[sociate] Two fascinating looks at the Wikipedia

Last night I had the great pleasure to hear Wikipedia's founder Jimmy Wales
talk about the project's origins, workings and dynamics as part of Howard
Rheingold's Toward a  <BLOCKED::http://shl.stanford.edu/hum202.html>
Literacy of Cooperation class at Stanford.

Among other things, he drew a great distinction between two ways of looking
at what makes  <BLOCKED::http://en.wikipedia.com/> Wikipedia work.


*       If it's an emergent phenomenon, merely the product of people trying
to work together, none of whom are particularly significant, then it
probably needs an explicit reputation system like eBay's.
*       If it's a community at work, where some members are powerful and
should be respected, then reputation is just a natural outcome of everyone's
interactions and needs no explicit subsystem.

Jimmy believes the second perspective fits Wikipedia best. I agree.

Then  <BLOCKED::http://www.coherenceengine.com/blog/> Geoff Cohen sent me a
link to Infoworld's  <BLOCKED::http://weblog.infoworld.com/udell/> Jon Udell
doing a brilliant commentary on a topic you might never have imagined
there'd be an encyclopedia entry on: the
<BLOCKED::http://weblog.infoworld.com/udell/gems/umlaut.html> heavy metal
umlaut.

Check it out. Everything about it is brilliant, including Jon's execution of
the tour + voiceover.


posted by Jerry Michalski at
<BLOCKED::http://www.sociate.com/blog/archives/2005_02_01_archive.html#11080
7142553019530> 1:56 PM

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