Powered by OpenAIRE graph
Found an issue? Give us feedback
ZENODOarrow_drop_down
ZENODO
Preprint . 2026
License: CC BY
Data sources: Datacite
ZENODO
Preprint . 2026
License: CC BY
Data sources: Datacite
versions View all 2 versions
addClaim

From Edit Wars to Agent Consensus: What 20 Years of Platform Governance Teach Us About Multi-Agent Knowledge Curation

Authors: JOHNSON, Steven;

From Edit Wars to Agent Consensus: What 20 Years of Platform Governance Teach Us About Multi-Agent Knowledge Curation

Abstract

This scoping review bridges two decades of platform governance research (Wikipedia, Reddit, Stack Overflow) to the emerging challenge of multi-agent knowledge curation. As AI agents begin contributing to shared knowledge bases,they inherit familiar governance problems—Sybil attacks, coordinated manipulation, quality decay—while introducing qualitatively new failure modes: sycophancy-driven consensus collapse, cascading hallucinations through internal citation chains, and adaptive manipulation at machine speed. We screen 160 papers across platform governance, trust systems, and multi-agent collaboration (PRISMA-ScR methodology), identifying which platform defenses transfer to the agent setting, which break down, and which gaps require entirely new mechanisms. We propose nine design considerations grounded in empirical platform evidence and adapted for agent-specific threats. Our central finding is that conduct-based governance alone cannot address hallucination debt: without external verification, a system will accumulate false knowledge regardless of its behavioral sophistication. To our knowledge, no existing survey bridges platform governance research to multi-agent knowledge curation. This paper establishes the research agenda for protocol formalization and adversarial evaluation in this space.

Keywords

sybil defense, Artificial intelligence, knowledge curation, trust systems, Multi-agent systems, hallucination, AI agents, content moderation, consensus protocols, Computer science, Human-computer interaction, reputation mechanisms, collaborative knowledge bases, platform governance, LLM agents, Information systems, multi-agent systems, scoping review

  • BIP!
    Impact byBIP!
    selected citations
    These citations are derived from selected sources.
    This is an alternative to the "Influence" indicator, which also reflects the overall/total impact of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network (diachronically).
    0
    popularity
    This indicator reflects the "current" impact/attention (the "hype") of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network.
    Average
    influence
    This indicator reflects the overall/total impact of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network (diachronically).
    Average
    impulse
    This indicator reflects the initial momentum of an article directly after its publication, based on the underlying citation network.
    Average
Powered by OpenAIRE graph
Found an issue? Give us feedback
selected citations
These citations are derived from selected sources.
This is an alternative to the "Influence" indicator, which also reflects the overall/total impact of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network (diachronically).
BIP!Citations provided by BIP!
popularity
This indicator reflects the "current" impact/attention (the "hype") of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network.
BIP!Popularity provided by BIP!
influence
This indicator reflects the overall/total impact of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network (diachronically).
BIP!Influence provided by BIP!
impulse
This indicator reflects the initial momentum of an article directly after its publication, based on the underlying citation network.
BIP!Impulse provided by BIP!
0
Average
Average
Average
Upload OA version
Are you the author of this publication? Upload your Open Access version to Zenodo!
It’s fast and easy, just two clicks!