week14---reading marterials

 I read the last chapter this week.

The success of Wikipedia is essentially a victory of practice over theory. Its core paradox is that a completely open collaborative model should theoretically lead to chaos, but in reality it has built the world's largest knowledge base. This contradiction can be resolved, relying on these.

The design of Wikipedia software greatly reduces the cost of destruction, making it easier to repair errors than to create them. This provides a basic guarantee for open collaboration.

The community is not disorderly, but forms a tacit understanding around core norms such as NPOV and "presumption of good faith". NPOV provides an interface for content splicing, while presumption of good faith lubricates the collaborative process and encourages editors to seek consensus rather than confrontation in disputes. This shapes a unique collaborative culture.

Daily operations are highly dependent on community autonomy and consensus decision-making, but in the face of systemic attacks, the limited intervention rights reserved by founder Jimmy Wales provide an "emergency brake valve". At the same time, the possibility of forking always constitutes the ultimate constraint on governance failure.

Wikipedia is not a utopian experiment. It recognizes the limitations of human nature, but through sophisticated rule design, it guides scattered and even mutually incomprehensible individuals to integrate knowledge together. Its value lies not only in the content it produces, but also in proving that in an open system, it is possible to overcome theoretical impossibilities and achieve effective collaboration on a large scale.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Introduction to the blog

This blog is a digital forum where students from Collective Intelligence in Practice: Understanding Wikipedia at the Hanyang University in Korea (2025) will discuss their weekly readings and activities. Each week you are expected to post a blog post on our blog and make a comment on another student's post. You can do so on one of the following three topics: a) You can blog about the readings for the next week. As you are expected to do the assigned readings FOR the lectures they are assigned to, you are expected to post your blog and comments BEFORE that lecture. An ideal commentary should be about half a page in length (~200 words), divided into three clearly labeled sections in which you: 1) summarize in your own words of materials you read; 2) mention any new, interesting, or unusual items learned; 3) identify at least one question, concern, or discussion angle that is either problematic in some respect or could have been elaborated more. This question is likely to be incor...
Read more

Week 1. My Recent Wikipedia Edits - Jeong seolah (정설아)

I made several edits to the Wikipedia page for 'Daegu'.  Daegu, located in the southeastern part of South Korea, is the third-largest urban area in the country, following Seoul and Busan. With a population exceeding 2.3 million, it is the fourth-largest metropolitan city in South Korea and the second-largest in the Yeongnam region after Busan. Often referred to together with the surrounding North Gyeongsang Province as Daegu-Gyeongbuk, this region is home to over 5 million residents. Known for its rich history and vibrant economy, Daegu stands as a key player in South Korea's cultural and industrial landscape. Below is a summary of the changes I contributed. 1) Summarize and link Sights Section:  - Improved clarity by changing “mountains keep many traditional temples” to “the mountains keep many traditional temples.” Mosque Controversy Section:  - Simplified a sentence by removing “and of the authorities.” Festivals Section:  - Made phrasing smoother by changing “tho...
Read more

Week4 - Review about the readings for the next week. - Jo HyeonSeong (조현성)

 1. Summarize in my own words of materials. The book is primarily about the openness of Wikipedia. Openness means that anyone can participate in the creation and editing of articles without any qualifications. Openness can be a double-edged sword. While it means that you can edit without having expert knowledge of a topic, it also means that you can participate even if you have expert knowledge. For experts, articles written by non-experts can come across as inaccurate knowledge, which can anger experts. This anger can also be a catalyst for Wikipedia to continue to improve. However, articles edited only by non-experts can cause misunderstandings and convey incorrect information, so openness can be considered a double-edged sword. In fact, it sometimes causes some conflict, such as Wales' negative stance. Openness also means freedom from copyright, which means anyone can take it and use it anywhere. That is why the knowledge of non-experts can have greater impact. That is why appro...
Read more