Posts Tagged: wikipedia

1. In the beginning of the book, the Lessig introduces us to RO (Read Only) and RW (Read Write) cultures. He explains the latter to be the traditional idea of participation in the creation and recreation of content while the former (and now the most common) to be where people consume creative content without being a creator using new technologies. However, at the end of the first chapter the author states he believes the technologies of the RO culture could benefit and revive the somewhat forgotten RW way of life. How is this so? Do you think that both RO and RW can work together?

2. In the book, Lessig states that RO cultures are driven by professionals while RW cultures are driven by professionals and amateurs. How have both RO and RW been critical to the development of pop culture?

3. In the second part of the book, Lessig discusses how Wikipedia is considered a “sharing economy.” He also goes into detail about why the website decided to forgo selling advertising space and, thus, miss out on over 100 million dollars in revenue each year. Do you think this was the right decision for an informational-based website? If there were advertisements on Wikipedia, would this affect how you read and interpreted the information?

I have always had a lot of questions about Wikipedia and how it goes against typical business models and information collaboration we have learned to trust through the centuries.  This week’s readings and discussions in regard to the rise of networks helped clear some of this blurriness.  It seems that Wikipeida turned everything upside down in terms of company existence and economic rational.  It is the epitome of collaborative production in our new digital age.  Anyone can now share what they want, when they want, and with whomever they want.  With Wikipedia, groups come together to create something new that cannot be made by one single person to the same degree successfully.  Today we have new tools that allow larger groups to collaborate.  But is this effective?  Yes, because it takes advantage of non-financial motivations and allows for different levels of contributions.

Wikipedia began in 1995 under the idea of becoming a user-edited site.  It was intended for small groups of like-minded individuals that trust each other.  Now it has transformed into a collection of millions of contributors on a global scale.  However, it brings up the question: does this type of information gathering need manager oversight?  In our new world, we have adapted to a spontaneous divisions of labor among groups.  Someone starts a thread and others fill in and edit content as it is added.  The page is never completed because it can always have more information added or taken away by anyone.

But what about the accuracy of this information?  Won’t people post irrelevant or false information (intentionally or unintentionally).  Of course errors will appear.  However, those dedicated to the information will weed out the bad and leave the good.  If there is ever a dispute about content that was added or taken away from a page, anyone can look up the history and even pinpoint the specific user in the backlog.  The reputation of contributors is created from this digital history.

Wikipedia now rivals traditional encyclopedias.  In fact, the amount of information on the site is 25 times larger than that found in encyclopedias.  Plus, users need to wait an entire year to have an updated version of the printed encyclopedia.  Wikipedia is always up to date, is free, and constantly growing.  Although I don’t know who is in charge of information gather for encyclopedias or how this process works, the online community is responsibly for the content of Wikipedia and we are all working together for free to create the largest collection of information.

In terms of economic rational, company existence in the first place is now in doubt.  We can go online and create content whenever and wherever suits us best.  It will be interesting to see how companies evolve as we move toward a new economic approach and move away from an accepted and historic approach to business.

I think this post is really interested to think about. In fact, this is what we were talking about in class. The idea that wikipedia’s information changes so frequently at the whim of it’s users. Does this make Wikipedia more or less accurate? I see your point, that the site could become less accurate if someone put some untruths throughout it. And it’s true there is no real accountability for it. But, I think the freedom for anyone, anywhere to post makes it more accurate. The fact that it can be so quickly updated, corrected, and by so many people who have knowledge on the matter, just tells me that your getting the best of everyones knowledge. The example shown in class was a humorous way to illustrate this. Everyone minute the blog was continuously updated. This makes it probably the most up-to-date, relevant website to go to. Anytime information is updated in the world, from research, experience, etc., within seconds that new information can be uploaded to the site.

I’m not quite sure what you mean by social norms affecting the policing of the site. If you mean that social pressure to have the correct information helps “edit” the information that is included, I could possibly see this. Or if you mean that it is socially unacceptable to try and  fool the public with wrong information and more socially acceptable to correct this and make sure that the information reaching the public is at its peak of accuracy, I definitely can see this as well.