The Wikipedia Social Capital Game: a "Mechanism Design" approach to transforming Wikipedia

Wikipedia, the World's Well of Knowledge, is under attack. Not from without, but from within. The object of this game is to protect Wikipedia from ourselves, for the immediate and ultimate gain of the game's Most Valuable Player: The Reader.

Please Edit as you please, and help us invent this game. Thank you.

Definition of terms

edit

Assumptions

edit

Premises, upon which whole arguments are built, are easier to discredit when they are stated as simply as possible, preferably in the form of equations. We state our Assumptions precisely. You might agree or disagree. But at least we should agree on what we agree or disagree.

  • Wikipedia = Best Game Ever!
  • Wikipedia = Fun. In this playground, we play games (not gaming-games, but game-games), while making Wikipedia better for our Readers.
  • Responsibility = Trust. When we can be held responsible for our behavior, we are more likely to play nice, and play well, with each other.
  • Trust > Privacy. If we must surrender some privacy to make Wikipedia trustworthy, then that's what we ought to do.
  • Wikipedia = War = Bad. We propose an end to "Edit Wars" and all other forms of compensatory machoism which entrench our warlike behavior.
  • Wikipedia = Social Capital Exchange (SCX) = Good. We had previously proposed that Wikipedians think instead of our Community as a "market" in Social Capital.
  • Wikipedia = Free SCX = Better. We said that this kind of market - where the "bottomline" is the Common Good - ought to be as free as it can possibly be. Unregulated, unfettered, unconstrained.
  • Free SCX = Free World. Our hypothesis is this: with a free social capital market at the center of the Wikipedia Community, Wikipedians can fix our pressing problems, release our power to change the world, open bigger markets for Wikipedians, and more opportunities to Live the Dream.
  • What's that dream again? A world where we all share our knowledge, where all knowledge is free.

Weaknesses & Threats

edit
 
Gender bias on Wikipedia

Source: Criticism of Wikipedia, Academic studies about Wikipedia

Strengths & Opportunities

edit

We have lots of strengths to celebrate, but right now, we're fixing problems and creating opportunities. For Opportunities, please read on.

SCX by the numbers

edit
persistent word views

the number of times a word introduced by an edit is viewed. Each time an article is viewed, each of its words is also viewed. When a word written by editor X is viewed, X is credited with 1 PWV.

we don't need no stinkin' "metrics"

  • Real-time updates on data used to quantify the strengths, weaknesses, problems and opportunities above
  • Measures of Content
    • quality of knowledge
    • quality of writing
    • diversity of subject
    • progress on low-attention topics
    • progress on backlogs
  •  
    From At least 5 hard steps to a happier life by Jonathan Haidt and Leo Romero, based on The Happiness Hypothesis by Jon Haidt.
    Measures of Community
    • SCX index - tracks changes in Social Capital over time
    • Player's Net Worth over time - f.e in terms of persistent word views (PWV) [2] for Content - measured in Social Capital Bucks (SCs/SoCs)
    • subjective well-being - see image At least 5 hard steps to a happier life
    • diversity
    • rule reduction and simplification
    • transition to real names, identities, histories

The Game

edit

Goal of the game

edit

Institutionalize the Social Capital Market of the Wikipedia Community, with the least amount of regulation, without breaking current rules, in a way that others can replicate, for the immediate and ultimate gain of our Readers.

Players

edit
  1. Bot - our Robot Overlords, who protect the SCX from Pricks; usually, a Cred/Lab
  2. Buyer - person (inc coprporations) who pays for edits
  3. Car - a Charity; a Wikipedian who does Pro work for free; can play Cred
  4. Cred - a Car with above-average social capital
  5. Lab - lab coats; the Wikimedia Foundation, as a group of Cars & Creds with (limited) superpowers
  6. Prick - someone who pokes holes through Wikipedia's Well of Knowledge
  7. Pro - a Paid editor; a Wikipedian who receives cash to edit Wikipedia; can play Car or Cred
  8. Reader - person who is
    1. an innocent reader of Wikipedia articles
    2. ignorant of inside-games which produced said articles
    3. usually a Free Rider
    4. the Player who makes the least amount of moves in the Game, other than reading
    5. the Most Valuable Player in the Game

The Social Capital Exchange

edit

all legal transactions take place at the SCX, and only at the SCX

Wikipedia as a social enterprise [insert brain here]

Rules of the Exchange
edit

We are not total Anarchists (if only). We do have some rules - a very, very few.

  • To play, you must be you. And thus you must:
    • be transparent, inc conducting all transactions "on-wiki"
    • use one and only one UserName across The Projects
    • make it easy for other Players to see all your contributions, via all Names/IPs, across all projects
    • provide other ways to verify your identity (personal website, social media avatars, DNA, a.s.o)
    • make it easy for other players to see your social relationships and interactions online
  • If you are a Pro, you must abide by Community and WMF rules, esp Wikipedia:Paid editing (policy). You may also play Car or Cred.

How to play

edit

Winners and losers

edit

Players:

Transactions at the SCX:

Sources

edit

I've read only ~10 of these. The rest are resting here, waiting to be read, and cited somewhere. - Loretta/LeoRomero (talk) 01:43, 11 December 2015 (UTC) [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] [16] [17] [18] [19] [20] [21] [22] [23] [24] [25] [26] [27] [28] [29] [30] [31] [32] [33] [34] [35] [36] [37] [38] [39] [40] [41] [42] [43] [44] [45] [46] [47] [48] [49] [50] [51]

Sources
  1. ^ Academic studies about Wikipedia
  2. ^ Priedhorsky, Reid; Chen, Jilin; Lam, Snider (Tony); Panciera, Katherine; Terveen, Loren; Austin, Shane (2007). "Creating, Destroying, and Restoring Value in Wikipedia". Proceedings of the 2007 international ACM conference on Supporting group work. Conference on Supporting Group Work. ACM Press. pp. 259–268. doi:10.1145/1316624.1316663. ISBN 978-1-59593-845-9.
  3. ^ Censolo, Roberto; Craighero, Laila; Ponti, Giovanni; Rizzo, Leonzio; Canto, Rosario; Fadiga, Luciano (2011-03-25). "Electromyographic Activity of Hand Muscles in a Motor Coordination Game: Effect of Incentive Scheme and Its Relation with Social Capital". PLoS ONE. 6 (3): e17372. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0017372. PMC 3064577. PMID 21464986.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: unflagged free DOI (link)
  4. ^ Zhuang, Juan; Girginov, Vassil (2012-07-01). "Volunteer selection and social, human and political capital: a case study of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games". Managing Leisure. 17 (2–3): 239–256. doi:10.1080/13606719.2012.674397. ISSN 1360-6719.
  5. ^ Migheli, Matteo (2012-04-01). "Assessing Trust Through Social Capital? A Possible Experimental Answer". American Journal of Economics and Sociology. 71 (2): 298–327. doi:10.1111/j.1536-7150.2012.00838.x. ISSN 1536-7150.
  6. ^ Lopes, Ana Paula; Carvalho, Marly Monteiro de; Fleury, Afonso Carlos Corrêa (2013-05-17). "Redes sociais e cooperação: um estudo bibliométrico". Revista Produção Online. 13 (2): 634–654. doi:10.14488/1676-1901.v13i2.1231. ISSN 1676-1901.
  7. ^ Campbell, Arthur (2014-09-20). "Signaling in social network and social capital formation". Economic Theory. 57 (2): 303–337. doi:10.1007/s00199-014-0844-9. ISSN 0938-2259.
  8. ^ Prior, Jason Hugh; Blessi, Giorgio Tavano. "Social Capital, Local Communities and Culture-led Urban Regeneration Processes: The Sydney Olympic Park Experience". Cosmopolitan Civil Societies: An Interdisciplinary Journal. 4 (3). doi:10.5130/ccs.v4i3.2684.
  9. ^ Vorhaus, John (2013-09-21). "Function and Functional Explanation in Social Capital Theory: A Philosophical Appraisal". Studies in Philosophy and Education. 33 (2): 185–199. doi:10.1007/s11217-013-9380-5. ISSN 0039-3746.
  10. ^ Russo, Angeloantonio; Perrini, Francesco (2009-04-29). "Investigating Stakeholder Theory and Social Capital: CSR in Large Firms and SMEs". Journal of Business Ethics. 91 (2): 207–221. doi:10.1007/s10551-009-0079-z. ISSN 0167-4544.
  11. ^ BASKAK, B., & ÖNEŞ, U. (2010). Social capital and psychiatric disorders: On trust and reciprocity. Nöropsikiyatri Arşivi, 47(3), 252-259.
  12. ^ Myerson, Roger B (2008-05-01). "Perspectives on Mechanism Design in Economic Theory". American Economic Review. 98 (3): 586–603. doi:10.1257/aer.98.3.586. ISSN 0002-8282.
  13. ^ Oh, Sechan; Özer, Özalp (2012-10-24). "Mechanism Design for Capacity Planning Under Dynamic Evolutions of Asymmetric Demand Forecasts". Management Science. 59 (4): 987–1007. doi:10.1287/mnsc.1120.1581. ISSN 0025-1909.
  14. ^ Paccagnella, M., & Sestito, P. (2014). School cheating and social capital. Education Economics, 22(4), 367.
  15. ^ Kumlin, Staffan; Rothstein, Bo (2005-05-01). "Making and Breaking Social Capital The Impact of Welfare-State Institutions". Comparative Political Studies. 38 (4): 339–365. doi:10.1177/0010414004273203. ISSN 0010-4140.
  16. ^ Araral, Eduardo (2013-12-01). "Policy and regulatory design for developing countries: a mechanism design and transaction cost approach". Policy Sciences. 47 (3): 289–303. doi:10.1007/s11077-013-9192-z. ISSN 0032-2687.
  17. ^ Campbell, Arthur (2014-09-20). "Signaling in social network and social capital formation". Economic Theory. 57 (2): 303–337. doi:10.1007/s00199-014-0844-9. ISSN 0938-2259.
  18. ^ Six, Benjamin; Zimmeren, Esther Van; Popa, Florin; Frison, Christine. "Trust and social capital in the design and evolution of institutions for collective action". International Journal of the Commons. 9 (1). doi:10.18352/ijc.435.
  19. ^ Hong, Liu. "The Two Mechanisms behind the Influence of Social Capital on Academic Development of English Teachers in Universities of China". Asian Social Science. 10 (17). doi:10.5539/ass.v10n17p244.
  20. ^ Garcia-Reid, P. (2007). Examining social capital as a mechanism for improving school engagement among low income hispanic girls.Youth & Society, 39(2), 164.
  21. ^ "Public libraries: places creating social capital?null". Library Hi Tech. 27 (3): 372–381. 2009-09-04. doi:10.1108/07378830910988504. ISSN 0737-8831.
  22. ^ Pastoriza, David; Ariño, Miguel A.; Ricart, Joan E. (2007-03-17). "Ethical Managerial Behaviour as an Antecedent of Organizational Social Capital". Journal of Business Ethics. 78 (3): 329–341. doi:10.1007/s10551-006-9334-8. ISSN 0167-4544.
  23. ^ Aldrich, Daniel P.; Meyer, Michelle A. (2015-02-01). "Social Capital and Community Resilience". American Behavioral Scientist. 59 (2): 254–269. doi:10.1177/0002764214550299. ISSN 0002-7642.
  24. ^ Agneessens, F., & Wittek, R. (2008). Social capital and employee well-being: Disentangling intrapersonal and interpersonal selection and influence mechanisms.Revue Française De Sociologie, 49(3), 613-637.
  25. ^ Giordano, G. N., & Lindström, M. (2011). Social capital and change in psychological health over time. Social Science & Medicine (1982), 72(8), 1219.
  26. ^ Moore, S., Daniel, M., Gauvin, L., & Dubé, L. (2009). Not all social capital is good capital.Health & Place, 15(4), 1071.
  27. ^ Moore, S., Bockenholt, U., Daniel, M., Frohlich, K., Kestens, Y., & Richard, L. (2011). Social capital and core network ties: A validation study of individual-level social capital measures and their association with extra- and intra-neighborhood ties, and self-rated health. Health & Place, 17(2), 536.
  28. ^ Kim, P. H., & Aldrich, H. E. (2005). Social capital and entrepreneurship. Foundations and Trends in Entrepreneurship, 1(2), 55.
  29. ^ Musso, Juliet; Weare, Christopher; Bryer, Thomas; Cooper, Terry L. (2011-01-01). "Toward "Strong Democracy" in Global Cities? Social Capital Building, Theory-Driven Reform, and the Los Angeles Neighborhood Council Experience". Public Administration Review. 71 (1): 102–111. doi:10.1111/j.1540-6210.2010.02311.x. ISSN 1540-6210.
  30. ^ Wood, Lisa; Giles-Corti, Billie; Zubrick, Stephen R.; Bulsara, Max K. (2013-04-01). ""Through the Kids . . . We Connected With Our Community" Children as Catalysts of Social Capital". Environment and Behavior. 45 (3): 344–368. doi:10.1177/0013916511429329. ISSN 0013-9165.
  31. ^ Hardyns, Wim; Vyncke, Veerle; Pauwels, Lieven; Willems, Sara (2015-04-09). "Study protocol: SWING – social capital and well-being in neighborhoods in Ghent". International Journal for Equity in Health. 14 (1): 36. doi:10.1186/s12939-015-0163-1. ISSN 1475-9276. PMC 4437247. PMID 25890052.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: unflagged free DOI (link)
  32. ^ Akçomak, İ. Semih; ter Weel, Bas (2009-07-01). "Social capital, innovation and growth: Evidence from Europe". European Economic Review. 53 (5): 544–567. doi:10.1016/j.euroecorev.2008.10.001.
  33. ^ Fieseler, Christian; Fleck, Matthes (2013-11-20). "The Pursuit of Empowerment through Social Media: Structural Social Capital Dynamics in CSR-Blogging". Journal of Business Ethics. 118 (4): 759–775. doi:10.1007/s10551-013-1959-9. ISSN 0167-4544.
  34. ^ Lin, N. (2000). Inequality in social capital. Contemporary Sociology, 29(6), 785-795.
  35. ^ Chang, Hsin Hsin; Chuang, Shuang-Shii (2011-01-01). "Social capital and individual motivations on knowledge sharing: Participant involvement as a moderator". Information & Management. 48 (1): 9–18. doi:10.1016/j.im.2010.11.001.
  36. ^ Dolfsma, Wilfred; Eijk, Rene van der; Jolink, Albert (2008-12-14). "On a Source of Social Capital: Gift Exchange". Journal of Business Ethics. 89 (3): 315–329. doi:10.1007/s10551-008-0002-z. ISSN 0167-4544.
  37. ^ Javanmard, Habibollah; Alhosseini, Zinat Sadat. "A study on effect of social capital on expediting knowledge distribution" (PDF). Management Science Letters: 2665–2668. doi:10.5267/j.msl.2013.08.036.
  38. ^ Andrews, Rhys (2010-05-01). "Organizational social capital, structure and performance". Human Relations. 63 (5): 583–608. doi:10.1177/0018726709342931. ISSN 0018-7267.
  39. ^ Seferiadis, Anastasia A.; Cummings, Sarah; Zweekhorst, Marjolein B. M.; Bunders, Joske F. G. (2015-04-01). "Producing social capital as a development strategy: Implications at the micro-level". Progress in Development Studies. 15 (2): 170–185. doi:10.1177/1464993414565530. ISSN 1464-9934.
  40. ^ Pastoriza, David; Arino, Miguel A.; Ricart, Joan E.; Canela, Miguel A. (2014-03-23). "Does an Ethical Work Context Generate Internal Social Capital?". Journal of Business Ethics. 129 (1): 77–92. doi:10.1007/s10551-014-2145-4. ISSN 0167-4544.
  41. ^ Kwon, Seok-Woo; Heflin, Colleen; Ruef, Martin (2013-12-01). "Community Social Capital and Entrepreneurship". American Sociological Review. 78 (6): 980–1008. doi:10.1177/0003122413506440. ISSN 0003-1224.
  42. ^ Pastoriza, David; Ariño, Miguel A. (2012-11-19). "Does the Ethical Leadership of Supervisors Generate Internal Social Capital?". Journal of Business Ethics. 118 (1): 1–12. doi:10.1007/s10551-012-1536-7. ISSN 0167-4544.
  43. ^ Gu, Qinxuan; Wang, Greg G.; Wang, Lihong (2013-03-01). "Social capital and innovation in R&D teams: the mediating roles of psychological safety and learning from mistakes". R&D Management. 43 (2): 89–102. doi:10.1111/radm.12002. ISSN 1467-9310.
  44. ^ "The influence of social capital on service quality evaluationnull". Management Decision. 51 (4): 871–889. 2013-04-26. doi:10.1108/00251741311326626. ISSN 0025-1747.
  45. ^ Pérez-Luño, Ana; Cabello Medina, Carmen; Carmona Lavado, Antonio; Cuevas Rodríguez, Gloria (2011-12-01). "How social capital and knowledge affect innovation". Journal of Business Research. 64 (12): 1369–1376. doi:10.1016/j.jbusres.2011.01.014.
  46. ^ Letki, Natalia (2008-03-01). "Does Diversity Erode Social Cohesion? Social Capital and Race in British Neighbourhoods". Political Studies. 56 (1): 99–126. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9248.2007.00692.x. ISSN 1467-9248.
  47. ^ Hsu, Chiu-Ping (2015-08-05). "Effects of social capital on online knowledge sharing: positive and negative perspectives". Online Information Review. 39 (4): 466–484. doi:10.1108/oir-12-2014-0314.
  48. ^ Wellman, Barry; Haase, Anabel Quan; Witte, James; Hampton, Keith (2001-11-01). "Does the Internet Increase, Decrease, or Supplement Social Capital? Social Networks, Participation, and Community Commitment". American Behavioral Scientist. 45 (3): 436–455. doi:10.1177/00027640121957286. ISSN 0002-7642.
  49. ^ Letki, Natalia (2006-10-27). "Investigating the Roots of Civic Morality: Trust, Social Capital, and Institutional Performance". Political Behavior. 28 (4): 305–325. doi:10.1007/s11109-006-9013-6. ISSN 0190-9320.
  50. ^ "How social capital is leveraged in social innovations under resource constraints?null". Management Decision. 51 (9): 1772–1792. 2013-11-11. doi:10.1108/MD-01-2013-0041. ISSN 0025-1747.
  51. ^ Payne, G. Tyge; Moore, Curt B.; Griffis, Stanley E.; Autry, Chad W. (2011-03-01). "Multilevel Challenges and Opportunities in Social Capital Research". Journal of Management. 37 (2): 491–520. doi:10.1177/0149206310372413. ISSN 0149-2063.

Questions, comments, suggestions, insults

edit

Or just fix this as you please, please. - Thanks again; Loretta/LeoRomero (talk) 09:10, 11 December 2015 (UTC)


RfC Fact Check - {Ping}ing principal authors of Social capital - @Bellagio99, Regiorgio, Cybercobra, Metamagician3000, Thomasmeeks, and David Woodward: did we did we define "Social Capital" precisely? - Thanks; Loretta/LeoRomero (talk) 22:04, 11 December 2015 (UTC)


RfC Fact Check - {Ping}ing principal authors of Mechanism design - @Michael Hardy, Gary, Alexwch, and Lycurgus: did we define "Mechanism Design" precisely? - Thanks; Loretta/LeoRomero (talk) 22:14, 11 December 2015 (UTC)

Pong. My last edit on that was 8 ya but my interest is rekindled, will look at in more depth shortly. Lycurgus (talk) 05:16, 12 December 2015 (UTC)