WikiBreathing - 2021 Wikimania lecture

In this talk I develop a theory of "WikiBreathing" based on the historical records of three wikis: Ward's Wiki, MeatBall, and Wikipedia. WikiBreathing was first documented on MeatBall as a model for understanding how participants on Ward's Wiki responded to increased attention. Many wikis saw increased engagement from cultural outsiders and bad faith actors which resulted in the wikis "breathing out" by repelling new contributors through technological means before "breathing in" and gradually opening themselves up to new contributors again. Using the English Wikipedia as a case study, I reframe the concept of WikiBreathing by analyzing how readers and editors respond when seven articles are opened to public editing for the first time in 11 years.