Online Communities: Wikipedia

One of my research interests is the creation, care and feeding of Internet communities. One of my colleagues, Tommy Milford, and I have pursued this topic since 1996. He has created some successful online communities in a social work context. I have been involved in the Southwestern Psychological Association's efforts to move to online system for managing the association's business including program submissions, membership, and communication. So, we have had some practical experience with online communities and their benefits and problems.

The recent success of Wikipedia, then, is all the more impressive to us. When we wrote Using the Internet for Social Science Research and Practice in 1996, we had to search hard to find useful sites within the social science disciplines in order to compile a little more than 200 pages, about half of those pages listing websites. If we rewrote that book today, it would easily run over a thousand pages. Also, we would find Wikipedia pages near the top of all of our searches. That phenomenon, the high Google pagerank of Wikipedia pages, is fairly new. Impressive, too, is the wide variety of topics covered by Wikipedia.

Here's my idea. I'm thinking about starting a new Wikipedia topic: Postwar changing points in the American automotive industry. I have not checked to see if this topic is already on Wikipedia, but I will. I got the idea while riding around in my new-to-me 1976 Chevrolet pick up truck. It is the latest in a long line of Chevy/GMC trucks that I have owned over the years. I've owned a '49 GMC, '50 GMC, '52 Chevy, and a '55 Chevy (first series). A not-yet-running '52 Ford F-1 currently resides in our carport. Unlike my earlier trucks, the '76 has air conditioning, power steering, automatic transmission, two-speed wipers, and a big V-8. (It does not have a cupholder.) The Wikipedia article would argue that immediately after World War II, American automakers basically released warmed over prewar models. Gradually, they improved their designs. In 1955, for example, Chevrolet released a modern V-8. From that point on, more innovations followed including electric windshield wipers, air conditioning, power steering, and so on.

The data in this case would come from monitoring the article. How long before it is modified? How many readers? Not to mention adding another topic to Wikipedia.