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Wikimeritocracy

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Wikimeritocracy advocates Wikipedia running as a meritocracy with power and authority being vested in those with demonstrated competence and a track-record of valuable contributions (and, less commonly, verifiable credentials).

Meritocracy based on counting the total number of characters added by an editor to a particular article vs. on counting the total number of edits

In 2006, Aaron Swartz wrote an analysis of how Wikipedia articles are written, and concluded that the bulk of the actual content comes from tens of thousands of occasional contributors, or "outsiders", each of whom may not make many other contributions to the site, while a core group of 500 to 1,000 regular editors tend to correct spelling and other formatting errors.[1] According to Swartz: "the formatters aid the contributors, not the other way around."[1][2] His conclusions, based on the analysis of edit histories of several randomly selected articles, contradicted the opinion of Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales, who believed the core group of regular editors were providing most of the content while thousands of others contributed to formatting issues. Swartz came to his conclusions by counting the total number of characters added by an editor to a particular article, while Wales counted the total number of edits.[1]

In spite of this, on Wikipedia meritocracy only rewards contributors with the highest number of edits:

References

  1. a b c Swartz, Aaron (September 4, 2006). "Who Writes Wikipedia?". Raw Thought. Archived from the original on August 3, 2014. Retrieved January 12, 2013. 
  2. Blodget, Henry (January 3, 2009). "Who The Hell Writes Wikipedia, Anyway?". Business Insider. Retrieved January 12, 2013.