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Cyberchiefs
Autonomy and Authority in Online Tribes
Mathieu O’Neil
Pluto Press 2009
HB ISBN 9780745327976
PB ISBN 9780745327969
eISBN 9781849644037
Cost per page: 6p
People are inventing new ways of working together on the internet. Decentralised production thrives on weblogs, wikis and free software projects. In Cyberchiefs, Mathieu O’Neil focuses on the regulations of these working relationships. He examines the transformation of leadership and expertise in online networks, and the emergence of innovative forms of participatory politics. What are the costs and benefits of alternatives to hierarchical organisation? Using case studies of online projects or ‘tribes’ such as the radical Primitivism archive, the Daily Kos political weblog, the Debian free software project, and Wikipedia, O’Neil shows that leaders must support maximum autonomy for participants, and he analyses the tensions generated by this distribution of authority.
 
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