In my last blog entry (http://mission-groupware.blogspot.com/2011/01/swarm-intelligence.html) I wrote about crowdsourcing and how well it works. After writing the blog entry, I wanted to find out more about the reasons for its success and why people participate in crowdsourcing, even if they are not rewarded.
I decided that the best way would be to ask people who participate in crowdsourcing. The online community Aardvark connects friends with each other in order to clarify unresolved questions or problems.
After registering you can type in a question on the homepage (1) or send Aardvark an IM, email or tweet. Then, Aardvark sends this question to the community or more precisely: to people who claim themselves to be an expert on that field.
So my question was: “Why do people respond to other people's questions? Even if they're not rewarded?”
After only three minutes, Aardvark has already found an answer. Adrian F. from New York wrote: “For the sheer enjoyment of doing some good”.
After 10 more minutes I got my next answer from Ginger from Seattle: “On Aardvark? I like to respond to questions because I like to share the knowledge I've learned. Most of the time it's because the questions people ask are some that I have asked myself, and found the answer. Every time I answer a question it makes the time I took to look it up even more worthwhile. It's nice to feel helpful.”
Already after an hour Aardvark has provided six answers. You can see all of them here: http://vark.com/t/u_J4fP
Those replies already gave me a good hint about the motives for participating in crowdsourcing – but I wanted to find out more. Therefore I decided to take a look at the best functioning and best-known example of crowdsourcing: The free online encyclopedia Wikipedia.
In September 2010, the whole Wikipedia encyclopedia contained 16,9 billion articles. Worldwide there are more than 1,2 billion members. Of those, around seven percent are active, which means that in the past 30 days they have written or edited five articles. (2) They did that in their free time, without getting money for it. So why are they doing this and who are they?
According to the inventors of Wikipedia, education level of the authors is above average. In a survey, scientist Manuel Merz, a professor at the University of Ilmenau in Germany, discovered that more than half of the authors come from an academical background. Nine percent even have done a doctor’s degree. (3)
Reasons for participating in Wikipedia are fun and pride – and a tendency to thinking that you know everything better. Jimmy Wales, a co-founder of the online encyclopedia, regards this as an explanation for the surplus of men among the authors. (4)
Another reason is, that the people, who participate in crowdsourcing projects are often anonymous. In a survey, which was carried out in 1994, M. Lynn Markus found out, that “Email (…) is used by some people to express things they would never express, or in a tone, they would not utilize by phone or in person.” (5) The anonymity of email applies to online communities as well, but it effects the outcome of crowdsourcing in a positive way: People are willing to reveal more when they’re not physically present, because it gives them a certain security.
Sources
(1) http://vark.com/
(2) http://www.zeit.de/digital/internet/2011-01/wikipedia-jubilaeum
(3) http://www.zeit.de/2011/03/Wikipedia-Weltlexikon
(4) http://www.zeit.de/2011/03/Wikipedia-und-Wissenschaft?page=1
(5) M. Lynn Markus, Finding a happy medium: Explaining the negative effects of electronic communication on social life at work. ACM Transactions on Information Systems 12, 2 (April 1994), 119-149.
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