A public study of bloggers would reveal??
The public perception of Wikipedia editors and moderators is that they are an altruistic group of bright sparks who volunteer their time to expand the world's knowledge, but a study by Israeli psychology researchers found "the prosocial behaviour apparent in Wikipedia is primarily connected to egocentric motives ... which are not associated with high levels of agreeableness".
The study, published in the journal CyberPsychology and Behaviour, gave personality tests to 69 active members of the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit and 70 non-Wikipedians, finding the former "feel more comfortable expressing themselves on the net than they do offline".
The researchers' findings that Wikipedians were introverted, disagreeable and closed to new ideas is at odds with the notion that Wikipedia was built around community and knowledge sharing.
This was partly confirmed by Australian Wikipedia admin Andrew, who doesn't want his surname published but goes by the online handle Orderinchaos. He said many discussions between moderators about the site's policies resulted in "intractably opposed contributors, many with vested interests, slugging it out to the death".
He also said the site had "a slightly pro-academic bias" and "any serious proposals for change usually get defeated by the community, which is now realistically too big to speak with a united voice on almost any subject"
An interesting question, Gamma, one which may deserve a separate post.
If you have been a regular reader of Jakartass, you'll know much of my motivation.
Whether I fit the Wikipedia profile - the prosocial behaviour apparent in Wikipedia is primarily connected to egocentric motives ... which are not associated with high levels of agreeableness - and/or that I - feel more comfortable expressing (myself) on the net than (I) do offline is a matter of subjective conjecture.
I can only speculate about the motivations of other bloggers, so give me time.
If you, and others, have a particular perception about, particularly, the Indonesian blogosphere, please email me with the subject line 'Bloggers expressing themselves'.
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