Think & Play
Thoughtplay is the creative team behind various popular websites and other projects. At this blog we give away bright ideas regularly, and comment on interesting trends both online and off. The thought channel is for more business-related trends, play looks at entertainment and leisure, and thoughtplay introduces our own creative ideas, as well as news about our projects.
The beauty of the commons | 110107
A few months ago there was much, largely downhearted discussion about 'participation inequality' (usability guru Jakob Nielsen) on the internet, focused around a general principle that websites relying on user-generated content show a similar pattern. The rule of thumb (Nielsen again) is "90% of users are lurkers... 9% contribute from time to time... 1% of users account for most contributions". Media commentator Seamus McCauley comments for example that "Wikipedia in 2006 isn't substantially more participative than Britannica in 1911" (the latter had around 1500 contributors; two-thirds of WP is created by a third of its users).
(The same general trend is observable at our own site, What Should I Read Next?. As little as 5% of traffic comes from registered users - though they account for around a fifth of activity at the site, and of course all of the data. Among those registered users, the pattern repeats: 27% of registered users generate 82% of the content. By the way, Ross Mayfield provides a nice analysis of the 'power law of participation' [thanks, jvvw].)
While the 1911 Britannica is a work of beauty, and the expertise of its contributors more clear than that of the eager Wikipedians, it was compiled under an authoritarian philosophy. The beauty of the participative commons is that we all have the choice. If only a small minority actually contribute, that's the way people clearly like it: more people want to consume than provide. We have only ourselves to blame if we don't like it - and isn't that better than railing at an authority - whether an encyclopaedia or newspaper editor, or indeed a dictatorial government - who we have little or no control over?
Categories: play, thought, thoughtplay
Comments
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Jimmy Wales would argue that that's still fundamentally different from 1911, though: not so much quantitatively as qualitatively. I mean, I'm no fan of long-tail theories particularly (most of the people who *are* don't seem to understand the mathematical distributions, which aren't simply boilable-down to sound bites like "80/20"), but whereas in 1911 there were 1500 Britannica contributors and the rest of the world, now the universe consists of regular Wikipedia contributors, occasional Wikipedia contributors and potential future Wikipedia contributors.
I can't say the deliberate removal of editorial control makes for a reliable encyclopaedia, and on that level Wikipedia has definitely been mis-sold. It's also been mis-managed by bringing editorial control back in after the damage has been done, and in a rather autistic, snippy, bad-tempered, cliquey way. But it makes for an engrossing and interesting community project: the 21st century's equivalent of the wall at the youth centre by the bins that everyone's allowed to graffiti. -
I hope I'm not being one of the 90% of bitchy lurkers, by the way.... I definitely agree that Wikipedia, qua freely participative encyclopaedia, is a demonstration of the old adage of "pick two out of three": if there's the possibility that your contributions are to be undone by some self-appointed the editorial team, then where's the freedom; if only a fraction of the registered users are contributing, then where's the participation; and if the data is fundamentally unreliable except when it's talking about some computer-science subject that all the eggheads can agree on, then where's the encyclopaedia?
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