Thesis for a Diploma in Applied Systems Science
(submitted on January 20th, 2006)

Civic Involvement in Virtual Communities?
A Systematic Study of the German Wikipedia-Project

Department of Mathematics/Computer Science
Ingo Frost
ifrost@uos.de
www.cogsci.uos.de/~ifrost

Abstract

WIKIPEDIA

Wikipedia has become the most extensive encyclopedia within the
last four years, after having succeeded to motivate enough
volunteers to take part in the project to build a freely-accessible,
multi- language, virtual encyclopedia.
Paradoxically, Wikipedia can be compared to other printed encyclopedias,
despite the fact that it is written by mainly non-expert volunteers and
that every article may be freely changed and added to without special
permission.
An aspect of the project that explains this is Wikipedia's virtual
community, a non-hierachrical, virtual readership, who together create
a common review process.

RESEARCH

Preliminary studies of Wikipedia from four fields are presented and
discussed: socialpsychology, in the form of empirical studies of
Wikipedia and a well-known Open Source Project; journalism, in the
context of virtually participatory journalism; economics, analysis
and classification of the (information) product; and computer science,
particularly, the data analysis of Wikipedia and the developermodel
"open source software" and its application to "open content".

PERSPECTIVES

While Alexis de Tocqueville in 1835 emphasized the commitment of the
citizens as the defining factor of democracy, later works espoused a
procedural and institutional perspective of democracy as an object of
the state.
Today, two thirds of all Germans are engaged in civic activities (cf.
Freiwilligensurvey: Berhard von Rosenbladt (2000)), enabling in many
areas the democratic ideal of self-government: all that can be organized
by the people themselves is more and more organized by them
independently.
This type of involvement follows certain norms and principles, that
arise with unforeseen virility in virtual spaces like Wikipedia.
Thus, the relation of virtual society to voluntary work and voluntary
organization outside of the internet is examined.

METHODS

After a thorough presentation of the Internet encyclopedia Wikipedia
as well as relevant studies, I present my analysis of Wikipedia from
the perspective of civic involvement applied to virtual communities.
I examine Wikipedia as a virtual community, comparing it to registered
clubs (in Germany: eingetragene Vereine) and organizations and general
civic participation in three different ways:
(1) using a model of the structure of the decision processes; 
(2) using a measurement of social capital (from the perspective of Wikipedia
as a club or organization) and participations intensity (from the perspective
of Wikipedia as an involvement-project); and 
(3) posing parallels between studies of sociology and political science.
Thus, societal effects and political implications of the information age
will be revealed: a community that regulates itself communally and
solves problems communally is the archetype of a social system, and
simultaneously, a fundamental principal of democracy.
The boundaries of this general topic under discussion come together in
Wikipedia, as all communicational, organizational, and production
related processes run entirely on the Wikipedia platform, on which all
files since the projects inception are available to all.

RESULTS

It is shown that civic activities and involvement with Wikipedia have
large overlap in the: motivations behind participation, the structural
aspects of the participation, and from societal standpoint, related to
social capital and social trust.
Particular to Wikipedia are: the lack of a planning phase, simplifying
many initial steps, as well as the fact that in contrast to clubs and
organizations, the interaction between participants is businesslike and
relatively anonymous.

Generally, it can be concluded that Wikipedia shows that despite high
numbers of participants, each person can take part in every aspect of
the project with equal voice.
Wikipedia documents knowledge democratically and can be viewed as
socially self-organized.
Additionally, Wikipedia clearly reflects markers of our own society:
individualism, open participation, and aspects of the information
society, improving access to open knowledge.