AbstractsLanguage, Literature & Linguistics

What motivates and restricts chinese Wikipedians to contribute to english Wikipedia?

by F (Feiran) Huang




Institution: University of Oulu
Department:
Year: 2016
Keywords: Information Processing Science
Posted: 02/05/2017
Record ID: 2063785
Full text PDF: http://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:oulu-201605221860


Abstract

Wikipedia, world’s biggest and most popular online encyclopedia, contains more than 26 million articles in over 280 languages, behind which are contributors voluntarily dedicating their time and effort. Hence, the Wikipedia contributors' motivations have been a popular topic in academic researches. According to the prior studies, people contribute to Wikipedia entries are motivated by altruism, reputation and enjoyment. However, researches on the motivation and restrictions of Chinese Wikipedia users contributing to Wikipedia articles in English still remains blank. To bridge this gap, this study aims to explore and address the motivations and restrictions of Chinese Wikipedians contributing to the English version of Wikipedia articles. This study was an explorative case study with the data and interviews contributed by four Chinese Wikipedians. The main findings were divided into two domains: motivations and restrictions. To be more detailed, Chinese Wikipedians are motivated by altruism, reputation, self-development and improvement of content quality. Meanwhile, they are driven by restrictions such as the blockage of access to Wikipedia in Chinese language from the mainland of China, and the limited source of articles in Chinese. The findings of this study contribute to the research on cross-linguistic participation: people contributing to Wikipedia in a language other than their mother language. In addition, the findings could be helpful for future researches on the Internet blockage in China.