Coye Cheshire & Andrew Fiore April 18, 2023//

Computer-Mediated Communication

Collective Action and Public Goods II

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Solutions to the Free-Rider Problem?

Selective Incentives

Self-Interest

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Types of Social DilemmasDifferent social dilemma gamesmake different use of the payouts:

T>R>P>S Prisoner’s Dilemma

T>R>S>P Chicken

T>P>R>S Deadlock

R>T>P>S Stag HuntCoop. Defect

Coop.

Defect

A

B

3 (R)

5 (T)

0 (S)3 (R)

0 (S)

5 (T)

1 (P)1 (P)

Reward

Temptation

Sucker

Punishment

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Example: Chicken GameT>R>S>P Chicken

Coop = Swerve

Defect = Do Not Swerve

Coop. Defect

Coop.

Defect

A

B

3 (R)

5 (T)

1 (S)3 (R)

1 (S)

5 (T)

0 (P)0 (P)

Reward

Temptation

Sucker

Punishment

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Life is “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short” (Hobbes 1651)

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Reconsidering the Free-Rider Problem

Communality and Discretionary Databases

“Second-Order” Communality

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Problem shift–

Making private data public

Maintaining information privacy

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Collective Action and Group Size

Smaller groups tend to have a better chance of producing a public good (Olson 1965)

Why?

More benefits for each personLarger impact of any single contributionGenerally, lower costs of organization

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But what about REALLY big groups?

Analyzing and Visualizing the Semantic Coverage of Wikipedia and Its Authors (Holloway, Bozicevic and Borner 2005)

http://arxiv.org/abs/cs/0512085

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Self-Interest in Small versus Large Groups

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Fallacy of Individuals and Collectives

See: Mancur Olson (1965) “The Logic of Collective Action”

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Online Collectives are Good!

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Finding “Roles” in Online Collective Action Behaviors

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Str

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rity

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