It seems to be an accepted fact that social media sites are powered by an inexactly quantified Creative Minority.  Such people are the lifeblood of communities like Spotstory and we spend a lot of time trying to understand what really motivates such folks.

In that light, I found this post by Dave Winer about his recent attempt to update Wikipedia interesting:

The first [article I edited] was about the MacArthur Maze. It had already been updated to include the outage, I just fixed some typos, and rearranged the words so they flowed better. Then I decided to link to my page of links about the news, expecting that would be reverted in a few days at most as the full story was documented, but it was reverted within minutes, as were all my other edits.

I’ve had the same thing happen to me, not on Wikipedia (or Spotstory!), but on another site where text is collaboratively created.  In my edit, I’d actually only changed a little bit of white space!

In both Dave’s case and my own, the reversion was executed very quickly, without any kind of discussion, and only ”undid change” as commentary.  I suspect, in both situations, the revision was made by a full-time citizen of the community, and not a more casual contributor.

It seems to me the motivation in these cases is owning turf–I’m open to alternative explanations–and in the end that’s pretty anti-social (and not very creative).

I’m sure most people are motivated to contribute by more than one impulse, but I’d still be interested to understand the relative occurrence of each.

How many folks primarily contribute so they’ll have some turf to defend?  Or because they’ve got a passion for the subject matter?  How many because they enjoy being part of a community or feel it’s some kind of social duty? Are many motivated by a sense of accomplishment?  For what portion is it just ego?

I’d be interested to hear your thoughts.

It seems to be an accepted fact that social media sites are powered by an inexactly quantified Creative Minority.  Such people are the lifeblood of communities like Spotstory and we spend a lot of time trying to understand what really motivates such folks.

In that light, I found this post by Dave Winer about his recent attempt to update Wikipedia interesting:

The first [article I edited] was about the MacArthur Maze. It had already been updated to include the outage, I just fixed some typos, and rearranged the words so they flowed better. Then I decided to link to my page of links about the news, expecting that would be reverted in a few days at most as the full story was documented, but it was reverted within minutes, as were all my other edits.

I’ve had the same thing happen to me, not on Wikipedia (or Spotstory!), but on another site where text is collaboratively created.  In my edit, I’d actually only changed a little bit of white space!

In both Dave’s case and my own, the reversion was executed very quickly, without any kind of discussion, and only ”undid change” as commentary.  I suspect, in both situations, the revision was made by a full-time citizen of the community, and not a more casual contributor.

It seems to me the motivation in these cases is owning turf–I’m open to alternative explanations–and in the end that’s pretty anti-social (and not very creative).

I’m sure most people are motivated to contribute by more than one impulse, but I’d still be interested to understand the relative occurrence of each.

How many folks primarily contribute so they’ll have some turf to defend?  Or because they’ve got a passion for the subject matter?  How many because they enjoy being part of a community or feel it’s some kind of social duty? Are many motivated by a sense of accomplishment?  For what portion is it just ego?

I’d be interested to hear your thoughts.