Although Wikipedia can be seen as an open, democratic forum practicing deliberative, direct democracy, the process of voting on Wikipedia is significantly influenced by participation inequality, with a majority of the vote participation coming from a small group of most active contributors – an effective oligarchy. However, the vote participants formed only a tiny fraction of the total number of Wikipedians who number in millions. On 18th January 2012 in the ‘first Internet strike’ against the American ‘Stop Online Piracy Act' legislation, over two thousand Wikipedians took part in the vote concerning whether their site should undertake a protest action, with vast majority expressing support for this action. This paper contributes to the discussion on deliberative, direct democracy and volunteer mobilization in the Internet era by analyzing the vote participation levels of Wikipedia volunteer editors (Wikipedians). When combined, the wiki model promotes the virtues of inclusion and accuracy at large scales, while the face-to-face model excels in conditions of localism and promotes the virtues of solidarity and social capital. These two modes of communication ought to be viewed in Madisonian terms - as distinctive forms of interaction that check and balance the vices of one another. Instead, this essay argues that the collaborative editing process found within Wikipedia ought to be viewed as a promising supplement to traditional deliberation. These virtues of the Wikipedia model should not, however, lead to the simple conclusion that it ought to replace traditional face-to-face deliberation. By mitigating problems that arise in deliberative practice, such as "group polarization" and "hidden profiles," the wiki model often realizes the epistemic and procedural aspirations of deliberative democracy. This online mode of interaction overcomes many of the problems that distort face-to-face deliberations. It argues that while similar in some respects, the mode of interaction within Wikipedia represents a distinctive form of "collaborative editing" that departs from many of the qualities traditionally associated with face-to-face deliberation. This essay examines the implications Wikipedia holds for theories of deliberative democracy.
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