This short talk at the FBCamp 2014 in Hamburg gives examples of existing and working incentive systems for knowledge sharing on the internet. We take a look at Wikipedia and Stackoverflow. I analyze them with results from the research field "evolution of cooperation". Advantages and disadvantages of existing systems lead to ideas for improvements.

1. Incentive Systems for
Knowledge Sharing on the Web
Ansgar Grüne, Bonn
FBCamp Hamburg, March, 15, 2014

2. Wikipedia (2001)

3. Wikipedia (2001)
● 31 million articles
● 2.6 billion words
● 287 languages
● very good content
● everything done by volunteers
➔HOW IS THAT POSSIBLE?

4. Evolution of Cooperation
1984 2011

5. Evolution of Cooperation
Five Pillars of Cooperation
(applicable to Wikipedia?)
1. direct reciprocity (X ?)
2. indirect reciprocity (→reputation)
3. group selection (→group feelings)
4. kin selection (X)
5. local / network effects (X)
(Nowak, Science, 2006)

6. Wikipedia: User Access Levels
EDIT CREATE UPLOAD, EDIT
PROTECTED
DELETE,
BLOCK
PROMOTE
USERS
GLOBAL
RIGHTS
unregistered
User
√
new User √ √
autoconfirmed
User (> 4 days,
>10 edits)
√ √ √
Administrator
(request)
√ √ √ √
Bureaucrat
(request)
√ √ √ √ √
Steward
(election)
√ √ √ √ √ √

7. Wikipedia: Reputation not enough?
Quelle: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Active_administrators_vs_active_editors.png

8. ● founded 2008
● question & answer for programming
● 1.9 millionen registered users
● 5.5 million questions
● tagging, up-/down voting, reputation
score

9. Stackoverflow: Some Privileges
Score Privilege
≥ 1 create post
≥ 15 vote up
≥ 125 vote down
≥ 2000
edit all posts
w/o review
≥ 10000
delete
questions
≥ 20000 all privileges

10. Stackoverflow: Some Badges
Bronze Silver Gold Reason
Nice Question
Good
Question
Great
Question
Votes
Popular
Question
Notable
Question
Famous
Question
Views
Nice Answer Good Answer Great Answer Votes
Enthusiast Fanatic
Consecutive
Daily Visits
Mortarboard Epic Legendary
≥ 200 Daily
Reputation

11. Stackoverflow
-
− wrong incentives
− Not democratic enough
(destroys group feeling)
− not open enough
− not pedagogic
− un-answered questions
source for criticism:
http://michael.richter.name/blogs/why-i-no-longer-contribute-to-stackoverflow/
+
+ good incentives
+ lists of top users for
each tag
http://stackoverflow.com/tags/facebook/topusers
+ democratic
+ open

12. Others
− Facebook's like button
− Twitter retweet
− Facebook Questions
− Quora
− Yahoo!Answers
− answers.com
− gutefrage.net
− werweisswas.de
...

13. Ideas
[…]
(Slide removed. Please, contact me if you
are interested in exchanging ideas!)

14. Thank you for your attention!
More ideas, remarks,
hints, opinions,
questions?
Xing, LinkedIn: Ansgar Grüne