Drivers of engagement

Motivations to contribute

The following findings come from the preliminary findings from the 2009 survey of 100K+ Wikipedia users.[1] Bridgespan has done some additional analysis on top of the published findings.

Some caveats here: It is unclear how representative this sample is of the Wikipedia community at large. For example:

  • This survey had an over-representation of editors vis-a-vis the general population.
  • There was an over-representation of Russian respondents, who were removed from the study pending some explanation for this anomaly.

Surveyed contributors cited desire to fix problems and commitment to sharing knowledge as key motivators; process of collaboration itself was lower in importance.

 
Desire to fix errors and share knowledge are key motivators to contributing.

Confirmation from academic journal, study, etc. would be helpful to confirm these findings.

See Data on content breadth and composition

Models of successful contributions across Wikimedia projects

Need some expertise here. Are pages created in a typical lifecycle? e.g.,:

  • One contributor creates 75% of content, other users contribute remaining 25%.
  • One contributor creates 5% of content, next creates 5%, and so on, until the article is fully formed.
  • Contributors convene on talk page, flesh out key difference, and post up nearly complete page.
  • Etc.

Notes

  1. Wikipedia Survey – First Results. April 2009. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/a/a7/Wikipedia_General_Survey-Overview_0.3.9.pdf
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