A central theme during the first-half of our semester was that for functional goods where MC = 0, anarchic production produces inherently superior products. We defined "anarchic production" as production without property rights, which are fundamentally exclusionary and therefore a barrier to superior production, and Wikipedia was offered to the class as proof of this analytic proposition.

I argue that notwithstanding its lack of property rights, Wikipedia has exclusionary features that result in exclusionary consequences mirroring those property rights produce. While this exclusion does not cut against Wikipedia's qualitative superiority, it raises the question whether Wikipedia's content production is truly "anarchic." At this point, a fair critique is that it is improper to define "anarchy" as the absence of property rights and then test its existsence by reference to some other quantity. But, a better definition of "anarchic production" takes into account the presence or absence of some exclusion beyond that created by property rights. A narrower definition gives rise to the possibility of "anarchic production" that is nevertheless extremely exclusionary--for example, under the narrow definition, a system without property rights that allowed only persons of a certain race to contribute would be expected to produce inherently superior products. This is facially problematic.

Property rights are relevant to the analytic proposition because they exclude potential participants by imposing non-trivial costs on them. Wikipedia's bureaucracy and rules have comparable exclusionary effects for similar reasons. While it is a legitimate question where the outer boundary of relevant exclusion sits, I argue that the exclusionary features discussed herein do not cross this line.

To begin, there is evidence of growing exclusion of non-prolific and new editors. During the global slowdown in the number of Wikipedia edits, which started in early 2007, the "middle class"; of editors (Wikipedians who make 2-999 edits per month), not high-frequency editors (Wikipedians who make 1000 or more edits per month), reduced its edits at the highest rates. More interestingly, the percentage of new edits reverted increased over the same period of time notwithstanding the drop in overall edits. Indeed, excluding vandalism-related and bot reverts, low-frequency or occasional editors experienced the greatest resistance--"since 2003, edits from occasional editors have been reverted in a higher rate than edits from prolific editors," and "this disparity of treatment . . . has been widening steadily over the years at the expense of low-frequency editors." Beyond these numbers, there are other indicators of growing resistance: the total number of blocked IP addresses and pages deleted increased during this time, as did the number of protected or semi-protected entries.

Though these trends could be unrelated to Wikipedia's bureaucratization, unequal content production and complex rules, there are reasons to believe the contrary.

Not only are editors a fairly homogonous group, which by itself suggests some exclusionary forces at play, but a small minority of Wikipedians make the bulk of site's edits and contribute the lion's share of site content (p. 276). Moreover, a small group of Wikipedia bureaucrats--usually prolific editors themselves--wield influential powers such as deleting articles, protecting pages from future edits and blocking IP addresses altogether. The result is a classic conflict of interest.

Editors who contribute the most have the greatest "skin in the game" and are highly motivated given the time and effort they devote to Wikipedia. But, these are also the people who have the technical know-how and bureaucratic power to impose non-trivial, exclusionary costs on new and infrequent participants. For example, an inexperienced user can contest the deletion of a new entry, but "debates about the merits of articles often drag on for weeks, draining energy and taking up far more space than the entries themselves. Such deliberations involve volleys of arcane internal acronyms and references to obscure policies and guidelines, such as . . . . The result is that novices can quickly get lost in Wikipedia's Kafkaesque bureaucracy."

Indeed, “deletionism” [link to Wikipedia] has become a cause célèbre for many prolific editors and administrators. In contrast to “inclusionists,” deletionists favor stricter standards for accepting entries and place greater importance on the “objective significance” of suggested additions to the encyclopedia. [Cite to Economist]. As Andrew Lih, a long-time editor and administrator explained after noticing the deletion of entries on the first ombudsperson for PBS and the now-defunct Pownce.com, “It’s as if there is a Soup Nazi culture now in Wikipedia. There are throngs of deletion happy users . . . tossing out customers and articles if they don’t comply to some new prickly hard-nosed standard.” [Cite to Lih].

Even if Suh et al.’s data suggest deletionists are winning the “battle for Wikipedia’s soul,” [Cite to Suh and Economist], it is important to discuss why this is the case.

First, deletionists have forced out a not insignificant number of prolific inclusionist-minded contributors who became increasingly discouraged by the shift in Wikipedia’s mentality. [Cite to Missing Wikipedians]. While the first order consequence here is the exclusion of these Wikipedians, the second order—and equally important—effect is depriving new and infrequent contributors of savvy Wikipedian allies in the fight against overzealous deletions.

Second, deletionists can leverage the proliferations of Wiki rules to amplify the costs new and infrequent users face. For instance, I recently edited the Wikipedia page for the Hobbs Act—as a tech-unsavvy Wikipedia novice, I found it difficult to understand how to properly cite and reference secondary sources, and I eventually resorted to citing cases as one would in a traditional legal brief. If my edits are deleted or challenged on this ground, much less a more complex one, I will have a difficult time adequately responding or adjusting my entry notwithstanding its substantive merits.

Thomas Hou noted in response to my solicitation on our Twiki that having one’s edits subsequently edited is a slight disincentive to future participation—this could be due to the costs in time, knowledge and energy it takes to contest the edits or deletion and the negative psychological feelings that accompany what one perceives as “unjust” edits. This disincentive is magnified, however, by an editorial process that unequally rejects the work of non-prolific contributors—as Wikipedia’s reputation shifts from egalitarian and open to deletionist and unequal, its credibility among potential and current non-prolific editors will erode.

Though Wikipedia content production is non-exclusionary in the sense that property rights do not determine who contributes, it is not without exclusionary features. While this Paper does not address whether this exclusion detracts from or enhances Wikipedia’s quality, it argues that, taken together, Wikipedia’s elaborate bureaucracy, unequal content production, increasingly complex rules and deletionist tendencies combine to raise the costs of participation for non-prolific and new contributors. This effect should at least give us pause before crediting Wikipedia’s anarchic roots with its qualitative superiority.

Wikipedia: Anarchy or Hierarchy?