2023:Program/Submissions/The effects of policy: Reforms, processes and outcomes in Wikipedia - FYRTA3

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Title: The effects of policy: Reforms, processes and outcomes in Wikipedia

Speakers:

Seth Frey

I, Seth Frey, am a cognitive scientist and computational social scientist who studies human decision behavior in complex social environments. My expertise is in computational approaches to self-governance and the cognitive science of the commons. I am a professor in Communication at the University of California Davis and an affiliate of the Ostrom Workshop at Indiana University. I was a behavioral economist at Disney Research Zurich in Walt Disney Imagineering, a Neukom Fellow at Dartmouth College’s Neukom Institute, and a student at the New England Complex Systems Institute. I earned a Ph.D. in Cognitive Science and Informatics at Indiana University in 2013, and a B.A. in Cognitive Science from UC Berkeley. My work has appeared in New York Times Magazine, TEDx, BBC Radio, Hacker News, and Nautil.us Magazine. It has been funded by the NSF, NASA, and the JSPS.

Pretalx link

Etherpad link

Room:

Start time:

End time:

Type: Lecture

Track: Research, Science, and Medicine

Submission state: submitted

Duration: 30 minutes

Do not record: false

Presentation language: en

Abstract & description

Abstract

We analyze the effect of a decade of changes to a Wikipedia notability policy on 15,000 deletion decisions to test whether large changes to policy tend to make deletion discussions shorter (by codifying more experience) or longer (by causing a larger disruption to the status quo). We also test the effects on other more qualitative dimensions of the discussion and the editors engaged in it.

Description

What is the effect of policy on behavior? This basic question affects society at all levels and around the world, but outside of the governance petri dish provided by Wikipedia, is traditionally prohibitive to answer. We analyze the effect of a decade of changes to a Wikipedia notability policy on 15,000 deletion discussions to test whether large changes to policy tend to make discussions shorter (by codifying more experience) or longer (by causing a larger disruption to the status quo). We also test the effects on other more qualitative dimensions of the discussion and the editors engaged in it.

We use difference-in-difference designs and fixed effect regressions to test the effect of a policy within the same category of articles and we clustered standard errors around the individual article. We also exploit the fact that some articles have been nominated more than once and use article fixed effects to control for time-invariant features are article level.

Further details

Qn. How does your session relate to the event themes: Diversity, Collaboration Future?

This is a study of policy discussions on Wikipedia, which are a fundamental part of its collaborative construction.

Qn. What is the experience level needed for the audience for your session?

Everyone can participate in this session

Qn. What is the most appropriate format for this session?

• Onsite in Singapore
• Remote online participation, livestreamed
• Remote from a satellite event
• Hybrid with some participants in Singapore and others dialing in remotely
• Pre-recorded and available on demand