[...] have written about The Wisdom of Crowds before many times (see here, and here, and here…). In short, given a problem with a fully objective, quantifiable answer, taking the average [...]

[...] http://www.raphkoster.com/?p=131 http://www.raphkoster.com/2006/07/12/wikipedia-and-wisdom-of-crowds/ http://www.raphkoster.com/?p=186 [...]

[...] Koster extends this key point in a subsequent blog post: Technically, Surowiecki’s conception of “wisdom of crowds” is ONLY applicable to quantifiable, objective data. The very loosey-goosey way of using it to discuss any sort of collective discussion and opinion generation is a misrepresentation of the actual (and very interesting) phenomenon. [...]

Toys R Us has far more the crippling hold on toys than Wal-Mart, I’m thinking you’re just not much of a shopper.

Actually, awhile back Walmart took over the number one spot for toy sales, about the same time KB Toys started to have real cash flow issues, because they could no longer get the kinds of prices they used to. Right now if someone (Mattel, Whamo, Wizards of the Coast, etc.) wants to make a toy, and Wal-Mart says they aren’t interested, there’s a very good chance it doesn’t get made.

I can only think this opinion must refelct a lack of exposure or perhaps my experiance is skewed and many of these tekkie feebs (and creative artisits, and poets, and musicians) I know who program are some kind of anomoly. In fact I posit that many tekkies who you seem to distain come from a broader background that you think…..

b. That you dont understand something and therefore it is somehow bad, and must result always in lazy, lethargic and acquiescent consumers and populations, (victims of an all knowing and malicious techno-illuminati no less?) is naive. Its similar at law, your ignorance of the law and regulation does not excuse the crime just as a failure to understand an algorithim and empirically etrapolate an opinion based on supposition does not excuse your ignorance or the algorithim.

I will help you out (see I guess that old philosophy professor was right about Kant eh?) if you can be bothered:
Start here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_mining
then go here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_priori
and here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductive

Now I shall explain: While the google algo, is proprietary we can make certain assumptions about its features, of course bear in mind that some consumer constraints effect this (after all businesses have to actually make revenue rather than sell vaporware or idealized versions of reality, cf. 2000 Tech Bubble: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tech_bubble or http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_elite) mainly that this Algorithim or piece of code, you distain and seem to have an irrational fear of and/or attribute so many things to, actually does in fact work via “popularity” coded reductive a priori inputs actually.

As you can see, not from the surface, but perhaps from a deeper understanding of the text that things like google and wikipedia are mere tools and resources, that lazy people will stop thier reasoning process and not be bothered to learn more cannot be helped, just as forced and coerced understanding cannot motivate…..

But really feel free to ignore this as I am just “silly”

Actually, no, it’s not the nature of the Internet, which is merely a tool, it’s the nature of lazy people who don’t want to do their homework and engage in even the most basic of research tasks, in part because in schools, they aren’t even taught the Five Ws for journalism any more. I don’t see that just because big things get bigger that we have to celebrate it, and act like urbane, sophisticated Internet pundits telling everyone sagely that there are those who must “steal a chair from the table”.

I don’t find Wal-Mart’s power over DVDs and games “crippling” in the slightest. Wal-Mart is merely the latest fashionable punching bag of the far left and the zealously ideological like the moveon.org gang. There’s nothing particularly “evil” about Wal-Mart, it’s just a store and a distribution store. Where I live, all kinds of stores from Barnes and Nobels to Hi M to Virgin Records supply DVDs and games and Wal-Mart doesn’t even have a store for 50 miles. Wal-Mart is mainly a suburban phenomenon, and frankly, I like going on treks there now and then because the clothes and kids’ shoes are cheap. If you’re going to crank up some whine about how the items are made in third-world sweatshops, please do, but then include not only Wal-Mart, but most industry of developed countries depending on developing countries who develop in this way.

Toys R Us has far more the crippling hold on toys than Wal-Mart, I’m thinking you’re just not much of a shopper.

[...] Recently, there has been some discussion about The Wisdom of Crowds and Wikipedia. There’s this article which is commented by a blog, which in turn is commented by another blog, and so on. People have interesting opinions on this phenomenon, but instead of jumping into the fire, I thought I’d offer a slightly amusing anecdote. [...]

It’s not that just this one article came up quick on Wikipedia. It’s that nowadays, just about any topic or person or concept you research has Wikipedia coming up in the first 10 entries. If Britannica.com or any other sole entity like that always come up in the first 10 searches, or worse, in the first search, I’d worry, too.

It’s the nature of the internet. A few things are going to be more popular, Google, MySpace, Ebay, Amazon, a handful will wait in the wings to try and steal a chair at the table and most will lose their investment (or sell to someone who either sits at the table or loses their investment). It’s not much better in the “real world” where Wal-Mart’s power over DVDs, video games and toys is crippling.

Absolutely, programmers should dictate features of software. Absolutey! Because this is SOCIAL software, affecting EVERYBODY. They can and should get a say. A virtual world’s features are especially important to have participation about because they affect everybody A LOT and in 3-D!

You take this in a very literal, tekkie construct, batting away know-nothings, and feebs who didn’t learn to program, as if they are just a nuisance. But the concerns they bring may simply be from other fields of human knowledge, perhaps sociology, politics, philosophy, economics, etc. Perhaps, despite your vast coding knowledge and manipulation of machines, you just don’t know anything, really, about those fields, despite your possible conviction that just knowing numbers, math, programming, and programs, that you can reduce any field to a set of integers and false/true propositions.

In fact, it’s good for people in a social software setting to say, hey, we want this. It’s good that game gods say, oh, that’s not feasible, but honest to God, how would these lame game gods ever get ideas unless so many of us kicked against the goads, unless we asked for stuff we wanted, unless we pushed them to think harder how to create stuff? The idea that everything must spring from their heads and flow down from level to level like Plotinus’ spilling of being from the One, is just plain stupid. They have ideas, they are users. They live in it. They should have a say.

>Google did not choose a popularity algorithm based upon tech elitism and ideology but rather need.

I’m not an expert on Google’s alogrithms. But I have to ask the obvious here: who determined the need? How? And who the hell are they? I sure as hell don’t *need* Wikipedia to spring up like a weed every time I search a term; yet it does.

>I take it you have many chips on your shoulder about Linden Labs. I’m guessing the problem comes down to some combination of: a) your opinion/concerns are an uninfluential minority; b) it’s opposed or not conducive enough to Linden Labs’ interests. This is a very frustrating position to be in, undoubtably, but what is the solution?

I hardly think it qualifies as “having a chip on your shoulder” to criticize elites. It’s done all the time. What, it’s ok for you to knock Bush or Blair but it’s not ok for me to criticize Philip Linden? Huh? Actually, I think probably my opinions are closer to the majority of users than the opinions of early adapter tekkie elites ROFL.

As for “their interests,” sure, they have their interests. Those interests include taking our tier payments and making some of us partners in projects. So, I don’t think they get to live in a paradigm where “their interests” are so isolated from “what’s good for the country”.

>Most people are scaling their trust of Google searches and Wikipedia content to the situation. That some people do not think critically is not a new problem.

Many people, including myself, no doubt bat away the silly Google dumbness and Wikipedia pablum that gets sent up in the first search, and either uses further links down farther, or refines the search, or looks within the Wiki article for some better leads, or switches to Yahoo. I find, frankly, more and more, I’m doing that as an antidote to the Google problem of serving up Wikipedia, and it’s odd, because I always felt before that Yahoo was by far the weaker search engine. With their about and their answers, and news clippings, however, I’m back looking at it.

Millions of people have been helped — helped! — to be lazy and not think critically by the googlization and Wikipedification of learning, research, and writing. Worse, in their half education, they grow aggressive and condescending, as if their link to a half-baked source repeating some oft-old urban legend or hoax is the truth. Reasonable adults in technically complex jobs requiring a scientific or engineering education actually sit and discuss hoaxes like “there was no crash of the plane in the Pentagon” and even trade “real movies” of this fake non-event.

You say the real problem is that people are not treating these sources appropriately, but where is the evidence for this? Outlier examples (anti-semitism), andecdotes, and the rhetoric of a few bloggers (which you are not portraying fairly, btw) is not sufficient.

I think there’s plenty of evidence, which we can find first and foremost by the highly troublesome problem visible to all: Google is turning up Wikipedia more and more as the first source on many, many searches.

Anti-semitism as a topic isn’t an “outlier,” but emblematic of how the more difficult an issue, the worse Wikipedia performs, and multiply that by all the difficult issues out there, and you have a mess.

I don’t know which bloggers are not being quoted fairly, but ultimately, I can only invite you to sincerely make this inquiry: pick your favourite topic. Read it on Wiki, read it elsewhere, and give a faithful report.