Harvard Business School case study on Wikipedia
by Hylton Jolliffe
Wanted to alert you to the release of a case study by Andrew McAfee and Karim Lakhani on Wikipedia. Says McAfee, on his blog:
It’s focal point is the articles for deletion process on Wikipedia’s “Enterprise 2.0″ article, but I’ll use this focal point and the other information in the case for a much broader classroom discussion. Using this case, I’ll talk with students about:
* Why Nupedia (Wikipedia’s more formal predecessor) failed to gather momentum, and why Wikipedia has gathered so much.
* Whether Wikipedia’s highly egalitarian and freeform editing processes and policies yield good results and, if so, how this happens.
* How decision rights are allocated in Wikipedia.
* The merits of the Inclusionist and Deletionist perspectives.
* Whether Wikipedia really has become a “post-revolutionary Bolshevik Soviet, with an inscrutable central power structure wielding control over a legion of workers.”
* Whether the Wikipedia community practices the ‘right’ level of deference to the opinions and judgments of subject matter ‘experts.’
* If Wikipedia’s policies are being correctly followed, what the fate of the “Enterprise 2.0″ article should be.
See his blog post for more and for the link to the case study itself - it’s available for free and available under the GNU FDL.
