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May 31, 2006
The responsibility of crowds
The responsibility of crowds: Tim O'Reilly writes on the trademark debate which occurred while he was offline. It's a long essay... summary is "we worked things out, but the blogging pile-on was a bit much". Reminds me of when Mena Trott asked for more civility among weblogs and received back-channel snarking. I don't think asking for civility will be enough -- there are people out there who kill those who don't believe as they do -- requesting politeness won't scale up globally. I think we do need more skepticism about "authorities" in blogging and other media... "what's his point? how does he know? what do critics say? is it even important?"... readers can maintain ultimate control over whether a story becomes world-changing.
Posted by John Dowdell at May 31, 2006 04:24 AM
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Comments
Jaron Lanier gets into a similar theme, about how Wikipedia is good for some topics, poor for others, and how readers need to exercise more responsibility when using it. This is another over-long essay (I think lots of people think the more they argue the more persuasive they become), but I like this part in particular:
"When you see the context in which something was written and you know who the author was beyond just a name, you learn so much more than when you find the same text placed in the anonymous, faux-authoritative, anti-contextual brew of the Wikipedia."
Posted by: John Dowdell at May 31, 2006 04:50 AM