How do Wikipedians form consensus?

Wikipedians use various tools to help one another gather their knowledge of an object, subject or issue and mesh together the information to provide one full entry. Without these tools, contributing to Wikipedia would become more difficult, because of lack of organisation.

When an individual wishes to contribute to an entry, they can simply select the edit button above the article and begin to add, submit or alter slighty any content they believed should be altered. However, this can become troublesome if a person does not know previous edits to the pages, which could mean that their content is removed cause it already was posted and removed before.

This is one of the reasons that Wikipedia provides users with a discussion board and edit history on every entry. When a user wishes to edit an article, they are able to enter the discussion board to view what people have done, what people believe should be included, what members need to find (such as an image or more information on a specific topic) and anything that should be discussed before being submitted into the entry. The edit history also permits others to view previous edits and compare older entries to view how the entry has evolved and also gain insight into any content that is removed numerous times .

With tools like these in place, contributors are able to organise their information and gain a better knowledge of previous activities that have done on before for entries.

How do communities evaluate quality?

Many online communities use various tools to judge the quality of content uploaded to their site. The main source of evalution are approvals of the content by mass users, due to the similiar interests a community holds, therefore usually liking the same material. However, communal evaluation does not work in communities where a broad audience is catered for, though there are online societies which have implemented tools to help in finding quality or interesting material.

Most websites provide a system that allow users to rate content using a star or 'like it/don't like it' system. People can find this when using YouTube to find specific clips. After a search, YouTube will provide an array of clips believed to relate to the content searched for. Users usually select video clips that have a high star rating, because the youtube community has already voted that this video is worth watching. The star system is often used on internet to evaluate the quality of content.

Other systems involve a scale, such as those used in Newgrounds for finding the most popular games, toons and movies submitted by the community. Information aggregator Digg uses the 'share' and 'bury' options for its members to choose between and Current TV to select between 'like' or 'nope' to let the the most interesting stories rise to the top to be broadcast. All of these use a rating system to help find the content that a lot of users wish to view and others that take little interest. The main condition for a system like this is that there is a large enough community to represent fairer evaluations of the content in use. While this system could be manipulated as well, it usually works well in finding content on websites because of this extensive approval process.

The Rise of the Opinion

Where ever there is a news story, there are always multiple opinions on the issues raised from the article. Individuals often forge judgment on beliefs and knowledge they have previously obtained, however numerous opinions are unheard, due to the lack of connection between others and traditional media usually presenting the majority view to the public. If minority opinions wish to have their beliefs voiced, there is a long process of publishing and distributing it to the mass audiences, which still may not help their message be well received. The online environment however, has changed these inconveniences to accommodate for multiple views to be posted easily and not be marginalised. This can be seen in the online community DeviantART, where art related events can cause a huge stir and cause members express their opinions on the subject.

A recent example of this was the communities’ reaction to a new law that may be implemented this year. The Shawn Bentley Orphan Works Act of 2008 makes two significant changes for the online art environment. Firstly, individuals who locate an artwork online but are unable to find the artist’s signature or an author on the website it originates from are permitted to use it because it is considered an ‘orphaned work’. Secondly, the bill considers a database of electronic artworks that artists must register for to have their works copyrighted with a fee, unlike the current system where art is automatically covered by copyright as soon as it is created online. In the DeviantART community, this caused many artists to post News articles or express their opinions in their individual journals. Multiple opinions emerged from this outcry, most being against this bill because it allowed persons to use their artworks without permission if they did not register their artworks to be copyrighted. Others viewed this concern over the bill as unneeded because there were no official sources that could be confirm the bill existing as the current time. There is also another opinion that artists would benefit from such a law if it was passed. This event demonstrates how the online environment permits self-expression of particular views, inhibiting no perspectives on topics, allowing others to form their opinions on the issue as they please.

A similar incident on DeviantART occurred when a co-founder of the community, jark , was removed from the main administration team in the community. Many members of the website were shocked at the sudden termination, due to his large involvement with the community on a daily basis. Both sides submitted articles on the events that occurred and an outcry was heard from the community being unhappy with the results of these events. Many posted in their journals to support jark, which were heard by the administration team. Members also expressed their views in other ways, not only writing about their discontent with jark’s departure from the team, but many also changed their avatars to include yellow bands or an alien symbol (jark’s avatar being a yellow alien). This visually represented their beliefs to other artists, who were encouraged to submit yellow artworks or no art on the 5^th Birthday of the online community to present their unhappiness to the DeviantART team. This incident presents how the community was able to convey their opinions, and demonstrates how opinions were not silenced by those who would wish their views were not heard.

The online environment allows opinions and perspectives to be heard where they would otherwise be marginalised to suit those who publish media traditionally. From this, multiple opinions can arise and show the diversity of views within a community on a particular topic. Contributors are also consented to communicate their dislikes to others even though that may not be in the favour of others who moderate community activities. The internet is a medium where voices are heard and treated equally, providing new insight into the true range of feelings that people have about particular issues affecting their society.

How does open source work (as an example of community produsage) different from commercial production?

Open source software develpment releases the hold that companies have over their products. Open source can be seen an example of produsage in how it incorporate its community to become involved with its projects to improve the service it provides for the benefit of all.

Source code was originally shared amongst programmers in the beginning of computer technology, however, as the computer evolved into a personal home item, corporations began to conceal their work from others, in turn not allowing others to offer their knowledge to their projects. This causes problems in a variety of ways. With a corporate identity, goals are mainly towards releasing a final product, which in most cases, it used for three to five years before being replaced by a revised version. During this time, multiple problems and dislikes can emerge, however usually users are unable to change these because of accessibility constraits and usually unable to contact the creators about their suggested improvements.

Open source software development has been described as "development method for software that harnesses the power of distributed peer review and transparency of process" and works on a different model to that of software production. Participants of any nature are able to contribute to the project due to the reliance on the community to improve the service. Those involed release any reservations on their work, instead sharing it with others to seek opinions and ask for help on queries. In this scenario, revisions are constantly being made on content to make it better and benefit the community intentions. Since this leads to projects being never entirely completed, updates are often sent out to users so that they are able to have any complications resolved and always providing users with the latest revisions of the service. Any problems that do arise are able to be addressed straight away by the community to prevent others from having the same problems.

What are the differences between commercial production and community produsage?

There are various differences that can be found between these two methods of creating content.

Production can be defined as "the creation of value or wealth by producing goods and services", where companies will create a product, that can usually be consumed by the public, from raw materials. These products are usually considered the 'final product', for once they are given to the mass audiences they are no longer able to be altered until the next revision of that product is released, which can be some time. The creation of products to the end user is a linear process, beginning at the producers, before being given to distributors to give to the public. End users usually have little contact with producers and therefore can't suggest improvements back to the producer. Products also have an finite supply, therefore once a product is bought, that specific product is no longer available to others, meaning they have to find another copy of the same product.

Produsage is a term to describe a new development in content creation, with a working definition of being "the collaborative and continuous building and extending of existing content in pursuit of further improvement". Produsage can be seen in the online environment amongst communities, who provide services where participants are permited to reuse and remix previous content. In this model, there is linear process that content goes through, instead content is available to all to view share. If users believe there are problems or difficulties with the content, they are then able to contribute their knowledge or opinion into it to improve it for the benefit of the community.

It is unknown where the community produsage will lead us in the future, however with the trends of making content more available online and traditional media creating digital counterparts of their products, there may be a rise in the use of produsage in the future.