[WikiEN-l] The London Review of Books on Wikipedia

Ray Saintonge saintonge at telus.net
Mon Jun 22 04:00:28 UTC 2009


David Gerard wrote:
> 2009/6/21 Cormac Lawler <cormaggio at gmail.com>:
>   
>> I think what's interesting here is asking: how does Wikipedia harness the
>> energy of the public (for want of a better word) in a way that can be more
>> productive, useful (or at least less brain-sporkingly nonsensical) than a
>> newspaper open comment section does? What is it about this way of working -
>> this mode of production - that works well? And what is afforded by 'open
>> commenting' that the wiki model doesn't? (I don't we should overly idealise
>> the wiki model - I'm sure we've all sporked our brains out over on-wiki
>> affairs at some stage or another.)
>>     
> I recall a presentation by Brion Vibber with a slide that said something like:
>
> * Let any idiot edit your website
> * Make sure the good idiots outnumber the bad idiots
>
>   
Absolutely.  The bad idiots can be identified by how much they try to 
prove that they are not idiots, or to confine the other idiots.


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