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Do as I do:: authorial leadership in wikipedia

Published: 21 October 2007 Publication History

Abstract

In seemingly egalitarian collaborative on-line communities, like Wikipedia, there is often a paradoxical, or perhaps merely playful, use of the title "Benevolent Dictator" for leaders. I explore discourse around the use of this title so as to address how leadership works in open content communities. I first review existing literature on "emergent leadership" and then relate excerpts from community discourse on how leadership is understood, performed, and discussed by Wikipedians. I conclude by integrating concepts from existing literature and my own findings into a theory of "authorial" leadership.

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    cover image ACM Conferences
    WikiSym '07: Proceedings of the 2007 international symposium on Wikis
    October 2007
    190 pages
    ISBN:9781595938619
    DOI:10.1145/1296951
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    Published: 21 October 2007

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    1. Wikipedia
    2. authorial
    3. benevolent dictator
    4. leadership

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    WikiSym07: International Symposium on Wikis
    October 21 - 25, 2007
    Quebec, Montreal, Canada

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