2023:Program/Submissions/What makes some wiki communities more subject to governance capture? - JP8YHG
Title: What makes some wiki communities more subject to governance capture?
Speakers:
Benjamin Mako Hill
In my day job, I teach and do research at the University of Washington. I am also an active editor on several wikis and work with the Wikimedia community and the Wikimedia Foundation community to support academic research related to wikis and Wikimedia in a number of ways. Please see my user page on meta for more information.
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Type: Lightning talk
Track: Research, Science, and Medicine
Submission state: submitted
Duration: 10 minutes
Do not record: false
Presentation language: en
Abstract & description[edit source]
Abstract[edit source]
For about 10 years, Croatian Wikipedia was, in large part, controlled by small tight-knit group of administrators who introduced far-right bias and disinformation. Despite many similarities, the same thing does not seem to have occurred in the Serbian, Serbo-Croatian, or Bosnian Wikipedias. This lightning talk will describe results from an in-progress research project that uses an analysis of a series of interviews we have conducted to outline a theory that seeks to explain why.
Description[edit source]
Between at least 2011 and 2020, the Croatian language version of Wikipedia was, in part, taken over by a small group of administrators who introduced far-right bias and outright disinformation. Dissenting editorial voices were reverted, banned, and blocked. Serbian Wikipedia is roughly similar in size and age, shares many linguistic and cultural features, and faced similar threats from actors with similar goals and approaches, it seems to have avoided this fate. Neither did the Bosian or Serbo-Croatian Wikipedia language editions. What makes some Wikipedia editions more vulnerable to systematic disinformation campaigns through governance capture than others?
We will present a short talk based on an academic research project that analyzes a series of interviews with members of Croatian, Serbian, Bosnian, and Serbo-Croatian Wikipedia communities as well as others in cross-functional platform-level roles. We propose that the convergence of three features—high perceived value as a target, limited early bureaucratic openness, and a preference for personalized, informal forms of organization—produced a window of opportunity for governance capture on Croatian Wikipedia that was largely absent on the others. Our findings illustrate that the governing infrastructures through which online communities organize and moderate themselves can play a crucial role in systematic disinformation campaigns and other influence operations.
Further details[edit source]
Qn. How does your session relate to the event themes: Diversity, Collaboration Future?
This project is about research on collaboration dynamics in wikis. Although it is an analysis of events from the past, it is future looking in that it tries to argue for a set of approaches that Wikimedia projects can used to design more robust governance systems, especially for smaller communities.
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
