Lurking? Cyclopaths? A quantitative lifecycle analysis of user behavior in a geowiki

Abstract

Online communities produce rich behavioral datasets, e.g., Usenet news conversations, Wikipedia edits, and Facebook friend networks. Analysis of such datasets yields important insights (like the "long tail" of user participation) and suggests novel design interventions (like targeting users with personalized opportunities and work requests). However, certain key user data typically are unavailable, specifically viewing, pre-registration, and non-logged-in activity. The absence of data makes some questions hard to answer; ac- cess to it can strengthen, extend, or cast doubt on previous results. We report on analysis of user behavior in Cyclopath, a geographic wiki and route-finder for bicyclists. With access to viewing and non-logged-in activity data, we were able to: (a) replicate and extend prior work on user lifecycles in Wikipedia, (b) bring to light some pre-registration activity, thus testing for the presence of "educational lurking," and (c) demonstrate the locality of geographic activity and how editing and viewing are geographically correlated. © 2010 ACM.