Despite an explosion of scholarly interest in social media platforms and projects like Wikipedia, YouTube, and Digg, a yawning chasm persists in reconciling existing theories and assumptions about what motivates user contributions with observed behavior. I argue for a shift away from conceptualizing contributions to social media projects as altruistic, reciprocity seeking, or other concatenation of intrinsic and extrinsic motivations towards understanding the participants in these projects as gamers. This paper examines the evolution of Nupedia into Wikipedia to demonstrate how early policy choices affected the ability for the participatory environment to assume ludic properties. The case offers an example of how the misattribution of motivation or failure to anticipate these ludic imperatives can undermine editors’ motivations to contribute as well as the implications of designing environments and communities that engender and reproduce a ludic space.

1. Are Wikipedians Really Gamers?
A ludological perspective on motivations to participate in
social media
Brian Keegan
Program in Media, Technology, and Society
School of Communication
Northwestern University

2. Do the mechanisms that make games “fun”
also motivate contributions to online
communities?

3. Munroe, “Duty Calls.” xkcd.org/386/

4. Outline
• Why did Nupedia fail, but Wikipedia succeed?
• How do existing motivational theories fall short?
• Can games inform design of better mechanisms?

5. What was Nupedia?
• Open-source web encyclopedia founded by Jimbo
Wales and Larry Sanger in March 2000
• Strong emphasis on rigorous expert peer-review
• 7-step editorial process, 5 distinct roles contingent upon
qualifications, content management on listservs & web services
• 9 articles after 9 months, 25 articles after 21 months
• Atonality, Hydatius, Irish traditional music, SNOBOL 4,
polymerase chain reaction, foot-and-mouth disease, Charles S.
Pierce, quasispecies model, plasmids
• A “wiki-pedia” launched in January 2001 to deal with
content drought, generates 600 articles in two weeks
• Nupedia folds in March 2002, Wikipedia has over
20,000 articles by then in English alone

6. Whither success?
• Centralization of project management, elitist emphasis
on credentialed expertise, bureaucratic rules all
contributed to Nupedia’s failure (Poe 2006, Shirky 2006)
• But it probably was not very fun
• But why did Wikipedia succeed?
• No strong leadership or social identity
• Fundamental mission remained same as Nupedia
• Preponderance of rules
• Pervasive public goods problem
• Contributing was more fun?

7. Wikipedia paradox
• Why does anyone contribute to it?
• Does not provide a community for disseminating opinions
(Usenet, blogs, etc.)
• Does not fulfill imperative for relationship management and
interpersonal communication (Facebook, Twitter, etc.)
• Does not provide an outlet and community for hobbyists to
share their art (Flickr, YouTube, etc.)
• Writing encyclopedias was never a popular hobby or social
activity
• Survey of Wikipedia editors demonstrates “fun”
strongest predictor of motivation to contribution and
best-correlated with contribution level (Nov 2007)

8. Despair?
• How do we design systems that motivate individuals to
have fun?
• We make games!
• Do non-games have design features that encourage participants
to approach it as a game?
• If so, can we use ludic mechanisms to design features and
motivate contributions to online communities?

9. WHERE’S THE FUN IN
EXISTING THEORIES?

10. Intrinsic & extrinsic motivations
• Intrinsic
• Self-acceptance, personal growth, social identity, helpfulness
• “I want to do it”
• Extrinsic
• Success, recognition, image
• “I ought to do it”

11. Wikipedia culture: extrinsic?
• Wikipedians as collectivists
• Mutually-assigned identity defined in terms of solidarity,
coercision, duties, and reputation  strong external motivations
• Userboxes, enforcement, WikiProjects, bureaucratic roles

12. Wikipedia culture: intrinsic?
• Wikipedians as individualists
• Volunteers motivated by autonomy, shared interests, curiosity,
enjoyment  strong internal motivations
• Anonymous edits, solo editors, bounded interaction with other
hobbyists, no accreditationprofessional barriers, wide audience
Because Wikipedia exhibits elements of both individualism
and collectivism, the intrinsic-extrinsic distinction omits
complex interacting motivations to participate

13. Motivational theories
Examples Antecedents Consequences Shortcomings
Well-being Self-determination,
flow, uses &
gratification
Autonomy,
congruence of skills &
challenges, needs,
interest
Intrinsic: Happiness,
enjoyment,
gratification, self-realization
Subjective outcomes,
individually-determined
Knowledge
-sharing
Management
information systems,
functionalism
Tenure, trust,
reciprocity,
acceptance,
integration
Extrinsic: Success,
recognition, skill
development
May not apply to
large, decentralized,
diverse, volunteer
communities
Social
dilemmas
Public goods,
commons
Limited resources,
conflicting incentives,
externalities
Participatory rule-making,
enforcement,
dispute resolution
Coercive, non-competitive,
non-experiential
Social
identity
Common identity,
social bonds
Categorization,
intergroup
comparison,
interaction, similarity
Normative conformity,
participation,
tolerance, openness,
robustness
Attention overload,
deindividuation, plural
interests & identities
in large communities
Ludic ? Preparation, rules,
mechanics, abilities,
skill
Feedback, sensation,
fellowship, discovery,
expression, dominion
Reductionist,
deterministic

14. LUDOLOGY

15. Games as conflicts
• Games are fundamentally interpersonal (Crawford 1984)
• Employing abilities and skill to prevail against an opponent doing the
same generates emergent feedback and unique challenges
• Intensity of interaction (collaboration or conflict) is well-correlated with
gratification
• Mastery problem:
• Expert players cannot benefit from trivial challenges
• Inexpert players must be motivated to continue playing
• Fun comes from challenges at margin of ability
• Challenges must be persistent, novel, and well-matched to skill
• Failure should have a cost, but also motivate iteration rather than
abandonment
• What’s the central conflict in Wikipedia?
• Making your contributions last!

16. Wikipedia’s ludic aesthetics
• Games assume many possible aesthetic goals that
constitute “fun” (Hunicke, LeBlanc, Zubec)
• Sensation: changes can be immediate and drastic
• Fantasy: Imagine themselves as encyclopedists, good
samaritans, etc.
• Narrative: Appealing to precedent and consensus to justify
contributions
• Challenge: Ensuring a contribution will remain permanent or
opinion will prevail
• Fellowship: Disputes and discussion resolved by consensus-formation
 rally the troops!
• Discovery: Random article walks and serendipitous encounters
• Expression: Writing something on website viewed by millions!
• Submission: Develop reputation and dominion based on your
own mundane interests

17. Ludic aesthetics
Nupedia Wikipedia
Sensation (stimulating) - +
Fantasy (make-believe) --- +
Narrative (drama) +
Challenge (obstacles) +++ ++
Fellowship (interpersonal) +++
Discovery (exploration) -- ++
Expression (fulfillment) + +++
Submission (dominion) +++ +

18. Implications
• Encourage curiosity
• Permit plural motivations and rewards
• Maintain openness and ambiguity
• Support social engagement and interaction
• Discourage exclusive control

19. Ludic concepts
• “Ludemes” are basic units of gameplay (Koster & Wright 2004)
• Preparation: multiple possible moves, physical training, etc.
• Space: game board, pitch, etc.
• Fundamental mechanic: move pieces, put ball in net, etc.
• Challenges: pieces move certain ways, someone guarding net
• Abilities to solve challenges: piece moves capture other
pieces, passing ball to multiple players, etc.
• Skill required to use abilities: foresight, dexterity, etc.
• Complex and emergent feedback: opponents alter tactics and
strategies in response
• How did Wikipedia’s ludemes differ from Nupedia’s
ludemes?

20. Ludemes in Nupedia & Wikipedia
Nupedia Wikipedia
Preparation Accredited knowledge Experiential knowledge
Space Boundaries of website Boundaries of website
Mechanics Submitting complete
articles
Contributing incremental
edits
Challenges Gaining editorial sanction Ensuring contribution
stability
Abilities Appeals to rules,
precedents, expertise
Appeals to rules,
precedents, consensus
Skill All of: researching, writing,
editing, convincing
Any of: researching,
writing, editing, convincing
Feedback Publication,
acknowledgement
Publication,
acknowledgement,
iteration

21. Implications
• Encourage curiosity
• Permit plural motivations and rewards
• Maintain openness and ambiguity
• Support social engagement and interaction
• Discourage exclusive control
• Lower barriers to participation
• Provide immediate feedback
• Failure cannot be fatal
(Gaver et al. 2004)

22. HOW CAN WE DESIGN IT?

23. Designing online communities
• All online communities embody technical and social
choices influencing how visitors and members interact
with information and community (Ren, Kraut, Kiesler 2007)
• Architecture, features, interactions, organizational structures,
policies: off-topic discussions, size of community, etc.
• Successful “real world” communities facing social
dilemmas allow members to participate in rule-making,
enforcement, and resolution (Ostrom 1991)

24. Ludic prescriptions
• Promote curiosity, exploration, and reflection as means
of generating emergent play types
• Reward intrinsic motivations that support social
engagement and interaction
• Maintain openness and ambiguity to generate tension
and challenges
• Challenges must promote feedback and outcomes that
are discrete and non-trivial
• Also allow parties to challenges to fail safely and iterate

25. CONCLUSIONS

26. Broader implications
• Wikis being used by vital social actors without accurate
representations of users’ motivations to contribute
• Defense community, intelligence agencies, scientific
collaborators, journalists, and other vital civic/social actors
• Scholars need to abandon monolithic conceptions of
“fun” and “enjoyment” and describe particular
mechanics, dynamics, and aesthetics (Hunicke, LeBlanc, Zubek)

27. Future work

28. Wikipedia is an MMORPG (!)
a sequel to the game Nupedia, an encyclopedia-themed MMORPG in a
hack and slash and "article roaming" style
… Players can accumulate EXP (edits), allowing them to advance to higher
levels (Wikipedians by edits). Players develop a unique distribution of stats
(edit counts), and can choose between a number of classes (user
access levels & metaphors for users’ editing behavior)
…most players prefer to accumulate different types of stars (featured
articles and barnstars) and various icons (WP:DYK and good articles)
which other players can award them.
Players can take on quests (WikiProjects), fight boss battles (featured article
candidates), enter battle arenas (administrator intervention against
vandalism), and even take class change trials to become Game Masters
(administrators).
It is possible to stumble upon random encounters (speedy deletion) and
defeat such monsters.”
“

29. THANK YOU & GAME ON!
bkeegan@northwestern.edu
@bkeegan