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While people tend to contribute more to a virtual public good if they see others doing the same, this effect reverses if they become aware too many people are participating, according toresearch that I conducted over the summer.Public goods are things that many people share. They can be physical, such as highways, clean air and blood banks, or virtual, like free online encyclopedia Wikipedia or mobile traffic app Waze.

Combining methods from geography, urban planning and big-data analysis, my co-authors and I studied millions of postings by users of a mobile navigation app called Waze, in which users voluntarily post traffic-related updates and road conditions in real time. All users of the app benefit as more of them freely contribute information about traffic accidents and road closures. Economistsdescribe thisas contributing to a public good.

We found that displaying the density of users activities on Waze that is, real time information on how many people are on the app in ones geographic location can encourage participation from others in the area, just as it does in the real world. If you see a lot of people donating blood in your local neighborhood or many parents volunteering in your local school, it may motivate you to do the same.

But we also found evidence of a strong bystander effect that reverses this after a certain threshold is reached. The bystander effect refers to the phenomenon that an individualslikelihood of engaging in a helpful actdecreases when bystanders are present in a critical situation. Paradoxically, our motivation to contribute to a public good could also decline when we see others doing something. For example, if you saw a lot of people donating blood, you may decide that they dont need your blood too.

The idea is thatpeople perceive less urgencyor motivation to help others when others are present, akin to a diffusion of responsibility.

With more public goods moving online for example, in-person pledge drives seeking charitable donationsnow happen through crowdfunding websitessuch as Kiva or GoFundMe its important to study how the motivations and behaviors of people change in a virtual setting.

Users motivation to contribute to public goods in the physical world depends on what is termed impure altruism, also known by economists as warm glow giving. That is, participation is heavily influenced by an individuals motives for public recognition.

My research shows that the same effects that happen in real life also seem to occur virtually, suggesting these online spaces should be designed in ways to overcome the bystander effect to encourage more participation. This can be done, for example, by offeringnonmonetary rewardsfor participation such as virtual badges or making it feel like a game.

Other researchers are also looking into how to influence the behavior of people in virtual spaces.

Some scholars suggest, for example, that participants in primarily digital environments needdigital nudgesandinterventionsto enhance a sense of community and create a shared sense of social self on these digital spaces. Studies from social question-and-answer sites in China seem to suggest thatcommitment toward the site, a shared language and shared visionseem to foster a sense of participation.

Other studies suggest that rather than viewing such online public good platforms in terms of the immediate needs of an information seeker, these platforms should be designed for theirlong-lasting valueto a community of users.

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People may be less likely to contribute to a virtual public good like Wikipedia or Waze if they know many others are already doing it Stuff - Stuff...

A long, long time ago, back in the first lockdown, you probably told yourself that now right this moment, in the middle of a pandemic was the perfect time to conceive, plot, write, revise, rewrite, complete and publish a novel which completely transformed what we thought it was possible to express in the English language.

It wasn't. Obviously it wasn't. You know that now. But even if it turned out a year-long period of isolation and anxiety actually wasn't much good for your inner David Foster Wallace, there's no bad time to start writing. It doesn't really matter if it goes anywhere. Just write something and see where you go.

To help you along, we asked 10 established and emerging writers for the rules of thumb they use to find ideas, to get words onto the page, and to turn an interesting first draft into something more substantial.

"So much of my writing process is in the not writing. I spend a lot of time following my interests, going down Google and YouTube rabbit holes, or immersed in photography books. I always have headphones on and find myself scribbling song lyrics in notebooks. Im most concerned with feeling and Im always trying to find ways to map and express those feelings. And what better way than to follow your curiosities, to pursue your loves? Writing, to a degree, is an act of love and should be treated accordingly."

Caleb Azumah Nelson, author of Open Water

"A collection of miscellanies may prove most interesting and thought-provoking some time later"

"Always keep a small notebook and a pen at hand. Any time you hear something interesting, or you have a fleeting thought, or even, you encounter a new word in a book that you don't know jot it down. A collection of miscellanies may prove most interesting and thought-provoking some time later."

Yiyun Li, author of books including Must I Go, Where Reasons End and A Thousand Years of Good Prayers

"Keep it simple: complexity is the enemy. Task yourself narratively, eg 'Tomorrow I have to write a particular scene', rather than 'Tomorrow I must write 800 words'. Plot can be structured as: situation, complication, new equilibrium. And this applies to scenes as well as whole books: the new equilibrium is the hook for the next scene. Verbs are very important, thats where the action is. Metaphorise them if possible. Write: 'The red-haired man shouldered his way through the door'; not: 'The big-shouldered, red-haired man pushed through the door.'"

Giles Foden, author of books including Turbulence and The Last King of Scotland

"My advice is to use the 'random special' button on Wikipedia as a way to generate unusual ideas for fiction. When you press 'special random' it brings up a random but curated page from the hidden depths of Wikipedia. It might be a page about a grunge band from Vancouver or the World Alliance of Baptist Churches or perhaps Raimo Manninen, a Finnish alpine skier. Keep clicking 'special random' until you have two pages that interest you and then write a story that makes a connection between those pages. For example, it could be a story about a depressed skier who finds god in the mountains and decides to baptise himself in a hole in the ice of an Alpine lake. Or hopefully something better than that."

Joe Dunthorne, author of Submarine, Wild Abandon and The Adulterants

"My writing advice would be: read your work out loud, even if you think it's finished; there'll always be something that can be said more simply, or in a clearer voice, especially if you're writing dialogue."

Paul Mendez, poet and author of Rainbow Milk

1. Your first thought is never your best thought. Its just your first.

2. Most of your ideas are banal. Dig deeper.

3. Go and find things out. Make a fetish of research. Most of the things worth hearing arent already sitting in your head.

4. Stop bothering people with your early drafts. Bother yourself with your early drafts.

5. Work every day. Its not an amateurs game.

Andrew O'Hagan, Esquire editor-at-large and author of books including Mayflies, The Illuminations and Our Fathers

"The trick to writing is to pretend there are no tricks"

The trick to writing is to pretend there are no tricks. I refuse to romanticise the process. If I did, insecurity would creep in. I would be too preoccupied with thinking, but can I do this? Am I a writer? No time for that. The more dramatic the process seems Oh I cannot write unless I am wearing my red beret! Oh I can only write before the sun is up! the more you slow yourself down. It is important, for me at least, to be able to write anywhere, under any circumstance. In your phone notes, in a lunch break, walking down the street. I never said those scraps of writing will be any good. (Although sometimes they are.) But youre flexing the muscle, building it, teaching yourself that writing is only an action. In other words: stop fucking around and get on with it.

Rebecca Watson, author of Little Scratch

"Epiphanies arent queued up politely in waiting rooms behind Word docs; theyre out in the world"

"If in doubt, get on with other things. Take the writing away from the page and let life work on it quietly for a bit. Walk, cook, hoover, call your mum, draw a picture, and you will unknowingly (or knowingly) be solving the problem, dismantling the cliche, refining the turn of phrase, finding the right word, and then you go back to the work, armed with this thinking youve been doing, and progress is made. Gather other things to bring to the page. Language, time, experience.

"The most significant creative breakthrough I ever had with my writing was standing in the Nando's toilet in Bromley changing my baby sons trousers after a nappy explosion. Epiphanies arent queued up politely in waiting rooms behind Word docs, theyre out in the world."

Max Porter, author of The Death of Francis Bacon, Lanny and Grief is the Thing with Feathers

"My advice would be: 1) establish a routine whereby you write for at least couple of hours each day; 2) keep going even when you feel uninspired; 3) when you're mid-flow don't think about how your work will be received; 4) when you've finished a draft DO think about it or, better still, find someone who will give you honest feedback; 5) be prepared to revise, revise and revise."

Blake Morrison, poet and author of The Executor, The Last Weekend and And When Did You Last See Your Father?

"Unfortunately this isnt a good time to ask for my advice precisely because its all going rather well at present. I'm not having to force myself to write; I just feel like doing it. How has this come about? I've really no idea but this rare and happy state of affairs is consistent with something Victor Hugo said on the subject (cant remember where): when you can write its easy, when you cant, its impossible."

Geoff Dyer, author of books including White Sands: Experiences from the Outside World, Another Great Day at Sea and Jeff in Venice

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How to Write a Novel, According to 10 Really Good Novelists - esquire.com

Wikipedia has become a source of reliable information for millions and in an Internet awash with unreliable sourcing, it has become a public good.

Journalism it has been said is the first draft of history, and if you want to find out more about how that popular expression came about, Wikipedia is the first entry that will give you further information.

In many ways, Wikipedia has also become the first draft of history. Its online community of unpaid editors keep it updated just as quick as, if not quicker than, journalists can get their stories out.

As the online encyclopedia turns 20 years old this month, its difficult to imagine that somehow the free service continues. It has now become an almost indispensable tool for researchers, students and journalists in addition to other passing users.

Teachers and university professors in the past would often warn or even chastise their students that they could not rely on Wikipedia. Its sources were shoddy or unreliable. It couldnt be fact-checked they bemoaned. And worse, how could lay, anonymous people, be trusted to write about history, politics, science, medicine, movies and so much more.

Yet now, perhaps secretly, there is likely not one teacher or professor that wouldnt use the site to look up cursory information, they may be even contributors.

Wikipedia even hosts a page Wikipedia is not a reliable source, where the page seeks to address its critics stating that because the site is a volunteer-run project there are bound to be mistakes and that it should not be considered a definitive source in and of itself.

Arguably any encyclopedia is a living and evolving body of information and by and large Wikipedia has been a reliable first point of contact.

It is not just in the realm of generalised information that Wikipedia has made its presence felt. Specialised areas of information like medicine have become a useful source of information with its pages viewed billions of times.

In a study looking at Wikipedia's influence in medicine, junior doctors in the US were found to use the site because of its convenience and access to information that was considered to be better and more up-to-date than what might be available in handbooks and textbooks.

Another study by the American university of MIT said, "Our research shows that scientists are using Wikipedia and that it is influencing how they write about the science that they are doing. Wikipedia isn't just a record of what's going on in science, it's actually helping to shape science."

More broadly Wikipedias rate of accuracy has been evaluated as being comparatively similar to Britannica, the most famous book-based encyclopedia.

So how does Wikipedia work?

As the fourth most visited website globally it is a surprisingly slim operation. Less than 450 people are officially employed by Wikipedia. Its the army of volunteers that makes the operation viable.

Anyone with an Internet connection can open an account and begin editing. But its not always as simple as that.

The length of time someone has been editing creates a system of reward and prominence amongst the online editorial Wikipedia community.

Over the years a 200,000 strong community of editors and ad-hoc contributors have grown to become the guardians of this publicly available repository of information.

Now the site boasts millions of pages in 300 languages and is accessed by more than a billion people every month.

The online encyclopedia has been called the last best place on the Internet, and given the polarisation and disinformation that has swamped vast areas of the web the site has withstood the test of time.

Its supposed weakness, that anyone could edit it, has become its enduring strength and those people now jealously guard it.

Source: TRT World

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How Wikipedia shaped the Internet in the last 20 years - TRT World

Twenty years ago today, a tech startup called Nupedia launched a side project. The company had been hard at work producing a free online encyclopaedia, but it was slow going: its strict editing process, comprehensive peer review and focus on expert authors meant it finished only 21 articles in its first year.

The side project would do away with all of that. Instead, anyone would be able to write and edit articles. Nupedias founders were split over whether the trade-off more content with a lower barrier to entry was worth it, but by the end of its first year, the side project had amassed articles on more than 18,000 topics. Nupedia, by the time it shut in 2003, had finished just 25.

That side project, Wikipedia, now has more than 55m articles across 300 languages. With 1.7bn unique visitors a month, it is the 13th most popular website on the internet, according to Amazons monitoring site, Alexa Internet, and the only one in the top 50 to be run on an entirely non-commercial basis (bbc.co.uk just outranks it among UK users).

The encyclopaedias foundational model attracted criticism from day one. Without experts writers or professional editors, many wondered, how could it ensure accuracy? By 2006, as the site celebrated its fifth anniversary, it was the subject of mockery in the mainstream press. One article cited the encyclopaedias claim that David Beckham was a Chinese goalkeeper in the 18th century to highlight a comedy of errors.

Even in 2006, that particular piece of vandalism was fixed within 11 minutes. These days, Wikipedia has a few more tools to prevent such abuse. The article about Beckham is one of many that is semi-protected, a status that prevents unregistered users from editing it a concession to the reality that not everyone on the internet is interested in contributing to a collective endeavour.

But as the site continues to flourish even as the online environment has transformed, it raises a different set of questions from those of its early doubters. Wikipedia, as one joke goes, works in practice, which is good, because it definitely doesnt work in theory. Why has the site succeeded in building a positive online community where so many others have failed?

Jimmy Wales, its co-founder, cites two things as making the key difference. First, everyone knows what an encyclopedia is. If I say encyclopedia article about the Eiffel Tower, we all know what that should be, so if we set out to write that, we know where we are going and what it should be like. Second, we never regarded Wikipedia as a wide-open free speech forum, its a project to build an encyclopedia. So we try to avoid (as much as we can, we are humans) the typical round and round flame wars of social media.

Wikipedia has issues in the same way that any large institution has issues, but its undoubtedly a remarkable achievement, says Abigail Brady, a long-term editor on the site. In some ways its a relic it dates from a pre-social media era of the web where idealistic attempts to create large collaborative works were just starting.

I think the key to its long-term success has been its lack of commercialisation. Jimmy Wales made a decision that Wikipedia should be non-profit very early on, and stuck to it. There are no ads (beyond the odd pledge drive), and no sense that your labour is being farmed by a company too cheapskate to actually pay people to do data entry. It is a genuine collaborative project.

As Wikipedia has grown, it has moved beyond simple encyclopaedia-style articles. The communitys best points are now visible at times of great upheaval, when collaborative editing allows hundreds of people to work on pulling together an authoritative overview of breaking news events before the events have even finished.

At 6.34pm UK time on 6 January this year, one Wikipedia editor, with the username Another Believer, decided that events in Washington looked important enough to warrant an article. Tentatively titled January 2021 Donald Trump rally, the initial entry was brief: On 6 January 2021, thousands of Donald Trump supporters gathered in Washington DC to reject results of the November 2020 presidential election.

One minute later, the Guardians live blog reported: House offices evacuated as Trump supporters storm Capitol barriers. Over the next half-hour, Another Believer continued to update their article alone. Slowly, other administrators began to join in, and the article became the sites key focus for those documenting the rapidly evolving events in Washington. By midnight UK time, the article was 3,000 words long, with a further 3,000 words of footnotes, and a debate was raging over whether to rename it from its latest title, 2021 United States Capitol protests, to its current headline, 2021 storming of the United States Capitol.

The collaborative encyclopaedia still has many barriers to overcome, from an ever-present funding crisis, only partially solved by its donation-driven revenue model, to its undesired role as a silent battlefield for professionally run influence campaigns to rehabilitate reputations, or excise controversy from the internet. And it still faces the same pressures that more conventional reference sources do, as it struggles to represent the history of the world with less of a focus on the white, male wealthy figures who make up so much of recorded history.

But 20 years on, it is difficult to deny that Wikipedia has proved the naysayers wrong. Whether it is the last gasp of a vision of the internet that has all but died out, or a shining beacon lighting the way to a better future, remains to be seen.

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Wikipedia at 20: last gasp of an internet vision, or a beacon to a better future? - The Guardian

Twenty years ago this Friday, January 15, the internet changed forever. Wikipedia went live, gifting the world with a cavern of endless information, both helpful and potentially questionable. The ease with which you can look up Hannibals Retreat is matched only by the ease with which you can look up what happened in the season premiere of Hannibaland you have Wikipedia to thank for that.

In the past 20 years, Wikipedia has been a shorthand source for facts both useful and uselessbut its also been an incredible outlet for time-wasting, for clicking from page to page until youre in so deep you can hardly remember where you started. Sometimes you return from those journeys with nothing, but other times, you come back with something youll never forget. To celebrate the birthday of Wikipedia, The Ringer recounts those glorious wormholes.

Route: The Challenge (TV Series) The Real World MTV List of Programs Broadcast by MTV List of Programs Broadcast by MTV, Former Programming Two-A-Days Two-A-Days, Rush Propst Controversy

Its not hard to get lost on Wikipediadazed, bored, link-hopping with hardly a thought. But then once in awhile, you land on something that snaps you back to life. Thats what happened when I found myself scrolling through the page for MTVs high school football reality show, Two-A-Days. (You remember Two-A-Days, right? That show where every guy had that swoopy haircut?) Nothing about the actual show is illuminated by the entry, but then you get to the section about the guy who coached the team Two-A-Days focused on, Rush Propst. Let me just drop this in: On October 30, 2007, Propst resigned from the head coaching position of Hoover High School effective at the end of the season, while admitting to extramarital affairs and living a double life. Propst revealed he was married to two women and had children with both.

What thewhy wasnt this the show?! Or better yet, why doesnt MTV stop playing Ridiculousness all day and start production on a fictionalized version of this story?! Its like Friday Night Lights if Coach Taylor were an antihero. Anyways, thanks for the pick-me-up, Wikipedia. Andrew Gruttadaro

Route: New York Mets Fred Wilpon Samuel Israel III Faked Death and Ponzi Scheme (separate tabs) Lawrence Joseph Bader

Fans (and enemies!) of the New York Mets will be unsurprised to learn that the rich tapestry of Wikipedia directory pages for both People Who Faked Their Own Death and Pyramid and Ponzi Schemes can be found only a few clicks away from the franchises main page. When the former team owners were revealed to have (knowingly?) gotten got by Bernie Madoffs infamous fraud back in 2008, it wasnt even the first time theyd been associated with a pyramid scheme. And the other instance might have been even stranger: Three years after Samuel Israel IIIs hedge fund, Bayouwhich the Madoffs had invested withwas indicted for fraud in 2005, Israel failed to show up for his prison sentence, faked his death with the help of a line from the TV show M*A*S*H, and was ultimately tracked down by the Feds at a campground.

Israels Wikipedia page links to both of the aforementioned directories, each of which could keep a person clicking all day long (and has!) but the one that stood out to me most was this story of Lawrence Joseph Bader, a father of three (with one more on the way) who disappeared during a fishing trip on Lake Erie in 1957, showed up four days later in Omaha as a man named Fritz Johnson, and then kinda went buck wild: He sat on a flagpole to raise money for polio research; he became a bartender, radio announcer, and TV sports director; he drove a hearse around town; he wore an eyepatch; he traipsed around at archery tournaments. Don Draper could never. Lets go Mets! Katie Baker

Route: Prometheus (2012 film) Prometheus (Greek Mythology) Prometheus, Myths and Legends

This past summer, I wrote about Michael Cavic, a man who lost one of the closest and most controversial swim races in Olympic history to one of the greatest Olympians of all time. During a rather broad conversation, Cavic mentioned that hes a fan of the movie Prometheus and tried to connect some of the underlying thematic elements of the film to his life. I was confusedI had not seen the movie and had no intention to (aliens and alien-related pop culture arent my thing), but I needed a primer on the picture. Wikipedia to the rescue. With apologies to Ridley Scott, I abandoned that page pretty quickly and found myself indulging in a Greek mythology refresher thats been overdue since collegeincluding and especially the origins of the world and humanity. TL;DR, Prometheus created man from clay and stole fire and gave it to the people. And whoa boy, were the other gods pissed about that. Especially Zeus. At the main mans direction, Prometheus suffered all kinds of grisly torture as punishment, including having his liver eaten by an eagle, only for it to grow back the next day, only to have it eaten by an eagle AGAIN. And on and on it went for a while, because if theres one thing the gods do not condone, its a fire heist. Anyway, remember to thank Prometheuss liver next time you cook dinner. John Gonzalez

Route: Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit Ryan Toby City High

Whenever Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit comes on cable, I do what any right-minded person doesI google why Hollywood failed to deliver a third installment. Thankfully, Disney has changed their mind about this matter, but I would like to discuss a particular internet journey I took because of this query. One day, after I found myself clapping on my couch to the Oh Happy Day choir scene for the 876th time, I decided to find out what happened to the actor who played Ahmal. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I would unearth something so spectacular: Allow me to introduce Ryan Tobys page.

Before the Killers graced us with the anthem of the decade, Mr. Brightside, there was an impeccable track released in 2001 called What Would You Do? Its a perfect song; if youre of a certain age, I guarantee youre singing the hook right now. And, well, Im ecstatic to report that one of the people responsible for that song was Ryan Toby, who made up one-third of City High, the R&B trio who performed that song. My life changed that day, and it changed because of one website. If you want to be somebody, if you want to go somewhere, you better wake up and use Wikipedia. Bridget Geerlings

Route: List of 1960s Musical Artists Carlos Santana Santana (Band) Santana (Band), Timeline

As a devotee of dad rockor granddad rock, depending on ones frame of referencewho listens to a lot of music made by bands that broke up long ago, I have a soft spot for zombie bands that outlived their life expectancy and continue to tour or record. Im talking about gray-bearded bands that have soldiered on for decades despite departures and deaths, their ever-shifting formations often winnowed to one founding member (at most) who carries on their legacy and retains the legal rights to their name. These groups are like the Lazarus taxa of the entertainment industry, and its difficult to document their histories from original lineups to current incarnations. Fortunately, a fossil record exists: Industrious editors on Wikipedia have preserved some of their rosters and timelines in graphical form; the sprawling displays are something to behold. REO Speedwagon. Steppenwolf. The Temptations. The Beach Boys. The Flying Burrito Brothers. Earth, Wind & Fire. And maybe the most voluminous of all: a scrollable, color-coded roll call of the almost 70 past or present members of Santana, ranging from drummers or bassists who came and went in one year to the 55-year tenure of Carlos Santana himself. This is information, but its also art. Now I just need enough wall space to turn some of these suckers into framed prints and hang them in my home. Ben Lindbergh

Route: Sir Arthur Currie Battle of the Somme Mines on the First Day of the Somme Largest Artificial Nonnuclear Explosions N1 Rocket Sea Dragon (rocket) (separate tab)

Years ago, I was listening to the World War I series of Dan Carlins Hardcore History when further reading about a Canadian general mentioned therein led to underground explosives at a battle he was involved in, which led to one of the best pages on all of Wikipedia: Largest Artificial Nonnuclear Explosions. Every single one of these is worth reading about, and my love for this page has surfaced on The Ringer in articles about Texas City and For All Mankind. The N1 is one of the most powerful rockets ever devised, but would have been dwarfed by NASAs proposed Sea Dragon, a vehicle so massive it could have been launched only by floating it in the middle of the ocean because no facility on Earth could accommodate it. (Here it is depicted in a post-credits sequence in For All Mankind.) My point is: All Wikipedia wormholes lead to giant rockets and/or giant explosions. Michael Baumann

Route: Action Park Action Park, Factors Contributing to the Parks Safety Record Action Park, Fatalities

What begins as a romp through Americas most infamous amusement park eventually turns terrifying. Theres a breakdown of the places ugly safety record, which notes that minors were allowed to operate rides and that accidents were often not reported. Then, gulp, theres a chronological list of the six fatalities that occurred at the park.

Unsurprisingly, Im one of many whos fallen into the Action Park wormhole. The Wiki page was featured on Longform.org; Johnny Knoxville even starred in a movie called Action Point thats loosely based on the place, and there have now been documentaries made about the long-shuttered New Jersey destination.

Growing up in New England, I sadly never got to visit the dangerous Action Park. But its Wiki entry is so extensive that I feel like I have. Alan Siegel

Route: Who the hell even knows?

Im sure (Im not sure) that theres a perfectly reasonable path of clicks that first led me to the List of Unusual Deaths. Ive long since forgotten it, but I keep the list bookmarked for the simple reason that there is no better source of endless Wikipedia wormholes. With entries spanning from the present all the way back to 620 B.C.E, theres plenty thats unusual: The deaths include everything from a fatal blow from a falling tortoise to a deadly toothpick-swallowing to one unlucky teenagers demise after, and I quote, a circus clown swung him around by his heels. Nearly every entry offers a handful of links to additional pagesabout the dearly departed, the palace intrigue, the poison, or, um, death by sawing. Pour one out for those taken too soon, and may your journeys through the lists many burrows carry you safely to your destination. Claire McNear

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What Is the Weirdest Wikipedia Wormhole Youve Fallen Into? - The Ringer