# Coordination and Efficiency in Decentralized Collaboration

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/1503.07431 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/1503.07431/

## Key facts

- Cited by 1 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 25 Mar 2015.

## Built on by (most cited first, 1 of 1)

- [A Test of Time: Predicting the Sustainable Success of Online Collaboration in Wikipedia](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.19150/) (2024)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Environments for decentralized on-line collaboration are now widespread on the Web, underpinning open-source efforts, knowledge creation sites including Wikipedia, and other experiments in joint production. When a distributed group works together in such a setting, the mechanisms they use for coordination can play an important role in the effectiveness of the group's performance. Here we consider the trade-offs inherent in coordination in these on-line settings, balancing the benefits to collaboration with the cost in effort that could be spent in other ways. We consider two diverse domains that each contain a wide range of collaborations taking place simultaneously -- Wikipedia and GitHub -- allowing us to study how coordination varies across different projects. We analyze trade-offs in coordination along two main dimensions, finding similar effects in both our domains of study: first we show that, in aggregate, high-status projects on these sites manage the coordination trade-off at a different level than typical projects; and second, we show that projects use a different balance of coordination when they are "crowded," with relatively small size but many participants. We also develop a stylized theoretical model for the cost-benefit trade-off inherent in coordination and show that it qualitatively matches the trade-offs we observe between crowdedness and coordination.