Community, consensus, coercion, control: cs*w or how policy mediates mass participation

Abstract

When large groups cooperate, issues of conflict and control surface because of differences in perspective. Managing such diverse views is a persistent problem in cooperative group work. The Wikipedian community has responded with an evolving body of policies that provide shared principles, processes, and strategies for collaboration. We employ a grounded approach to study a sample of active talk pages and examine how policies are employed as contributors work towards consensus. Although policies help build a stronger community, we find that ambiguities in policies give rise to power plays. This lens demonstrates that support for mass collaboration must take into account policy and power.