CONFLICT MANAGEMENT PROCESS FOR VIRTUAL

COMMUNITIES

Juliana de Melo Bezerra and Celso Massaki Hirata

Computer Science Department, Instituto Tecnológico de Aeronautica, S. J. Campos, Brazil

Keywords: Conflict, Virtual community, Conflict management process.

Abstract: Through the participation on collaborative tasks in virtual communities, members can express their

divergences during discussions, which characterize conflicts. Conflicts can contribute positively creativity,

innovation and quality of decisions. However, if not managed, conflicts can negatively impact community

performance and members’ satisfaction. We propose a conflict management process for virtual

communities. The process is useful to design new virtual communities because it allows to bring conflict

management mechanisms, and also to improve mechanisms of existent virtual communities by correctly

addressing the causes and consequences of conflicts.

1 INTRODUCTION

Virtual community is a group of people, who come

together for a purpose online, and who are governed

by norms (Preece, 2000). To accomplish the online

tasks collaboratively, members are in general

involved in discussions, where conflicts can arise.

Virtual communities are likely to experience greater

coordination and communication restrictions, due to

the missing of context and social cues on online

enviroments (Cramton, 2001). This fact can

contribute to misunderstandings during discussions,

and consequently it can lead to conflicts.

Conflict is a disagreement, both manifest and

latent, among members and implies incompatible

goals and interests (Robbins, 1974). Conflict is

practically intrinsic to the life and dynamics of

groups. Conflicts can be beneficial, because they

contribute to creativity, innovation, and quality

improvement of decisions. Conflicts can also be

dysfunctional, when they produce tension and

distract members from performing the task (Medina,

2005); in this case, impacting negatively on

community performance and members’ satisfaction.

If conflicts are managed properly in virtual

communities, the community can take advantage of

the benefits of conflicts and reduce the negative

impacts. So, a process of management conflicts in

virtual communities is of interest. A better

understanding of the factors that contribute to

conflicts and the related impacts can help the

conflict management.

A conflict can have many causes, which are

driven by human and task factors. Liu et al. (2008)

discuss about factors that contribute to conflicts in

work groups, such as group diversity and conflict

resolution styles. Paul et al. (2005) study the use of

distinct conflict resolution styles during the

decision-making processes in virtual teams.

Kankanhalli et al. (2006) propose that, besides the

human factors, some task characteristics, such as

interdependence and routeness, also contribute to

conflicts. The related work is mainly concerned

about the factors that contribute to conflicts, and not

to the conflict management. Conflict resolution

styles refer to behaviors that a member can have

during a conflict. It is an individual response of a

member. We are concerned about responses made

by the community itself, in order to manage conflicts

accordingly.

In other research (Viégas et al., 2004; Kittur and

Kraut, 2008), conflicts in virtual communities based

on wikis, which have Wikipedia (in English version)

as the application, are investigated. Wikipedia is a

free online encyclopaedia driven by volunteer

contributions. It has been studied by many

researchers due to its popularity. Viégas et al. (2004)

use a visualization method to study cooperation and

conflict between authors of articles. Kittur and Kraut

(2008) suggest that conflicts depend not only on the

number of contributors involved, but also on the

de Melo Bezerra J. and Massaki Hirata C..

CONFLICT MANAGEMENT PROCESS FOR VIRTUAL COMMUNITIES.

DOI: 10.5220/0003453500330042

In Proceedings of the 13th International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems (ICEIS-2011), pages 33-42

ISBN: 978-989-8425-56-0

 2011 SCITEPRESS (Science and Technology Publications, Lda.)

density of members in an information space. Their

work characterize conflict by reverts in articles,

which represent how competing perspectives

negotiate their differences. We are particularly

interested on the conflicts that arise during the

discussions among members, and how the

community manages them.

We propose a process of conflict management in

virtual communities. The proposal is based on the

processes of risk managament in projects, described

in PMBoK (2004). The objective of the conflict

management includes an early recognition of

conflicts and their causes, and an appropriate level

of intervention, aiming to advance the quality of

discussions in virtual communities. We believe that

the proposed process is useful for designing new

virtual communities and re-evaluating existent ones,

in order to define and improve, respectively,

mechanisms of conflict response.

The article is organized as follows. Section 2

provides a discussion about conflicts, describing the

human and task factors that can contribute to

conflicts. In Section 3, we propose a conflict

managament process for virtual communities, and

explain it using examples of conflicts investigated in

Wikipedia. Section 4 concludes our work and

indicates future work.

2 CONFLICTS

Conflict refers to the awareness by various parties of

their differences, discrepancies, incompatible wishes

or irreconcilable desires (Mannix et al., 2002). Jehn

(1995) distinguishes two types of conflict: task and

relationship. Task conflict is generally task oriented

and arises from differences in judgement and

perspective. It reflects disagreements in viewpoints,

ideas and opinions concerning to tasks and

decisions. Relationship conflict is emotional and

arises from incompatibilities or disputes among

members, which typicaly includes tension, friction

and animosity. It involves personal issues such as

mutual dislike, personal clashes, and annoyance

among members.

Task and relationship conflicts are positively

correlated (Amason, 1996; Kankanhalli et al., 2006;

Medina et al., 2005), and in this article we consider

both types of conflict. Below we discuss about the

two factors that can contribute to conflicts: human

and task factors.

2.1 Human Factors

The human factors that can contribute to conflicts

are group diversity and individual conflict behavior.

Group diversity is defined as any attribute that

people use to tell themselves that another person is

different (Pelled, 1996). It involves surface-level and

deep-level dimensions. Surface-level diversity is

related to demographic characteristics, such as age,

sex, ethnicity, education, and function. Deep-level

diversity includes cognitive and relational diversity.

Cognitive diversity reflects differences in beliefs and

preferences of group member about group goal.

Relational diversity is based on psychological

perceptions of interpersonal relationship (Liu et al.,

2008).

Group diversity is intrinsic to virtual

communities, because members can be from

different countries or regions, and have distinct

interests and experiences. Sometimes the diversity is

not explicit in virtual communities, especially when

members use logins to represent their identity and do

not detail their profile, as occurs in forums and

Wikipedia. Group diversity stimulates creativity and

allows a variety of skills to be brougth during

discussions, however it can also reduce group

cohesion and increase conflict (Kankanhalli et al.,

2006).

Other human factors that can contribute to

conflicts are the individual behaviors under

conflicts. It means the distinct forms of behavior that

members involved in discussion can perform

individually. It is also known as conflict resolution

styles (Paul et al,. 2005) or conflict management

behaviors (Liu et al., 2008). Typically members

respond to conflict by using one of the five modes:

avoiding, accomodating, competing, compromising,

and collaborating (Thomas and Kilmann, 1974).

Avoiding behavior refers to intentional withdraw

from a conflict situation. Accomodating behavior

seeks for agreement by attemping to smooth out

differences. In competing behavior, member

enforces the own view on others. Compromising

behavior includes to find a middle ground solution

or a common solution that addresses members’

interests. Collaborating behavior concerns to the

achievement of the best solution, by integrating all

views in order to generate a creative new one (Paul

et al. 2005; Foundation Coalition, 2010).

None of these individual behaviors is wrong to

use, but there are better times to use each depending

on the situational realities (Liu, 2008). During

discussions in a virtual community, members can

opt by these distinct individual behaviors. Due to

ICEIS 2011 - 13th International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems

group diversity and the chosen behavior, the way

that members express themselves can lead to

misunderstandings and aggravate the conflict.

2.2 Task Factors

Kankanhalli et al. (2006) propose that, besides the

human factors, some task characteristics

(interdependence and routeness) are also factors that

contribute to conflicts. Interdependence is intrinsic

to the collaborative characteristic of virtual

communities. Routeness appears in tasks depending

on its type and life timing. In this article, we discuss

three main aspects of a task as contributors to

conflicts: timing, subject and level.

Task timing is related to the timeline of the task

being developed by members. There are some

moments that are critical to the task

accomplishment, requiring the involvement of

members in discussions of important issues and

decisions. It can occur, for example, due to the

approximation of the deadline for the task

conclusion. In these critical moments, the occurance

of conflicts can be accelerated.

Another factor that can contribute to conflicts is

the task subject. Depending on the subject being

debated, conflicts are more likely to occur, for

instance, polemic themes, such as religion and

politics can easily generate controversy. In general,

these conflicts are part of the quotidian of members,

and are also debated in the virtual world.

The last task factor is the task level. The

identified levels are operational, procedural and

normative. The operational level includes the

activities developed in community and aligned to its

main objective. The procedural and normative levels

refer, respectively, to procedures and norms of

community. As norms regulate the people

relationships and activities, a change in a norm

affects the community. Besides the norms, there are

the procedures, which detail the operational

participation of the members in order to guide the

accomplishment of norms. The task level factor is

particularly interesting to a special kind of virtual

communities called self-organizing virtual

communities (Bezerra and Hirata, 2011). In self-

organizing virtual communities, members are

expected to participate not only in the execution of

the community operational activities, but also in the

definition of norms and in the accomplishment of

related procedures. To execute activities, members

are involved in dicussions and conflicts can happen.

3 CONFLICT MANAGEMENT

PROCESS

In this section we propose a conflict management

process, which aims to both take advantage of the

benefits of conflicts and reduce some dysfunctional

effects of them.

We conjecture that risk management processes as

described in PMBoK (2004) are a sound basis to

conflict management. The reason is that conflict as

well as risk is a situation that has to be planned

before occur, in order to be correctly addressed.

However, there are some differences. For instance,

identifying conflicts depends on considering human

factors, such as culture, experience, and behavior of

members, which are essentially abstract factors. We

believe that the processes and activities are not that

different. We elaborate the customization on the

descriptions of the conflict management activities.

We also conjecture that similar inputs, tools,

techniques, and outputs described in PMBoK can be

used for conflict management. For example, the

techniques to collect information, such as

brainstorming and interviews can be widely used.

The proposed activities for the conflict

management process are: Identification of Conflicts

and Causes, Analysis of Conflicts, Conflict

Response Planning, and Monitoring and Control of

Conflicts. It is important to understand that the three

first activities are concerned to planning. The last

activity is related to manifested conflicts that occurs

in community and they are generally handled

according to the planning made before.

We perform a study about conflicts in Wikipedia

in order to gather examples to better explain our

process of conflict management. Wikipedia is an

online encyclopaedia where content can be added or

changed at any time by anyone on Internet. During

the process of content edition, there can be some

discussions among members, which are held in the

talk pages associated to the content pages. There are

also discussions regarding the edition of norms and

the accomplishment of procedures, due to the self-

organizing characteristic of the community (Bezerra

and Hirata, 2011). As consequence of active

discussions, conflicts can happen. Conflicts are

known as disputes in Wikipedia. In the next

sections, we explain each conflict managemenent

activity.

3.1 Identification of Conflicts

and Causes

The Identification of Conflicts and Causes activity

CONFLICT MANAGEMENT PROCESS FOR VIRTUAL COMMUNITIES

refers to the determination of which conflicts are

likely to occur in virtual communities and which are

the potential causes for them. It can be made using

lists of conflicts and causes previously identified in

other similar analysis. It can also be made through

an inquiry into the factors that contribute to

conflicts, which are human and task factors

described in Section 2.

We analysed twenty conflict cases in Wikipedia

from the human and task factors’ perspectives. The

conflicts about general articles in Wikipedia, we

retrieved from those reported in a mechanism called

“Editor Assistance”. For further reference, we

provide a code to identify each analysed conflicts,

namely: A query on space Quest 4 (A1), Stealth

Game' reverting disputes (A2), Maine

Gubernatorial election, 2010 candidate (A3), Anna

Nicholas (A4), Album genre disputes (A5), Geoffry

Thomas (A6), Share international article citations

(A7), Lanark-Frontenac-Lennox and Addington

(A8), COI and addressing inaccuracies (A9),

Seeking dispute resolution (A10), Copy-editing of

everclear (alcohol) (A11), and Dispute regarding

quotations from the Australian politician Adam

Bandt (A12). The conflicts about the definition and

maintenance of norms, we retrieve from the

discussions about the Civility norm in Wikipedia.

For further reference, we provide a code to identify

each analysed conflict, namely: Don't be a dick

(N1), Merge with WP:LIE (N2), Blocking for

incivility (N3), Polite provocation (N4), Changes to

this policy (N5), Is there any consensus for this

addition? (N6), Policy or guideline? (N7), and Drop

this principle (N8).

Through the investigation of conflict cases in

Wikipedia, we identified seven main conflicts,

which are shown in Table 1. We also identified

some causes of conflicts, which are listed in Table 2.

Some discussions regarding the lists are provided

below.

The task level factor (operational, procedural,

and normative) helps the identification of conflicts.

In the operational level, conflicts can occur

frequently, because the members diverge about the

content of the article being edited (C1). This kind of

misunderstandings can happen between general

members, but can also involve members in

administrative positions (C3). We call administrator

a member with any administrative function, which

include the following roles in Wikipedia:

“administrators”, “bureaucrats”, “stewards”

“checkusers”, “reviewers”, “account creators”,

“oversighters”, and “rollbackers”. An example of

conflict C3 is the case A4, where a member argues

about a new page that he created and was deleted

without further explanation. The other cases A1 to

A3, and A5 to A12 are examples of conflict C1.

Table 1: Conflicts in Wikipedia.

Id Conflict

Divergence between editors about the content of

an article

Divergence between editors about the

presentation of an article

Divergence between editor and administrator

about the content of an article

Divergence between editor and administrator

about the presentation of an article

Divergence regarding the decision to be taken

during the execution of a procedure

C6 Divergence about the content of a norm

C7 Divergence about the presentation of a norm

In the procedure level, there are difficult cases to

handle and consequently critical decisions to make,

which can contribute to conflicts (C5). For example,

“Articles for Deletion” is a board that discusses if a

page has to be deleted; and “Administrators’

Noticeboard/Incidents” is a board that discusses

cases about incorrect conduct of members, such as

vandalism and uncivil behavior.

In the normative level, discussions about changes

in the content of norms (C6) can have divergences,

and consequently conflicts, because norms affect

substantially the community. The following cases

are examples of C6: N3, N4, N5, N6, N7 and N8.

For instance in N3, members discuss about a change

of the way the blocking for incivility is performed.

Another example is N8, where a criticism regarding

the norm provoked an inflamed conflict.

The conflicts C1, C3, and C6 comprise of

divergences regarding content. However there are

also divergences about the presentation of articles

and norms. The presentation includes text

comprehension, text formatting, and organization of

subsections. This fact leads to the identification of

conflicts C2, C4 and C7. Some examples of C7 are

the cases N1 and N2.

The human and task factors also help during the

identification of the causes of conflicts. It is

important to observe that a conflict is not driven by

just one cause. Many causes can contribute to a

conflict. For instance, A3 is an example of conflict

C1. This conflict involves a polemic theme, politics,

which characterizes the cause CA13. This conflict

also has signs of incorrect use of emphasis during

ICEIS 2011 - 13th International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems

the discussion, as illustrated in the comment

(1),

which characterizes the cause CA10.

“If you're going to scream at me via edit

summary, you could at least be more specific. I

have no idea what "YOU CAN'T!" is referring

to.” (comment found in A3)

(1)

Table 2: Causes of conflicts in Wikipedia.

Id Cause of conflicts

CA1 Missing of explanation about taken actions

CA2 Distinct interpretations about contents

CA3 Distinct interpretations about norms

CA4 Difficult to explain the issue to be discussed

CA5 Lack of context

CA6 Persistance when expressing opinion

CA7 Difficult to express an opinion

CA8 Missing explanation about an opinion

CA9 Missing member identification

CA10 Incorrect use of emphasis

CA11 Personal attacks and judgments

CA12 Critical timing of task accomplishment

CA13 Polemic subjects

Some discussions about the identified causes of

conflicts, presented in Table 2, are provided next.

Members often complain when someone else

reverts or changes what they have made without

making clear the reason (CA1). Conflict can happen

due to differences in interpretation of the issue

(CA2). It can be explained by the group diversity

factor that impacts the understanding of contents,

due to ambiguities in text, cultural singularities in

language, and differences of members’ experiences.

In Wikipedia, it can also be verified regarding the

interpretation of norms (CA3).

The group diversity influences the way people

express themselves in spoken and written language.

It can be noted in Wikipedia by the name of the

topic discussed that sometimes does not reflect the

real problem to be handled (CA4). There are cases

where the discussion title is adequate, however the

problem to be handled and the initial proposal is not

clear (CA5). It can generate misunderstandings and

even the loss of direction in discussions. To express

persistently the same opinion (CA6) can be

perceived by other members as a competing

behavior and negative reactions can occur, which

generates conflicts.

During discussions, it can be difficult to

understand ones’ opinion (CA7) without reading all

the conversation, especially if the sentence mentions

some particular point of the conversation. So, some

misunderstandings can occur, consequently

contributing to conflicts. Besides a member correctly

expresses an opinion during a discussion, it is

desired that he explains his point of view (CA8).

The explanation of opinion can enrich the

discussion, by giving additional information. It can

help to reduce conflicts, because an opinion without

a reason can be interpreted as a tentative to impose

someone’s view in a competing behavior.

Conflicts occur among members. It is important

for members to know the contributions of each

participant of the conflict, in order to be able to

analyze the distinct views and form an opinion. So,

the correct identification of the contributions is

desired (CA9). The heated discussions, characterized

by personal attacks and judgments (CA11), are

particularly related to conflicts, because they are

used to criticize, offend and expose members.

The use of emphasis, such as capital letters, italic

format and quotation marks, in written language can

contribute to conflicts, when they are used to express

negative feelings (CA10). For example, a sentence

in capital letter can be understood as a scream, and

the italic format can express angry. The use of

emphasis is not always harmful, for example capital

letters can be used to write an abbreviation, and

quotation marks can be used to identify the name of

an article section.

To reason about the timing factor in conflicts, the

number of archived discussions regarding the

Civility norm in Wikipedia was analysed according

its life cycle. The high number of comments in

discussions indicates possible conflicts during a

period. We observe a peak of possible conflicts

during 2008. In this period some inflamed

discussions can be identified, for example N4, N5,

N6, and N7. It is not clear the reasons for this

intense period. It can be related to the crescent

number of articles and members in Wikipedia

(Kittur and Kraut, 2010), which can have caused the

need of additional discussions about this norm and

its application. It characterizes the cause CA12.

The timing factor is also noted in Wikipedia by

analysing the number of visualizations of a page. We

analyse the number of accesses to an article called

“Maine gubernatorial election, 2010” since its

creation. This article is about an event happened on

November/2010. Two peaks of visualization in 2010

were identified: one near July/2010 and other near

November/20010. There is also a reported conflict in

CONFLICT MANAGEMENT PROCESS FOR VIRTUAL COMMUNITIES

A3. The first peak can be related to the preparation

and final adjustments of the article for the event; and

the second peak can be related to the event

occurrence itself. It also characterizes the cause

CA12.

In Wikipedia, the task subject factor is

represented by the article subject. There can be

conflicts when members discuss about any subject,

for example, A1 to A12 illustrates cases of conflicts

about games, politics, music, place, etc. However,

there can be a high number of conflicts about

specific subjects, in general polemic subjects

(CA13) as politics, religion, and war.

Although the identified conflicts and causes are

for a particular community, the Wikipedia, we

believe that they are quite general and can be used as

suggestions for the conflict management of other

communities. With the conflicts and causes

identified, we can proceed to the next activity of the

conflict management process.

3.2 Analysis of Conflicts

This activity includes methods to priorize the

identified conflict for the Conflict Response

Planning. We understand that the community can

improve its performance by focusing on high

priority conflicts. The priority of conflicts can be

evaluated considering two main aspects: the

probability of occurence and the impact in

community if the conflict occurs.

The probability of occurrence of a conflict is

related to the probability of occurrence of its causes,

which were already identified in the previous

activity of the conflict managament process.

Some identified impacts of conflicts are on

performance and members’ satisfaction (De Dreu

and Weingart, 2003). Performance is mostly related

to task quality and effectiveness. Reduced quality of

tasks can expose the community credibility. The

dissatisfaction of members can provoke hard

consequences, such as disturbance of members’ trust

on community, reduction of members’ participation,

and even the loss of members. For example, in

comment

(2) a member reports the displeasure of

being in an endless conflict and criticises the

community. It reveals a negative impact on the

confidence and admiration of members on

community. In the comments (3) and (4), members,

who reported the conflict, became so unsatisfied that

mention to not contribute anymore. It represents a

negative impact on the commitment of members in

community.

“Let us end this petty, ridiculousness which

makes Wikipedia an ugly rather than useful

place.” (comment found in A3)

(2)

“Well since you put it that way, I think I'm

done with this article.” (comment found in A1)

(3)

“I was hoping to expand upon this article, but

I'd like to know ahead of time if it's going to be

a waste of time.” (comment found in A2)

(4)

The probability and impact of each conflict has to be

evaluated. The definition of the distinct levels of

probability and impact depends on each community.

There can be defined a relative scale of probability,

including for example the levels “not probable”,

“probable” and “high probable”. It is also possible to

use numeric probabilities, for instance 0.1; 0.3; 0.5;

0.7 and 0.9. The scale about impact has to reflect its

importance, and it can be relative or numeric.

PMBoK suggests a matrix of probability and

impact, which we adopt for priorizing conflicts for

the Wikipedia analysis. It is illustrated in Table 3.

The priorization is made according to zones: high

priority (hard gray), medium priority (light gray) and

low priority (medium gray).

Table 3: Matrix of probability and impact (PMBoK).

Probability

0.90

0.05 0.09 0.18 0.36 0.72

0.70

0.04 0.07 0.14 0.28 0.56

0.50

0.03 0.05 0.10 0.20 0.40

0.30

0.02 0.03 0.06 0.12 0.24

0.10

0.01 0.01 0.02 0.04 0.08

0.05 0.10 0.20 0.40 0.80

Impact

Using the conflicts in Table 1, and the

probability and impact scales in Table 3, we make

an analyze of conflicts in Wikipedia. The result is

shown in Table 4. For each conflict, we indicate

probability, impact, and priority. It reflects our

interpretation about the conflicts in Wikipedia.

Table 4: Analysis of conflicts in Wikipedia.

Conflict Id Probability Impact Prority

C1 0.90 0.40 high

C2 0.50 0.10 low

C3 0.50 0.20 medium

C4 0.30 0.10 low

C5 0.50 0.20 medium

C6 0.30 0.80 medium

C7 0.30 0.10 low

ICEIS 2011 - 13th International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems

The conflict C1 is very probable considering the

number of contributors, because many members are

involved in the edition of contents, which is the

main activity in Wikipedia. C1 has a considerable

impact, due to the direct relation with the quality of

articles, and consequently with the credibility of the

community. Besides, C1 can impact members’

motivation to contribute.

The conflict C3, although similar to C1, has an

important difference that is the involvement of an

administrator in the conflict. This kind of conflict

occurs mainly because a general member does not

agree with the attitude or guidance of the

administrator. The impact of C3 is the decrease of

confidence of members on the community, because

general members see administrators as community

representatives. In discussions of the procedure

level, it is common for the members to express an

opinion in a clear way using statements as “oppose”,

“support” for the initial proposal. This practice helps

to reduce the probability of the conflict C5. The

impact of C5 is related to the confidence of members

on the decisions made during the procedure

execution.

We consider a low probability for conflict C6

due to the high maturity of the community, which

already has established its norms. However, the

associated impact is very high, because modification

of norms can configure a significant change in the

way the community operates, so conflicts regarding

this topic are critical. The conflicts C2, C4, and C7,

regarding the presentation of articles and norms can

occur, however they have low impact to the task

quality. The low impact contributes to the low

priority of these conflicts.

One technique to evaluate the probability of a

conflict is to evaluate the probability of its causes. A

conflict can have many causes with distinct

criticality. Besides, some causes are likely to

generate a specific conflict. The evaluation of

causes’ probabilities is not trivial due to the

correlation among the causes, for instance CA4 is in

general correlated to CA5. So this evaluation may

require the assistance of experts in community.

Given a conflict, we can assign the probability of

occurrence for each cause listed in Table 2, and then

define the probability of the conflict.

The probabilities of some causes are particular

interesting to discuss. The cause CA1 (missing of

explanation about taken actions) is quite probable in

C1 due to the nature of the community that is to edit

the content without a previous validation or

discussion. The same cause in C6 is less probable,

because members in general discuss the proposal

before change the norm. Although the fact that in

Wikipedia the identification of members in

discussions is not required, members are used to

provide this information. It contributes to the low

probability of CA9 (missing of member

identification). In C3, C5 and C6, CA9 is rarely

perceived, however in C1 it can occur. Causes with

high probabilities for all conflicts are in general

concerned about how a member informs the

community what he desires to discuss (CA4 and

CA5), and how he express and justify his opinion

(CA7 and CA8). Other critical cause is the presence

of personal attacks and judgments (CA11). The

cause CA12 (critical timing for task

accomplishment) is very probable in C5, because

decisions have to be taken in a short time in order to

address the cases promptly, for example cases of

vandalism require a quick response by the

community.

The priorization of conflicts allows to list which

conflicts have to be addressed first. The relation

between a conflict and its causes is useful both to

evaluate the probability of the conflict, and also to

address the response for the conflict. The Analysis

of Conflicts activity is not a trivial activity, because

it needs a considerable understanding of the

members’ roles and community work. The next

section details the forms to respond to conflicts.

3.3 Conflict Response Planning

The Conflict Causes Response Planning refers to the

development of options and the determination of

actions to reduce the occurrence of conflicts. It deals

with conflicts considering their priority. In general it

is necessary to choose some suitable responses

among all the possible ones. We present three

approaches for conflict response, namely avoidance,

transference and mitigation, based on the strategies

for risk response in project management proposed in

PMBoK (2004).

The avoidance approach refers to the impediment

of the emergence of conflicts, for example by

blocking discussions. During the investigation of

conflicts in Wikipedia, a mechanism of the

avoidance approach is identified. It is called page

protection mechanism and it is responsible for

blocking changes in articles. By eliminating new

editions in articles, the mechanism eliminates

disagreements among members and consequently

avoids conflicts. It is important to note that an

adopted mechanism may have other consequences

on the community. In this case, for instance, other

members who are not involved in the conflict may

CONFLICT MANAGEMENT PROCESS FOR VIRTUAL COMMUNITIES

not agree with the adopted mechanism (page

protection), because they desire to contribute to the

article while the editions are blocked.

The transference approach is to assign to an

entity, outside the virtual community, the negative

impact of a conflict as well as the right to give to it a

proper response. For example, if a conflict involves

serious threats, such as death threats, some justice

entity outside the virtual community can be called to

investigate the case.

To mitigate a conflict, it is possible to reduce its

probability and/or to reduce its impact. The

reduction of the conflict probability is related to the

reduction of the probabilities of the causes that

generate the conflict.

In Wikipedia some actions are perceived aiming

to decrease the probability of conflicts. One example

is that some expert members help general members

with the article edition, trying to improve content

and assure quality. These expert members have more

experience in Wikipedia and can contribute to the

interpretation of general contents (CA2) and norms

(CA3). For instance, in comment

(5), an assistant of

the “Editor Assistance” mechanism remembers the

importance of the contributions made by the member

X (the real identification is omitted).

“Please see the latest comments on the article

talk page by X, an experienced Wikipedia

editor and administrator.” (comment found in

A12)

(5)

Other way to mitigate conflicts in Wikipedia by

decreasing their probabilities is the existence of

specialized boards to discuss critical themes (CA13).

An example is provided in

(6).

“I would suggest that you ask this question at

WT:WikiProject Electoral districts in Canada

as they are probably best placed to proffer

useful advice.” (comment found in A8)

(6)

The mitigation approach to conflict includes

mechanisms to address and reduce impact of

conflicts. One example is to inform the community

the status of a task that is under conflict, in a way to

indicate its reliability. In Wikipedia an article can

receive templates that indicate unsolved conflicts

about the content. The templates have associated

symbols and notes. Some examples are: POV

(Symbol: balance. Note: The neutrality of this article

is disputed), and Pp-dispute (Symbol: lock. Note:

This page is currently protected from editing until

disputes have been resolved).

Some mitigation mechanisms can be used to help

members in conflicts to reach a conclusion, which

aim to reduce the negative impact of members’

dissatisfaction. Some examples of such mechanisms

are facilitation, mediation, and arbitration (Lewicki

et al., 1992). A voting system in some decision

making process can also be used. In Wikipedia we

identify the following mechanisms: “Editor

Assistance”, “Third Opinion”, “Request

Comments”, “Mediation Cabal”, “Mediation

Committee” and “Arbitration”. Each mechanism has

its own characteristics, which defines how cases are

accepted and dealt. For example, “Third Opinion”

mechanism is indicated to disputes between two

editors with observance of good faith and civility.

Other example is “Arbitration” mechanism, which is

the last step of dispute resolution on Wikipedia, and

has the authority to impose binding solutions to

disputes between editors.

We identify that some mechanisms could be

proposed to mitigate the identified conflicts by

addressing the probability of related causes in

Wikipedia. For instance, the explanation of a change

performed by a member in an article or norm could

be required. Members should be obliged to explain

the issue to be debated, providing the proper

references to establish the context. Members should

provide their opinion and explanation in an

organized way during discussions. The identification

of members should be required during discussions.

The use of personal pronouns (which can indicate

personal attacks and judgements) and language

emphasis (which can be used to incivility) should be

regulated.

Depending on the severity of a conflict, a

mechanism cannot be effective, so it is necessary to

use other mechanisms. In Wikipedia there are

evidences the use of multiple mechanisms to a

conflict, for example in

(7) and (8) an assistant of

“Assistance Request” mechanism comments that the

conflict should be handled by the “Request

Comments” mechanism (also known as WP:RfC or

just RFC). In comment

(8) there is also a mention

regarding the previous submission of the issue in

conflict to a specialized board called WikiProject.

“Well probably an WP:RfC is the next step.”

(comment found in A10)

(7)

“Not an easy dispute... And it looks like

it's gotten involved on the WikiProject

talk page too... I'd suggest starting an

"arbitrary break" subsection and

proposing that an RFC be started.”

(comment found in A3)

(8)

The community should propose response

mechanisms to cover all the conflicts and their

relevant causes, especially the conflicts with high

ICEIS 2011 - 13th International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems

priorities. It is also important to evaluate the cost to

develop such mechanisms in order to choose the

appropriated ones. In the next section, we detail the

last activity of the process that deals with manifested

conflicts.

3.4 Monitoring and Control

of Conflicts

This activity deals with real instances of conflicts

that occur in the virtual community. In order to deal

with manifested conflicts, we propose two activities:

monitoring and control. Monitoring refers to the

detection of the conflict, and control consists in

addressing the correct response to the conflicts, in

this situation the previous planning made can be

used.

When a conflict arises in Wikipedia and cannot

be handled by the involved members, some member

requests the use of a mechanism. So, there is no

automatic detection in the monitoring phase in

Wikipedia. Regarding the control of conflicts in

Wikipedia, frequently the own members are aware

of the adequate mechanism to help them during

conflicts, as reported in comments

(9) and (10),

where the “Third Opinion” and “Mediation”

mechanisms are respectively mentioned. However

sometimes members are really confused about which

is the suitable mechanism to manage the current

conflict, as illustrated in

(11).

“I am fine with seeking a definitive 3rd opinion

on the issue.” (comment found in A3)

(9)

“I assume this issue is not resolved, so I'm

going to research how to start a dispute

mediated by someone on Wikipedia.”

(comment found in A7)

(10)

“Also, I oppose bringing in a binding third-

party; I think the informal, unbinding

Mediation Cabal would be a much better start.”

(comment found in A3)

(11)

If a higher instance resolution mechanism is

required, the need of additional intervention by

members during the transference from the lower

instance to higher has to be analysed. For instance,

in Wikipedia when another mechanism is needed,

the involved members have to agree with that and

submit the case again to the new mechanism, and

sometimes it requires extra discussions and opens

the possibility to new conflicts.

The control activity should have tasks to track a

conflict in order to know its status and the

mechanisms used during its life cycle. This track in

Wikipedia may be difficult, as expressed by the

comment

(12) of an assistant who has doubt about

the real situation of the conflict A3.

“Not sure what's going on presently in this

situation.” (comment found in A3)

(12)

The suitable response for a conflict is based on the

mechanisms planned in the previous activities of the

conflict management process. The mechanisms have

to work properly or handle conflicts in an acceptable

deadline. Not addressing conflicts properly and

promptly can damage the members’ trust in the

community mechanisms. So, some additional

recommendations are to monitor the efficiency and

efficacy of the mechanisms.

4 CONCLUSIONS

During discussions in virtual communities, conflicts

can arise due to divergences among members.

Conflicts are part of communities’ life and are more

likely to occur in virtual communities due to the

communication restrictions. Unhandled conflicts can

impact negatively in community.

We proposed a process for conflict management

with the activities considering the identification and

prioritization of conflicts, the response planning for

the critical conflicts, and the monitoring and control

of conflicts when they occur in community. As new

situations can occur due to the community evolution,

generating new kinds of conflicts not already

identified, it can be necessary to review the planning

and adapt response mechanisms along the

community life cycle.

In order to describe the proposed process, we

used it for Wikipedia. The investigation leads us to

some future work, which includes the study of

automatic mechanisms to both reduce the probability

of occurrence of conflicts and detect conflicts during

the monitoring activity.

As conflicts are beneficial to communities, due

to the presence of distinct contributions to enhance

the decision, the participation of members in

discussions has to be stimulated. Then, we believe

that the study of incentive methods to increase

members’ in discussions is also an interesting future

work.

To experiment the proposed process in a real

community is not a simple task, because it depends

on the community objectives and maturity, as well

as individual characteristics of members. So, a

future work is to use multi-agents system in order to

simulate the proposed process for conflict

management.

CONFLICT MANAGEMENT PROCESS FOR VIRTUAL COMMUNITIES

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ICEIS 2011 - 13th International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems