Paper Reading #2: Edits & credits: exploring integration and attribution in online creative collaboration

Comments:
Ryan Kerbow
Vince Kocks

Reference Information:
Title:  Edits & credits: exploring integration and attribution in online creative collaboration
Authors: Kurt Luther, Nicholas Diakopoulos, Amy Bruckman
Presentation Venue: CHI 2010 April 10-15, 2010 Atlanta, Georgia, USA

 Summary:

   The most common reason people spend free time editing articles for online encyclopedias or open-source code is to increase one's status in the community. To establish a reputation attribution is essential. Attribution is the act of giving someone credit for his or her actions. This paper presents a qualitative study of attributions practices in online creative collaboration within the domain of Flash animation.

   The focus of the study was done on Newgrounds, who is the largest Flash animation portal on the web. One discusses one method of attribution on this portal by use of the website forums. Collaborative animation projects called "collabs" are put together which can have more than 50 artists on it at a time. A leader divides up the work and the result is published on the website.

  17 animators were interviewed who had experiences with collabs to find out more about this subject. Different methods are discussed in which the leader of the collab can choose to integrate and attribute works such as the "first come - first server" which guarantees your work will be attributed but this collab usually has many more artists, appeals to a certain niche, and is geared towards novice animators.

   Newgrounds has a multi-author system so many people can be credited as a "coauthor" on a single project. To become a coauthor the leader and 9 other contributors can be selected, there is a limit so some criteria must be upheld. This criteria is up to the leader of the collab.

   The findings from this study show the imprtance of integration and attribution in online creative collaboration. The collab leader is usually the person who takes this responsibility and nobody else. This is relevant because in communities such as Flickr and YouTube it is assumed that the uploader of the content is the creator of the content. Newgrounds stands apart by offering its multi-authoring system. This is important because as online creative collaboration becomes more widespread, support for collaborative authorship should grow. This study points to the need to understand, and design for, notions of authorship, ownership, and attribution that are rapidly evolving. Flash animation provides a good example of this.

Discussion: 

  This was an interesting paper to read and wasn't really what I was expecting. The author says it's important in different online communities to have a solid reputation so people will know and respect you and your work. This is done by being attributed for your work through whatever you're doing. The Newgrounds is a good example of this because there are a ton of users and different people creating work collaboratively. This causes the problem of crediting several authors for one piece of work. This sounds weird but just think of the sites such as YouTube who only credit one user for the uploaded video even if there are several authors. I think it is important that we evolve our standards as more collaborative work is starting to become available over the internet.