Thursday, April 13, 2006

Jason Scott's "The Great Failure of Wikipedia"

I just read Jason Scott's The Great Failure of Wikipedia. There is also audio from a talk he gave on this subject which I have downloaded but not yet listened to.

I am deeply fascinated by the Wikipedia phenomenon, and Jason Scott's article is very interesting. My initial reaction is general disagreement with his conclusions. I want to think about it a bit more and listen to the audio before writing too much. But, I also want to outline a couple ideas before I forget them.


  • The consumer vs. content creator dichotomy.

  • The wasted effort argument.

  • Is wikipedia a place for "content" creation or a place for "content" digestion?

  • The question of authority.



These are a few issues I would like to analyze at some point. This is mostly a reminder to myself. But if anyone ever bothers to read this, you'll know what to expect in the coming days.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Looking forward to it.

Careful about falling into the "ends justify the means" arguments, though; those are weak because in point of fact, Wikipedia suffers from constant, constant degredation. It improves in stages, and people hold up a single shining example and then ignore the thousands of others.

- Jason Scott

Ben Anhalt said...

Thanks for the comment, Jason. I'm not quite sure what you mean by "ends justify the means" arguments. But, I have to say I'm thrilled you took the time to reply to my thoughts.