On 5/2/05, Joseph Reagle reagle@mit.edu wrote:
It's important to understand *why* he argues there is wisdom in crowds. I don't know if you've read it and disagree with the fundamentals, but it requires three specific conditions: diversity, independence, and decentralization within the group. This seems very appropriate to WP. Excerpts from my mindmap [1] on this particular note are below:
[[[ The wisdom of crowds * p=Doubleday y=2004 a=USA r=20040921 An argument that groups of people can make very good decisions when there is diversity, independence, and decentralization within the group. This is augmented by case studies in traffic, science, committees, companies, markets and democracy. The wisdom of crowds + 4 In Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, the audience got it right 91 percent of the time, the friend/expert at right 65 percent 10 the stock market identified Morton Thiokol because: the diversity of opinion, independence, decentralization, and aggregation 22 bookies, Google, IEM (election's), HSX (box-office), are all successful decision markets
This seems to be very unlike Wikipedia. Wikipedia does not have some kind of weighted vote between the various ideas. It puts on one, and then either keeps it, corrects it, or goes into a revert war. Correction needs 1 person, revert war needs 2. No "wisdom of the crowd" here, just "wisdom of different people".
Andre Engels