On the Analysis of Contributions from Privileged Users in Virtual Open Communities

TitleOn the Analysis of Contributions from Privileged Users in Virtual Open Communities
Publication TypeConference Paper
Year of Publication2009
AuthorsOrtega, F, Izquierdo-Cortázar, D, González-Barahona, JM, Robles, G
Refereed DesignationRefereed
Secondary Title2009 42nd Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences
Pagination1 - 10
PublisherIEEE
Place PublishedWaikoloa, Hawaii, USA
ISBN Number978-0-7695-3450-3
Abstract

Collaborative projects built around virtual communities on the Internet have gained momentum over the last decade. Nevertheless, their rapid growth rate rises some questions:which is the most effective approach to manage and organize their content creation process? Can these communities scale, controlling their projects as their size continues to grow over time? To answer these questions, we undertake a quantitative analysis of privileged users in FLOSS development projects and in Wikipedia. From our results, we conclude that the inequality level of user contributions in both types of initiatives is remarkably distinct, even though both communities present almost identical patterns regard-ing the number of distinct contributors per file (in FLOSS projects) or per article (in Wikipedia). As a result, totally open projects like Wikipedia can effectively deal with faster growing rates, while FLOSS projects may be affected by bottlenecks on committers who play critical roles.

DOI10.1109/HICSS.2009.328
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