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Wikipedia and rewards for knowledge sharing

Saturday 11 February 2006 09:38 GMT

  




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Wikipedia and rewards for knowledge sharing
WeblogGurteen Knowledge Weblog
Posted DateSaturday 11 February 2006 09:38 GMT
Posted ByDavid Gurteen
CategoriesMeasures, Targets and Rewards
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del.icio.us Tagsmeasures,_targets_and_rewards , targets_and_rewards 

At a recent Knowledge Cafe in London, on the table I was at, we got to discuss why people shared their knowledge in organizations and what the role of recognition and rewards were.

Someone made the point - it may have been me - that people are happy to contribute to Wikipedia when there are no rewards whatsoever - not even any recognition! They do it for the love of doing it - contributing to a mission - to a worthy cause. They see the value in it.

And then it hit me - I had often wondered why Wikipedia did not recognize the contributors to an entry in some way such as providing a meta data page that listed all the contributors by order of contribution. I now had the answer - if they did - people would contribute to Wikipedia for the wrong reasons - for the "reward" of "recognition" and they would "game" the system for that reward. By providing no recognition and no rewards - only the people who were passionate enough about the topic in hand take the time to contribute.

For a long time - I have been against rewards for knowledge sharing but have reluctantly agreed that recognition was a good thing. I am now less and less sure. Recognition is just another form of reward that can be gamed. The only recognition that true knowledge workers need is the self-recognition that they are doing a good job and working on soemthing they believe in!

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