Wikipedia:Wiki magic

According to Ben Kovitz, Wiki Magic is "the mysterious process by which communities with common interests work to improve wiki pages by incremental contributions". Wiki Magic has been described by Jimmy Wales as a phenomenon whereby an author may write the beginnings of an article at the end of the day, only to wake up in the morning and find the stub converted into a much more substantial article. Wales considered this as one of the reasons why Wikipedians were so willing to contribute to Wikipedia. According to Wales "Someone may write a three sentence [Wikipedia] article in the evening. And then something wonderful happens. Because in the next morning it may have grown to a seven paragraph article. This creates enthusiasm and involvement in the community."

Wiki Magic can be considered an example of collective intelligence as it not only increases Wikipedia content volume, but also article quality. Noteworthy in this context are Good Samaritans (one- or few-time contributors to Wikipedia), as their collective contributions have the most significant impact on content quality.