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With an emphasis on peer–produced content and collaboration, Wikipedia exemplifies a departure from traditional management and organizational models. This iconic "project" has been variously characterized as a hive mind and an information revolution, attracting millions of new users even as it has been denigrated as anarchic and plagued by misinformation. Have Wikipedia's structure and inner workings promoted its astonishing growth and enduring public relevance? In Common Knowledge?, Dariusz Jemielniak draws on his academic expertise and years of active participation within the Wikipedia community to take readers inside the site, illuminating how it functions and deconstructing its distinctive organization. Against a backdrop of misconceptions about its governance, authenticity, and accessibility, Jemielniak delivers the first ethnography of Wikipedia, revealing that it is not entirely at the mercy of the public: instead, it balances open access and power with a unique bureaucracy that takes a page from traditional organizational forms. Along the way, Jemielniak incorporates fascinating cases that highlight the tug of war among the participants as they forge ahead in this pioneering environment.

Organizational sociology. --- Electronic encyclopedias --- Encyclopedias and dictionaries --- Interactive encyclopedias --- Multimedia encyclopedias --- Online encyclopedias --- Electronic publications --- Electronic reference sources --- Organization (Sociology) --- Organization theory --- Sociology of organizations --- Sociology --- Bureaucracy --- Social aspects. --- Wikipedia. --- Organizational sociology --- Social aspects --- E-books

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Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia, is built by a community - a community of Wikipedians who are expected to "assume good faith" when interacting with one another. In Good Faith Collaboration, Joseph Reagle examines this unique collaborative culture. Wikipedia, says Reagle, is not the first effort to create a freely shared, universal encyclopedia; its early twentieth-century ancestors include Paul Otlet's Universal Repository and H.G. Wells's proposal for a World Brain. Both these projects, like Wikipedia, were fuelled by new technology-which at the time included index cards and microfilm. What distinguishes Wikipedia from these and other more recent ventures is Wikipedia's good faith collaborative culture, as seen not only in the writing and editing of articles but also in their discussion pages and edit histories. Keeping an open perspective on both knowledge claims and other contributors, Reagle argues, creates an extraordinary collaborative potential. Wikipedia is famously an encyclopedia "anyone can edit," and Reagle examines Wikipedia's openness and several challenges to it: technical features that limit vandalism to articles; private actions to mitigate potential legal problems; and Wikipedia's own internal bureaucratization. He explores Wikipedia's process of consensus (reviewing a dispute over naming articles on television shows) and examines the way leadership and authority work in an open content community. Wikipedia's style of collaborative production has been imitated, analyzed, and satirized. Despite the social unease over its implications for individual autonomy, institutional authority, and the character (and quality) of cultural products, Wikipedia's good faith collaborative culture has brought us closer than ever to a realization of the century-old pursuit of a universal encyclopedia."--Jacket.

Electronic encyclopedias --- Wikis (Computer science) --- Communication in learning and scholarship --- Authorship --- Online social networks --- Encyclopédies électroniques --- Wikis (Informatique) --- Communication savante --- Coauteurs --- Réseautage personnel (Informatique) --- Congresses --- Technological innovations --- Collaboration --- Case studies --- Congrès --- Innovations --- Cas, Etudes de --- Wikipedia. --- Case studies. --- Electronic social networks --- Social networking Web sites --- Virtual communities --- Social media --- Social networks --- Sociotechnical systems --- Web sites --- Authoring (Authorship) --- Writing (Authorship) --- Literature --- Communication in scholarship --- Scholarly communication --- Learning and scholarship --- WikiForums --- WikiWikiWebs --- Forums (Discussion and debate) --- Encyclopedias and dictionaries --- Interactive encyclopedias --- Multimedia encyclopedias --- Online encyclopedias --- Electronic publications --- Electronic reference sources --- Communities, Online (Online social networks) --- Communities, Virtual (Online social networks) --- Online communities (Online social networks) --- Library and information services --- Information technology: general topics --- Impact of science and technology on society