Task Specialization in Social Production Communities: The Case of Geographic Volunteer Work

Mikhil Masli, Reid Priedhorsky, Loren Terveen

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

11 Scopus citations

Abstract

In social production communities, users’ individual and collective efforts lead to the creation of valuable resources – cf. Wikipedia, Open Street Map, and Reddit. Contributors to such communities often specialize in the tasks they choose to do. We found evidence for specialization by work type in Cyclopath, a geographic wiki for bicyclists – most users edit a single type of map feature, such as points of interest or roads and trails. We also saw a user lifecycle effect: as users gain experience, they specialize in editing roads and trails. Our findings suggest more effective ways to organize social production interfaces, compose units of work, and match them to users who want to help.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publicationProceedings of the 5th International AAAI Conference on Weblogs and Social Media, ICWSM 2011
PublisherAAAI press
Pages217-224
Number of pages8
ISBN (Electronic)9781577355052
StatePublished - Jul 17 2011
Externally publishedYes
Event5th International AAAI Conference on Weblogs and Social Media, ICWSM 2011 - Barcelona, Spain
Duration: Jul 17 2011Jul 21 2011

Publication series

NameProceedings of the 5th International AAAI Conference on Weblogs and Social Media, ICWSM 2011

Conference

Conference5th International AAAI Conference on Weblogs and Social Media, ICWSM 2011
Country/TerritorySpain
CityBarcelona
Period7/17/117/21/11

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
Copyright © 2011, Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (www.aaai.org). All rights reserved.

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