Kevin Kelly and THE Wikipedia
Kevin Kelly’s response is saying the hive mentality may seem pretty narrow and seem like groupspeak, but “its brute dumbness produces the raw material that design smarts can work on.” Just trusting the hive would be stupid he believes, but disregarding the hive would be even worse. He believes there needs to be involvement from the bottom-up and the top-down in order for something like Wiki to actual be some sort of resource. He also believes that the Wikipedia model would probably not be good for anything other than writing universal encyclopedia (for now at least).
I would have to agree with Kevin about involvement from the bottom-up and the top-down, but I think this type of involvement is used in any successful… anything and so I would have to disagree with his belief that the Wikipedia model would probably not be good for anything else. I think he might be thinking about this too narrowly. In a sense, I feel like this is how elections work in our political system. Top-down telling us what they’ll do, bottom-up responding, top-down altering their campaign or continuing what they are doing.
For today’s class: Wikiality
It was mentioned before, but should be discussed in class today:
My Response to Shirky
Quick recap of my understanding of Shirky’s response:Though Shirky agrees with Lanier that there is a need to look at the downsides of collective action, he feels that Lanier mischaracterizes the present situation. Specifically, Lanier does not consider thoroughly the details that are involved in allowing Wikipedia to operate. There is more to Wikipedia than just the misconception of everyone having the same power as creators of content:
“the truth of the matter is that a small group of participants design and enforce editorial policy through mechanisms like the Talk pages, lock protection, article inclusion voting, mailing lists, and so on. Furthermore, proposed edits are highly dependant on individual reputation — anonymous additions or alterations are subjected to a higher degree of both scrutiny and control, while the reputation of known contributors is publicly discussed on the Talk pages.â€
Summary of The Jaron Lanier Reading
Lanier’s Beef with Wikipedia
Jaron Lanier does not find fault with Wikipedia in itself but the way in which Wikipedia is viewed and used and how it’s been elevated to such importance so quickly. Wikipedia is only a part of a larger pattern of a new online collectivism trend that “is nothing less than a resurgence of the idea that the collective is all-wise.†Because of this “there has been a loss of insight and subtlety, a disregard for the nuances of considered opinions, and an increased tendency to enshrine the official or normative beliefs of an organization.†The reason that there hasn’t been a public uproar about this issue is because “bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology.â€
