[Wikipedia-l] The Wisdom of Crowds

Wed Jul 7 21:55:30 UTC 2004

Andrew Lih wrote:

>FYI, this book has been getting attention lately, so you may want to
>take a look:
>
>The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many Are Smarter Than the Few and How
>Collective Wisdom Shapes Business, Economies, Societies and Nations
>by James Surowiecki 
>
>To Wikipedians, this merely reinforces what we've all know and have
>experienced firsthand.  But it is interesting that the theme of the
>"power of many" is being picked up by the mainstream and it may prove
>a useful reference for folks who just "don't get wiki."  It's a more
>general book than Rheingold's "Smart Mobs," which could be dismissed
>as too technocentric and focusing on mobile devices
>
>Instead, Surowiecki's "Wise crowds" are described as having (1)
>diversity of opinion; (2) independence of members from one another;
>(3) decentralization; and (4) a good method for aggregating opinions. 
>(four points quoted from Amazon.com's review).
>
>I'm sure Wikipedians will find these concepts quite familiar.
>  
>
The last thing I needed was an excuse to buy another book (or two). :-)

It's one of those paradoxical ideas that make experts cringe.  Just as 
experts can at times come out with extraordinarily stupid ideas, so too 
can the crowd outdo them in that.  These kinds of activities are not 
amenable to rigid scientific studies.  Large flocks of birds or schools 
of fish change their collective movement without problems.  Marching 
groups of soldiers cannot do this without one person giving orders lest 
they all run into each other.

Experts have a vested interest in having their views accepted as truth, 
and have the backing of scientific rigour to support them.  The last 
person they want to hear from is the trickster. 

I've long believed that the development of the internet has put us on 
the threshhold of a paradigm shift in the way that it has allowed 
communication to be initiated and information to be shared between 
individuals who previously would never have known of each other's 
existence.  This is important in obscure fields where the number of 
interested individuals worldwide is very small.  In the old world there 
may have been a single recognized expert in the field, and all 
communications needed to be through the expert who would avoid sharing 
lists of correspondents under the guise of protecting their privacy.  
That is no longer the case, and the "expert" is being marginalised.

The recent issue of "Utne" magazine has an article entitled "Global 
Village or Virtual Shopping Mall?" in which is discussed the lobbying 
efforts being made on behalf of the major telecom companies to maintain 
control of broadband access.  The effort is being made to restrict your 
choice of ISPs to insure that you obliged to take the whole advertising 
package that they offer.  They give a link for further information 
www.democraticmedia.org/ddc

The four characteristics describe by amazon are worth noting, but we can 
depend on the WP for only the fourth one.

Ec