Wiki Trust

It's no secret I like Wikipedia. I use it all the time to look up stuff. I think it's a good starting point. However, you have to remember it is a grass roots information source. The wisdom of crowds theory isn't always true and there are errors in entries. If you go in with your eyes wide open, I think it's a good tool.

The folks at the UCSC Wiki Lab put together a demonstration that uses coloring to convey the trust of the person that provided information for a given entry in the Wikipedia. It's an interesting idea. My biggest complaint is the color differences are subtle. It's sometimes hard to discern the difference in shading. It kinda reminds me of a cell phone coverage map where it seems they purposely choose the colors to make it difficult to see differences in service. Nevertheless, an interesting idea.

Wikipedia and Citizendium

I ran across a Harvard Business School case study on Wikipedia and “Enterprise 2.0”. It’s a good read. Don’t expect an earth shattering conclusion about the term if you read the article. It’s a case study discussion piece.

I still found the article interesting for a general perspective on Wikipedia and its problems. Personally, I like Wikipedia. It’s not a conclusive information source, but often it’s a reasonable place to start when looking for information. Like anything on the web, you can’t always assume it’s 100% accurate. Just go in with eyes wide open. The site illustrates both the power of collective intelligence and also the ugly side of folks that try to spoil the collective intelligence. I have found some strange articles and some heated content discussions. The HBS article outlines perhaps why those issues are showing up on Wikipedia.

That case study led me to read a bit about Sanger’s new effort labeled Citizendium (a Citizen’s Compendium). In brief, it’s trying to be a better, more authoritative Wikipedia. You can read more about the philosophy behind the effort and there is information about the organization behind the new wiki. The main Citizendium pilot page has more information about participation. Any authors or editors out there? It sounds like an ambitious, but worthy goal. However, it’s sad to see that the ‘bad apples’ are still there trying to spoil the development rather than applying their effort for the collective good. I guess some kids never did learn to play nicely in the sandbox.

Dunbar's Number

Dianne and I have both mentioned our use of the MyBlogLog site recently. The site has some nice tracking tools, but also a social networking aspect. You have the option of enrolling in communities that are associated with a particular blog. There isn't any commitment per se associated with enrollment. It does serve a few purposes: it conveys interest to the blog writer (it's nice to know people are reading); it allows networking by giving the option to establish a fan/friend/admirer relationship with the blog writer; helps you find other MyBlogLog members with similar interests in the blogs you're reading regularly; and the site organizes your communities so it's easy to surf blogs of interest (perhaps not as efficient as a news aggregator).

It's the networking piece that is intriguing -- especially after reading this entry about the monkeysphere on the How to Split an Atom (HTSAA) blog. I wasn't aware of that term or the concept of Dunbar's number. There is a good Wikipedia article about Dunbar's number. There is a funny read about the Monkeysphere here. In short, Dunbar's theory is that there are a limited number of relationships that humans can maintain at one time. A rough estimate of the group size is 150. It seems like a reasonable idea and something that would have work/office implications. The interesting idea brought out in the HTSAA blog entry is how does the Dunbar idea apply to the blogosphere or social networking sites. When you're at a social networking site, how many 'relationships' can you maintain? Or how many can you maintain on top of your other family, friends, and coworker relationships? What implications does that have for social networking sites? All very interesting questions.

I haven't jumped on the Myspace bandwagon. I guess I'm not in the right demographic for Myspace. Most of the sites I've seen there have a 'friends' list and on many blogs the number of friends well exceeds Dunbar's number. Are these folks able to maintain relationships with all these MySpace friends? I somehow doubt it. However, perhaps blog communications are a different level of 'social grooming' that lets people support a larger monkeysphere.

Personally, my ability to maintain a social network is pretty small. I don't know if I could even keep up with 150 people. If Dunbar's concept is true, my neocortex must the size of a pea.