Comments on: Wikipedia in Theory (psychology of fun and games edition)

By: paolo

paolo — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 09:03:08 +0000

Thanks! I didn’t know about open.wikiblogplanet.com! Wikipedia ecology is immense!

I’ve just added myself, see http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User%3ANickj%2Fopen-wikiblogplanet-config.ini&action=historysubmit&diff=380670031&oldid=378198841

Thanks!

By: sage

sage — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 20:26:49 +0000

paolo, thanks! I see you’ve been reviewing some of the important Wikipedia research papers on your blog lately. You should add you blog to open.wikiblogplanet.com! I’m sure more Wikipedians would appreciate seeing your posts.

By: paolo

paolo — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 15:24:10 +0000

Hi!
There is a paper showing that “fun” is the main motivation. See http://www.gnuband.org/2010/08/23/review_of_what_motivates_wikipedians_main_motivation_fun/

By: sage

sage — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 20:56:26 +0000

Thanks, those are excellent suggestions. Maybe in the next “Wikipedia in Theory” I’ll take a look at the Nobel stuff.

By: Jo Jordan

Jo Jordan — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 19:26:21 +0000

You might check these out for theories of fun and communal activity;

Jane McGonigal
The Play Ethic (UK)
Mmmmm, recent Nobel prize winner on theory of commons
The wikinomics guy.

Great topic for a blog. Hope you do more more work on it.

By: uberVU - social comments

uberVU - social comments — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 16:21:50 +0000

Social comments and analytics for this post…

This post was mentioned on Twitter by wikisignpost: New blog post: “Wikipedia in Theory (psychology of fun and games edition) http://tr.im/COYy…

By: sage

sage — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 13:42:53 +0000

Regarding the ethics of it, it’s certainly worth thinking about. But I think maybe using the term “addiction” can be distracting, since in the neurochemical sense lots of good things (like learning, or writing!) can be addicting. We train ourselves with dopamine in all kinds of ways, an in and of itself than neither good nor bad; it depends on what we’re training ourselves to do.

In the traditional medical sense, the line between doing something a lot (and feeling good when you do it, seeking to do it more) and addiction is all about consequences: do you wish you could quit? do you feel guilty? etc. So I think the answer to your last question is, it switches from a good initiative to a mind control project when the goal becomes merely entertaining people and keeping them on the site rather than building the encyclopedia. As long as game-like features are still closely connected to the overall goals of the projects, it’s not going to be a waste of people’s time. Instead, it’s a way to make something they already think is a good thing to do into something more enjoyable and easy to learn.

By: Nihiltres

Nihiltres — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 05:51:41 +0000

I like your application of the concept of flow; I’ve heard of that before but never thought to apply it to Wikipedia. I’ll have to reflect on that more, sometime when it’s not nearly 2 a.m. locally.

What worries me about the idea of adding game-like features to Wikipedia, of making Wikipedia (more?) addicting, is the ethics of it. Even if it’s feasible, is it *right* to make Wikipedia addictive? At what point does such a plan stop being a reasonable initiative to promote participation and become, well, an evil mind control project? :/

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Fri, 23 Oct 2009 20:44:39 +0000

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