Contribution and Needs

I was trying to find out the number of registered contributors to Wikipedia. I wasn’t able to find current statistics, but I found out that there were about 150,000 registered Wikipedians, about 4500 of which contributed more than a 100 edits in October of 2006 (link).

There were “131 million unique visitors aged 15+ in March 2006″ (link). That is before October of 2006 and doesn’t even count the kids. That is a very, very, very small ratio of contributors to consumers.

Very few users, in proportion to the total number of users, actually contribute to Wikis. I also believe that this can be contrasted with Flickr and other social networking sites, which I suspect have a much higher contribution rate than most Wikis. The reason I believe that this is true has to deal with human nature and our needs. Specifically, I believe that the reason for this disparity can be found in Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.

(image is released under GFDL and was created by JFinkelstein)

Simply put, I believe that wikipedia contributions satisfy what Maslow called “esteem.” Other social sites, such as Flickr, really provide feedback that fulfills social needs and provides a sense of belonging.

Although both sites are social, one stimulates a higher rate of contribution than the other because it fulfills a more basic human need.