Geocaching and Community-Maintained Resources. Community Maintained Resources Participants are...

Geocaching and Community-Maintained Resources

Community Maintained Resources

Participants are responsible for generating content and administering the site

Can be games, information resources, repositories

Examples: Geocaching Wikipedia Open Source code repositories

Case Study: Geocaching

GPS-oriented game and treasure hunt

http://geocaching.com

Users control every aspect of the activity

The gist of it

“I use multi-billion dollar military satellites to find Tupperware hidden in the woods.”

Neustaedter, Carman, Anthony Tang, and Judge K. Tejinder. “The Role of Community and Groupware in Geocache Creation and Maintenance.” In Proceedings of the 28th International Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 1757–1766.

How Geocaching Works

A “cache” is a box of varying size. It usually contains a log, a pencil, and sometimes little trinkets to trade.

How Geocaching Works

The owner of the cache hides it...

How Geocaching Works

The owner of the cache hides it...

How Geocaching Works

The owner of the cache hides it...

How Geocaching Works

The owner of the cache hides it...

How Geocaching Works

...and posts the GPS coordinates on the geocaching website.

“Geocachers” search for it and, when they find it, they sign the log book...

...and log their finds (or did-not-finds) on the Geocaching website or through the Geocaching app.

Clever Caches

Neustaedter, Carman, Anthony Tang, and Judge K. Tejinder. “The Role of Community and Groupware in Geocache Creation and Maintenance.” In Proceedings of the 28th International Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 1757–1766.

Clever Caches

ibid.

Finding a Cache

Finding a Cache

Finding a Cache

Logging a Cache

How many?

There are over 2 million geocaches, including one on the International Space Station

Who maintains this?

The geocaching website is owned by a company. They maintain the servers and software.

The caches are created and maintained by participants.

Maintenance issues Caches can get wet or damaged Sometimes they are cleared away as trash “Muggles” (people who don’t cache) sometimes

destroy them

Administration

Volunteers administer the activity

People approve caches and check that they follow the rules

After enough reports of a cache problem, admin volunteers may remove it to allow new caches to be hidden

Maintenance

How does a person maintain dozens or even hundreds of caches?

They rely on other people to tell them if the caches are ok or if they need maintenance.

This comes from cachers logging their finds (and “did not find”s)

Cache Owner Tasks

Maintain

Needs Maintenance

DNFs

Do nothing

Found

Info for Cachers

Search or Not

Logs

Description

Ratings

Attributes

Location

More Community Maintained Resources

Community controls content and administration

Wikis

Forums

Repositories

90-9-1 rule (Preece 2006) Lurkers, Casual contributors, Heavy contributors

Wikipedia

Editors(85,000 active contributors)

Administrators(~1,500)

Bureaucrats(~34)

Motivations

Collective Effort Model People contribute if they believe their effort will lead

to outcomes they value

Discuss: What are things people will value? Consider a specific website if that helps.

Wikipedia Motivations

Values - wanting to help others Social - allowing people to engage with others and receive

reputational credit for participating in a good activity Understanding - learning new things through volunteering Career - learning skills that may help with finding, keeping, or

advancing in a job Protective - reducing guilt about one's privilege by sharing with

others Enhancement - serving the community (similar to the

Protective motivation, but without the guilt component) Fun - the activity is enjoyable Ideology - the belief that information should be freely available (Nov, 2007)

Conclusions

Community maintained resources involve participants at all levels of creation and maintenance of the resource

People are motivated to participate for different reasons

Effective resources have cycles that make it easy for people to continue participating

Exercise

Have you worked on in a community-maintained resource (online or offline)?

What was your motivation to participate?

How does your motivation match up with the motivations for wikipedia listed on the previous slide?