The Internet encyclopedia Wikipedia, an applied open-source project, is a very successful collaborative creation based on the open-source model. The success of volunteers in building this wide-scale and well-organized network of entries in an encyclopedia having vast language and cultural variants is not the only example of successful collaboration. Users also generate or enrich many other voluminous sets of information based on the services provided by fast-growing firms. It is important to understand the motivations of volunteers; this information could be helpful, for instance, when determining possible paths to an open information society or when looking for new ways for service providers to grow and increase profits.

The article outlines the results of a survey on what motivates the authors of Wikipedia, the relative weight of the different factors, and which ones influence higher levels of contribution. If one wants to know about these motivations and correlations, this short article is worth reading. Eight motivation categories are investigated, with all but one collected from the literature on volunteering motivation scales. The category of “fun” is found to be at the top of the list. The role of ideology turns out to be questionable. Career and social motivations seem to be weak, while values, understanding, and enhancement turn out to be more important. The contribution level was measured in hours per week spent on contributing. Means and standard deviations of the answers according to motivation categories are given, together with the correlation of each category with the level of contribution. The discussion on the evaluation itself reflects on some aspects of how the author attempted to reach an objective result.