CAREER: New Approaches to Managing Lifecycles of Digital Knowledge Commons

本研究旨在了解和开发一组非常困难的问题的补救措施，这些问题面临对等生产信息资源，并使许多人无法实现最初为他们设定的高目标。像维基百科这样的数字知识共享、开源软件和Reddit这样的协同过滤系统产生了巨大的社会和经济价值，并成为关键的信息基础设施。在许多最重要的同行产生的知识公地推出几十年后，许多公地受到了破坏行为、虚假信息活动和一系列特殊利益集团的攻击。与此同时，许多主要以志愿者为基础的团体维持着成熟的社区，多年来成员数量一直稳定或减少。一项研究表明，这些下降模式至少在一定程度上是由于公地对贡献越来越封闭。在社会计算和社会科学研究的基础上，本研究将研究为什么知识共享越来越多地拒绝志愿者的工作，并分析这些社区应该如何构建自己，以更好地管理增长。在此过程中，这项工作将促进我们对集体行动、公共产品和共同资源治理之间关系的总体理解。该项目将分为四个部分，试图(1)建立一个理论框架来解释为什么在线社区遵循规律的增长和下降模式；(2)对维基、开源软件和协同过滤网站进行一系列实证研究。利用前两部分的见解，本工作将寻求(3)确定一套有效管理知识共享中生命周期的策略。最后，这项工作将(4)创建工具和数据集，以帮助研究人员和从业者管理在线社区生命周期。这项工作将与社区管理人员密切合作进行，并通过一系列以外展为重点的会议、讲习班和信息资源以及通过学术出版物和大学课程进行传播。知识共享的管理者可以使用本研究中开发的策略，在整个社区的生命周期中，在开放和封闭之间进行权衡。通过更好地支持对等生产组织的工作，这项工作最广泛的影响是它将对几乎所有依赖对等生产软件和信息来开展业务和个人生活的互联网用户产生间接影响。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This research seeks to understand and develop remedies for a set of very difficult problems that face peer production information resources and that have kept many from achieving high goals that were originally set for them. Digital knowledge commons like Wikipedia, open source software, and collaborative filtering systems like Reddit produce enormous social and economic value and serve as critical information infrastructure. Decades after many of the most important peer produced knowledge commons were launched, many are under attack by vandalism, disinformation campaigns, and a range of special interests. At the same time, many of the largely volunteer-based groups who sustain mature communities have been stable in membership or shrinking for years. A body of research suggests that these patterns of decline are due, at least in part, to commons becoming increasingly closed to contributions. Integrating and building on a body of social computing and social scientific research, this research will study why knowledge commons increasingly reject the work of volunteers and analyze how these communities should structure themselves to better manage growth. In doing so, the work will advance our general understanding of the relationship between collective action, public goods, and common pool resource governance.In four parts, the project will attempt to (1) develop a theoretical framework to explain why online communities follow regular patterns of growth and decline and (2) conduct a series of empirical studies of wikis, open source software, and collaborative filtering sites. Using insights from the first two parts, the work will seek to (3) identify a set of strategies for the effective management of lifecycles in a knowledge commons. Finally, the work will (4) create tools and datasets to help researchers and practitioners manage online community lifecycles. This work will be conducted in close collaboration with community managers and disseminated through a series of outreach-focused meetings, workshops, and information resources as well as through scholarly publications and university classes. Managers of knowledge commons can use the strategies developed in this research to navigate tradeoffs between openness and closure across their communities' lifecycles. By better supporting the work of peer production organizations, the broadest impacts of this work are the indirect effects it will have on nearly all Internet users who rely on peer produced software and information to conduct their business and personal lives.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.