2009/8/26 David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com
There is a perennial media narrative that unmediated content production cannot possibly work, as it goes against everything media people understand. They have run pretty much THE SAME story about Wikipedia every year since it was created.
This narrative is so strong that no mere facts or objective reality can kill it. I expect to see it next year and the year after too, and the year after that.
That perennial media narrative is a "meme" you're fighting.
You need to come up and use a countermeme that will chase it down and kill it- the meme has to spread faster than that idea, so that every time somebody says that, some bright spark kills them dead with the mildly amusing/apropro reply and do your work for you.
One counter meme I've seen (that you're probably all familiar with) is:
"That's the THEORY, that unmediated content CANNOT work, but the wikipedia works only in PRACTICE, but not in theory!!!"
There's probably other, better memes you can use.
- d.