Crowd dynamics: Exploring conflicts and contradictions in crowdsourcing

Abstract

Unfair reputation systems, slow payments, lack of transparency, and socio-spatial inequalities are only some of the many reasons for conflicts in crowdsourcing. The divisive logic of the system and the sharing processes in the peer-community create interesting dynamics and new foci on old conflicts. In this workshop we explore the reasons, processes, power relations, and dynamics of conflicts within crowdsourcing. We invite participants from a diversity of disciplines and perspectives to contribute with insights from different types of crowdsourcing, and thereby deepen our understanding of the relations in contexts such as crowd-work, crowdfunding, peerproduction and citizen science. Furthermore, we examine strategies for accommodating differences in crowdsourcing environments.