A Study of Editors' Acceptance of the Chinese Version of Wikipedia

Wikipedia is a free, on-line encyclopedia that is built collaboratively by Internet users. The Chinese version of Wikipedia was launched at an early stage, but has not developed as rapidly as certain other language versions in terms of quality, entry numbers, and growth of the user community. Understanding the reasons why individuals use Wikipedia is necessary in order to help the progress of the resource’s Chinese version. The study applied the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) with editors of the Chinese version of Wikipedia as its subjects. (1) Editors were sent surveys, from which 283 valid responses were collected. The results indicate that the TAM explained up to 25 percent of the variance in behavioral intention. In addition, the key determinant of editor acceptance of Chinese Wikipedia is perceived usefulness, and as such the TAM could not be completely applied in this study. (2) Editors encountered such problems as ignorance of information organization concepts and methods, an unfriendly editing interface, and a lack of timely interactive function when editors were editing the articles. (3) Administrators claimed that communication within the community was not good, and thus that knowledge was not effectively transferred within the community. (4) Users consider Wikipedia entries to be up to date and diversified, hope for a more user-friendly interface, and consider it encouraging when editors participate in entry editing. (5) The creation of a confidential and courteous environment is necessary to bring about better communications for Chinese Wikipedia.