I often blog about Wikipedia, but I have recently started to contribute to Wikinews. One thing that immediately struck me was that Wikinews’ community was much warmer than Wikipedia’s, but naturally it is much smaller.

As communities grow larger, generally more disputes arise. As more disputes arise, ways in which to resolve them must develop.

With thousands of active (and highly vocal) editors, Wikipedia finds itself with a plethora of arguments.

Wikipedia’s dispute resolution process can be described as notoriously bureaucratic. There’s requests for comments, third opinions, a mediation cabal, a mediation committee and an arbitration committee. Complex, don’t you think? The arbitration committee is the highest source of authority on Wikipedia (bar Jimbo Wales and the Wikimedia Foundation Board, who barely ever give an opinion). They are currently dealing with 14 cases I believe, and remember these are only the most severe/important disputes on the entire encyclopedia.

Wikinews, a community with only 50 admins, also has an Arbitration Committee with a similar role. They, however, have only fully dealt with 2 cases since 2006. In fact, the last case they had to decide whether or not they would take on was back in 2008, when they made a proposal to abolish the committee. One editor described it as ‘nothing but bureaucracy… with exactly zero point’, as there’s so few disputes.

So, bigger communities argue more. Smaller communities like Wikinews seem to have no major feuds inside them and all of their users are working towards a common goal, whilst in Wikipedia I feel that different editors want different things out of the project.

Working in a small community is much more rewarding than working in a large community with a lot of in-fighting. Things are also done quicker; I know Wikipedia can take several years to tidy up articles whilst on Wikinews, they’re fixed in hours.