for your interest in the issue of bureaucracy. I think you're right that it is something worth analyzing. A chapter of my "Common Knowledge? An Ethnography of Wikipedia" (2014, Stanford University Press) was dedicated to studying the issue. You can peruse it, also to see other references on the topic. I am not aware of strong quantitative studies of the problem though, as it is quite difficult to account for all the factors, in different projects, etc.
best, dj "pundit" -- ________________________________________________________ <http://nerds.kozminski.edu.pl/> Dariusz Jemielniak, Ph.D. Professor of Management Chair of MINDS (Management in Networked and Digital Societies) Department Kozminski University http://nerds.kozminski.edu.pl <http://nerds.kozminski.edu.pl/> associate faculty at Berkman-Klein Center for Internet and Society, Harvard University *Recent articles:* - Dariusz Jemielniak, Maciej Wilamowski (2017) Cultural Diversity of Quality of Information on Wikipedias <http://crow.kozminski.edu.pl/papers/cultures%20of%20wikipedias.pdf> *Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology* 68: 10. 2460–2470. - Dariusz Jemielniak (2016) Wikimedia Movement Governance: The Limits of A-Hierarchical Organization <http://www.crow.kozminski.edu.pl/papers/wikimedia_governance.pdf> *Journal of Organizational Change Management *29: 3. 361-378. - Dariusz Jemielniak, Eduard Aibar (2016) Bridging the Gap Between Wikipedia and Academia <http://www.crow.kozminski.edu.pl/papers/bridging.pdf> *Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology* 67: 7. 1773-1776. - Dariusz Jemielniak (2016) Breaking the Glass Ceiling on Wikipedia <http://www.crow.kozminski.edu.pl/papers/glass-ceiling.pdf> *Feminist Review *113: 1. 103-108. - Tadeusz Chełkowski, Peter Gloor, Dariusz Jemielniak (2016) Inequalities in Open Source Software Development: Analysis of Contributor’s Commits in Apache Software Foundation Projects <http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/asset?id=10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0152976.PDF> , *PLoS ONE* 11: 4. e0152976. On Thu, Mar 1, 2018 at 2:42 PM, Zubin JAIN <jain16...@gapps.uwcsea.edu.sg> wrote: > Hello, > As a rare newcomer to the Wikimedia project, I've been thinking of some of > the factors that seem to discourage me from contributing and one of the > primary ones seem to be the fact that the way the administration is > organized and rules enforced is often vague and unclear. The definition and > the method of collection of the vague idea of "Consensus" aren't easily > found and take a lot of digging to get out. > > A lot of the guideline is often mixed with philosophical rants that often > seem to contradict each other and has grown in size to the point that it's > unreasonable for any newcomer to have read through it all. The project > designed to work on consensus and community often seems unresponsive and > automated as anarchic communication structure impedes effective > communication by forcing users to learn an obscure markup language just to > communicate. > > I'm wondering if there have been any whitepapers on addressing these > problems especialy the ones about bureaucracy, reading through the news I > remember a lot of hay being made about a decline in Wikipedia editor from a > few years back but that seems ot have faded. Is there any hard data on the > future trajectory of the project? > > -- > Sincerely, > Zubin Jain > _______________________________________________ > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/ > wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/ > wiki/Wikimedia-l > New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, > <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe> -- ________________________________________________________________________________ *Please, note, that this email will expire at some point. Bookmark dariusz.jemieln...@fulbrightmail.org <dariusz.jemieln...@fulbrightmail.org> as a more permanent contact address. * _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
