<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">

The user-generated wiki encyclopedia Wikipedia was launched in January 2001 by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger. Wikipedia has become the world's largest wiki encyclopedia, and behind many of its entries are interesting stories of creation, or rather <italic>intercreation</italic>, since Wikipedia is produced by a large number of contributors. Using the slogan “the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit” (<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="j_nor-2014-0112_ref_023">Wikipedia 2013</xref>), Wikipedia invites everyone to participate, but the participants do not necessarily represent all kinds of individuals or interests – there might be an imbalance affecting the content as well as the perspective conveyed. As a phenomenon Wikipedia is quite complex, and can be studied from many different angels, for instance through the articles’ history and the edits to them.
This paper is based on a study of Featured Articles from the Swedish Wikipedia. Three articles, <italic>Fri vilja</italic> [Free will], <italic>Fjäll</italic> [Fell], and <italic>Edgar Allan Poe</italic>, are chosen from a list of <italic>Featured Articles</italic> that belongs to the subject field <italic>culture</italic>. The articles’ development has been followed from their very first versions in 2003/2004 to edits made at the end of 2012.
The aim is to examine the creation, or <italic>intercreation</italic>, processes of the articles, and the collaborative production. The data come from non-article material such as revision history pages, article material, and some complementary statistics. Principally the study has a qualitative approach, but with some quantitative elements.
</abstract>

The user-generated wiki encyclopedia Wikipedia was launched in January 2001 by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger. Wikipedia has become the world's largest wiki encyclopedia, and behind many of its entries are interesting stories of creation, or rather intercreation, since Wikipedia is produced by a large number of contributors. Using the slogan “the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit” (Wikipedia 2013), Wikipedia invites everyone to participate, but the participants do not necessarily represent all kinds of individuals or interests – there might be an imbalance affecting the content as well as the perspective conveyed. As a phenomenon Wikipedia is quite complex, and can be studied from many different angels, for instance through the articles’ history and the edits to them.
This paper is based on a study of Featured Articles from the Swedish Wikipedia. Three articles, Fri vilja [Free will], Fjäll [Fell], and Edgar Allan Poe, are chosen from a list of Featured Articles that belongs to the subject field culture. The articles’ development has been followed from their very first versions in 2003/2004 to edits made at the end of 2012.
The aim is to examine the creation, or intercreation, processes of the articles, and the collaborative production. The data come from non-article material such as revision history pages, article material, and some complementary statistics. Principally the study has a qualitative approach, but with some quantitative elements.

The Anyone-Can-Edit Syndrome: Intercreation Stories of Three Featured Articles on Wikipedia

Nordicom Review

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

The user-generated wiki encyclopedia Wikipedia was launched in January 2001 by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger. Wikipedia has become the world's largest wiki...

	Free will [Fri Vilja]	Fell [Fjäll]	Edgar Allan Poe
Date of the first edit	4 September 2004	29 September 2003	1 December 2003
Size and date for the last edit	73,450 bytes19 December 2012	27,086 bytes5 December 2012	59,754 bytes21 December 2012
Number of edits	209	165	457
Number of users	95	86	227
Registered usersAnonymous usersRobots	46 (48%)13 (14%)36 (37%)	56 (65%)22 (26%)8 (9%)	91 (41%)84 (37%)52 (22%)
Most edits done by one registered user	24 edits done by Popperipopp (2007–2008)	31 edits done by Svjo (2008–2011)	55 edits done by Nicke L (2005–2008)
Number of registered users with more than three edits	4 users: Popperipopp, TKU/Yvwv, Huesos and Dnm (0.9% of the registered users).	4 users: Svjo, Lapplänning, Yvwv and Ettrig (0.7% of the registered users).	8 users: Nicke L, Gegik, Aleph, B^****n, Tournesol, Torvindus, Hedning and Auc (0.9% of the registered users).
Interlanguage links	71	11	100

	Free will [Fri Vilja]	Fell [Fjäll]	Edgar Allan Poe
Featured Article, date	15 May 2008 after 81 edits	15 May 2008 after 80 edits	17 January 2008 after 253 edits
Size of Featured Article	74,313 bytes	28,302 bytes	55,410 bytes
Nominated by	Yvwv	Yvwv	Yvwv
Nomination supported by (at least 5 persons)	D.O.G, Heimvennar, Ronny, xenus and Ace90.	Jopparn, xenus, NatoX, Ronny, -nothingman-, and Mikael Lindmark.	Popperipopp, NatoX, Jaentz, Ace90 and Huggorm.
Time of nomination	3 weeks	2 weeks	2 weeks

The Anyone-Can-Edit Syndrome: Intercreation Stories of Three Featured Articles on Wikipedia

Published Online: Mar 13, 2020

Page range: 189 - 204

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/nor-2014-0112

Keywords
Wikipedia, collaboration, intercreation, produser, experts, front figures

© 2014 Maria Mattus, published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Figure 1

Figure 2

Figure 3

Basic Facts about the Articles

Featured Article, Overview

The Anyone-Can-Edit Syndrome: Intercreation Stories of Three Featured Articles on Wikipedia

Published Online: Mar 13, 2020

Page range: 189 - 204

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/nor-2014-0112

KeywordsWikipedia, collaboration, intercreation, produser, experts, front figures

© 2014 Maria Mattus, published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Figure 1

Figure 2

Figure 3

Basic Facts about the Articles

Featured Article, Overview

Keywords
Wikipedia, collaboration, intercreation, produser, experts, front figures