This paper addresses whether Wikipedia confirms the "analytic proposition of central importance" that, for functional goods where MC=0, production without property rights--that is, anarchism--produces inherently superior products. While "anarchism" can mean different things to different people in different contexts, "anarchism" in this paper describes a system of creation and/or development that rejects exclusionary rules and traditional systemic mechanisms for limiting the evolution (and therefore improvement) of a product.

Assuming Wikipedia is an inherently superior product according to some agreed-upon metric by which to qualitatively evaluate encyclopedias, the question is whether that superiority is a function of anarchistic production. Though Wikipedia fashions itself as an "open" community in which any user can participate, Wikipedia is distinctly hierarchical. Not only does Wikipedia impose non-trivial costs on participants that discourage participation in the Wikipedia community, it may also dissuade entry into the community in the first place. Moreover, Wikipedia is not simply an aggregation of information, it is also an organization accountable to, among others, the private (often corporate) benefactors that make its non-profit project financially feasible. To the extent Wikipedia relies on interested parties for its continued existence, third parties' expectations and preferences may exert influence over content development in a manner analogous to exclusionary property rights.

Though these aspects of Wikipedia do not necessarily undermine its qualitative superiority, they nevertheless offer reasons to question whether its qualitative superiority may be traced to its anarchism.

Part I

Though Wikipedia rejects the proposition that it is anarchistic, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:What_Wikipedia_is_not#Wikipedia_is_not_an_anarchy, this self-evaluation is not dispositive. It is more helpful to look at Wikipedia's power structure and the barriers to openness embedded within it to determine whether anarchism--that is, the lack of exclusionary rules akin to property rights--is responsible for what Part I assumes is an inherently superior product.

Far from a kumbaya-esque exchange of ideas with large numbers of users' additions and deletions organically resulting in an equilibrium of "truth" (i.e. a Wikipedia entry), Wikipedia is largely edited, monitored and developed by a minority of "volunteer administrators" who, although elected, wield a disproportionate amount of power over the site's content. Unlike the casual or one time editor who briefly enters the Wikipedia community, administrators are endowed with significant powers including deleting articles, locking pages to prevent further edits and even blocking individual users from editing any Wikipedia entry. Jimmy Wales, Wikipedia's founder, admits that Wikipedia is both maintained and monitored by what amounts to a Wikipedia elite: "A lot of people think of Wikipedia as being 10 million people each adding one sentence . . . . But really, the vast majority of the work this done by a small core community." See http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/17/technology/17wiki.html?sq=wikipedia&st=cse&adxnnl=1&scp=8&adxnnlx=1319317899-RipVuooSb4dGJvgPjx+Cuw. Indeed, research shows that about 1% of Wikipedia users account for roughly 50% of edits to the site, see http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2008/02/the_wisdom_of_the_chaperones.html, suggesting that content is largely determined by a select group of repeat players who are both familiar with and integrated into the Wikipedia bureaucracy--a dynamic that only magnifies the minority's editorial control at the expense of most users. Not only does this Wiki elitism dictate (and arguably skew) content development in favor of the preferences and viewpoints of the minority users in administrative positions, it may also erode trust in Wikipedia's "openness" and dissuade users from continuing to edit or entering the community to begin with. As such, it could reduce user's confidence that their edits will survive a self-interested bureaucratic review process, thereby disincentivizing participation in the editing process altogether.

Furthermore, Wikipedia's bureaucratization presents potential editors with additional non-trivial costs to participation. A 2009 Wall Street Journal article explained, 49,000 editors left Wikipedia in the first quarter of 2009--10 times more in the first quarter of 2008--because of the "plethora of rules Wikipedia has adopted to bring order to its unruly universe -- particularly to reduce infighting among contributors about write-ups of controversial subjects and polarizing figures." http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125893981183759969.html. To the extent new editors must understand the Wikipedia power structure, conform to a Manual of Style, adhere to templates, contend with highly motivated and more technologically powerful users, and shape their content in a way that makes its removal and/or alteration less likely, participation in the Wikipedia community involves costs that may have the same exclusionary impact that traditional property rights effect. See http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Power_structure.

Finally, Wikipedia faces operational realities and, as a result, accepts donations from private (often corporate) entities in order to finance its operations. See http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Benefactors. While these donors may not exert direct or overt influence over Wikipedia, they nevertheless impose, indirectly, their expectations and values on Wikipedia. To the extent Wikipedia relies on these entities, its evolution and content presumably face an outer limit of the values and/or expectations of its benefactors. To ensure this outer limit is not breached, the further bureaucratization of Wikipedia appears likely, which carries with it a great risk of exclusionary rules and/or procedures.

Although Wikipedia is not governed by property rights, it is not without exclusionary rules. Taken together, Wikipedia's hierarchical power structure and barriers to participation must, at least, call into question the anarchic roots of its qualitative superiority.