I’m currently re-reading James Surowiecki’s The Wisdom of Crowds. It’s a must-read for anyone involved in social computing. There are many parallels between the notions explored in the book and the group collaboration exhibited by users of social software from Basecamp (an obvious choice) to Facebook. While reading this post at Something Awful, I saw some significant parallels in the group authorship of esoteric content, despite the levity in the post itself.
The Something Awfulers have named the phenomenon they’ve identifies as “wikigroaning”. To quote the post:
The premise is quite simple. First, find a useful Wikipedia article that normal people might read. For example, the article called “Knight.” Then, find a somehow similar article that is longer, but at the same time, useless to a very large fraction of the population. In this case, we’ll go with “Jedi Knight.” Open both of the links and compare the lengths of the two articles. Compare not only that, but how well concepts are explored, and the greater professionalism with which the longer article was likely created.
Now, in all seriousness, I see this absolutely as something that fits squarely in the wisdom of crowds box. The crowd of (admittedly often seriously deep geek) authors for the “useless to a very large fraction of the population” articles are collectively the decision-makers on the content of the articles. On that collective basis, and in the discussion behind the articles, some very serious, well-moderated group decisions are being made. Thus the better writing, rich exploration of concepts and high level of professionalism.
via jwz.
Hey -
If you think this is as funny as I do check out http://www.wikigroaning.com. Cool site that quantifies the comparison. -Jim