Academic

Hoffman & Mehra on Large Scale Social Production & Wikipedia's Dispute Resolution Process

By Lawrence Solum

David A. Hoffman & Salil Mehra (Temple University - James E. Beasley School of Law) have posted Wikitruth Through Wikiorder on SSRN. Here is the abstract:

How can large-scale social production (LSSP) coordinate individual behavior to produce public goods online? Hardin (1968) suggests that public goods creation in the absence of government or market-enabling institutions will not be possible. Benkler (2006), Shirky (2008), Zittrain (2008), and Lessig (2008) argue that the needed coordination can emerge, through, for example, norm creation. However, the means to this coordination is under-theorized.

We attempt to explain how participants in LSSP can coordinate their behavior. Focusing on Wikipedia, we argue that the site's dispute resolution process is an important force in promoting the public good it produces, i.e., freely-accessible encyclopedia articles. We describe the development and shape of Wikipedia's existing dispute resolution system. Further, we present a statistical analysis based on coding of over 250 arbitration opinions from Wikipedia's arbitration system. The data shows that Wiki-dispute resolution ignores the content of user disputes, instead focusing on user conduct. Based on fairly formalized arbitration findings, we find a high correlation between the conduct found and the remedies ordered. In effect, the system functions not so much to resolve disputes and make peace between conflicting users, but to weed out problematic users while weeding potentially productive users back in to participate.

This interpretation suggests a reconception of LSSP is in order. Specifically, though theories have been built on the conception of LSSP as a solution to the herder problem/multi-player prisoner's dilemma, in fact, we demonstrate that the weeding in function reflects dynamics more accurately captured in coordination games instead. In this way, dispute resolution can provide a constitutive function for the community.

Very interesting & recommended.  Download it while its hot!

Full post as published by Legal Theory Blog on March 31, 2009 (boomark / email).