Not All Boundary Objects Are Created Equal: Expert Reviews and Other Interventions for Filling Gaps in Peer Production Projects

• In Event: EXTENDED SESSION PART 2: Global Communication and Social Change in African Contexts

Abstract

Wikipedia suffers from a systemic bias problem: the project is dominated by the perspectives and cultures of white, Western males while women, the knowledges and cultures of the developing world and those of minority groups tends to be very weakly represented. Interventions for countering Wikipedia’s systemic bias tend to focus on efforts to enlist the support of outsiders in editing Wikipedia via educational programmes or notification mechanisms that alert users as to the existence of gaps on the site itself. We tested a number of interventions in this project to improve content relating to South Africa and found that weak topics can be improved by collaborations between academic experts and Wikipedia editors when there is a successful negotiation between those communities of practice. Such a process, we find, cannot be achieved through software mediated processes or by only compelling outsiders to contribute directly on the wiki platform.

Authors

• Heather Ford, University of New South Wales

• Iolanda Pensa, SUPSI U of Applied Sciences and Arts of Southern Switzerland

• Florence Devouard, SUPSI U of Applied Sciences and Arts of Southern Switzerland

• Marta Pucciarelli, SUPSI U of Applied Sciences and Arts of Southern Switzerland

• Luca Botturi, Scuola U della Svizzera italiana