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Digg, Wikipedia, and the myth of Web 2.0 democracy. - By Chri...

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Saved by 27 people (-4 private), first by anonymouse user on 2008-02-23


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It's getting harder to be a Wikipedia-hater. The user-generated and -edited online encyclopedia—which doesn't even require contributors to register—somehow holds its own against the Encyclopedia Britannica in accuracy, a Nature study concluded, and has many times more entries. But even though people are catching up to the idea that Wikipedia is a force for good, there are still huge misconceptions about what makes the encyclopedia tick. While Wikipedia does show the creative potential of online communities, it's a mistake to assume the site owes its success to the wisdom of the online crowd.

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chaperone

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Wikipedia-hater

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people are catching up to the idea that Wikipedia is a force for good, there are still huge misconceptions about what makes the encyclopedia tick. While Wikipedia does show the creative potential of online communities, it's a mistake to assume the site owes its success to the wisdom of the online crowd.

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f Web democracy, places built by millions of Web users who all act as writers, editors, and voters

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The same undemocratic underpinnings of Web 2.0 are on display at Digg.com. Digg is a social-bookmarking hub where people submit stories and rate others' submissions; the most popular links gravitate to the site's front page.

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on 2009-09-29 by techsavvyed

Interesting that the word "undemocratic" be used for the discription of the Web 2.0 underbelly. While true, the whiz-bang magic of scripts, bots, and other technological "gatekeepers" are constantly altering what flesh and blood individuals have contributed, the programs meant to serve as custodians are themselves written by humans. The tools that we choose to employ do not make the process of web 2.0 any more undemocratic, rather just that much easier to engage and maintain as relevant. The term democracy itself is difficult to define narrowly (http://www.democracy-building.info/definition-democracy.html). There is no clear determination of how a democracy should be run, but rather a system of democratic beliefs, values, and fundamental rights. Provided that any system meets the needs of a democratic group's values and freedoms (liberties), then one could argue that it is indeed a full fledged democracy. There is more importance on the groups' rules and processes possessing a quality of fluidity and malleability in order to meet a changing environment.

The same undemocratic underpinnings of Web 2.0 are on display at Digg.com. Digg is a social-bookmarking hub where people submit stories and rate others' submissions; the most popular links gravitate to the site's front page. The site's founders have never hidden that they use a "secret sauce"—a confidential algorithm that's tweaked regularly—to determine which submissions make it to the front page. Historically, this algorithm appears to have favored the site's most active participants. Last year, the top 100 Diggers submitted 44 percent of the site's top stories. In 2006, they were responsible for 56 percent.

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at Digg.com. Digg is a social-bookmarking hub where people submit stories and rate others' submissions; the most popular links gravitate to the site's front page.

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According to researchers in Palo Alto, 1 percent of Wikipedia users are responsible for about half of the site's edits.

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According to researchers in Palo Alto, 1 percent of Wikipedia users are responsible for about half of the site's edits.

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This is not the wisdom of the crowd. This is the wisdom of the chaperones.

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undemocratic

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social-bookmarking hub where people submit stories and rate others' submissions; the most popular links gravitate to the site's front page. The site's founders have never hidden that they use a "secret sauce"—a confidential algorithm that's tweaked

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Last year, the top 100 Diggers submitted 44 percent of the site's top stories. In 2006, they were responsible for 56 percent.

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is largely run by 100 people.

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Digg tweaked its secret sauce, top contributors noticed a decline in influence—fewer of their submissions became top stories.

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While both sites effectively function as oligarchies, they are still democratic in one important sense. Digg and Wikipedia's elite users aren't chosen by a corporate board of directors or by divine right. They're the people who participate the most. Despite the fairy tales about the participatory culture of Web 2.0, direct democracy isn't feasible at the scale on which these sites operate. Still, it's curious to note that these sites seem to have the hierarchical structure of the old-guard institutions they've sought to supplant.

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on 2009-09-29 by techsavvyed

Perhaps the problem of disenfranchised and disengaged youth that exists in Europe and the U.S. today isn't that they aren't participating in a healthy way within our democracies, but rather they've found more engaging democracies to participate in online.

Digg and Wikipedia's elite users aren't chosen by a corporate board of directors or by divine right. They're the people who participate the most.

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At both Digg and Wikipedia, small groups of users have outsized authority.

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Digg and Wikipedia, small groups of users have outsized authority

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At both Digg and Wikipedia, small groups of users have outsized authority. In the case of Wikipedia, this authority is both organic and institutionalized. A small segment of highly active users author the majority of the site's content; there are also elected site administrators who have the power to protect pages, block the IP addresses of problem users, and otherwise regulate Wikipedia's operations.

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uthority is both organic and institutionalized.

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elected site administrators

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Digg, active users have more of a de facto authority over the site's goings-on

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Digg and Wikipedia's elite users aren't chosen by a corporate board of directors or by divine right. They're the people who participate the most.

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oligarchies

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Digg and Wikipedia's elite users aren't chosen by a corporate board of directors or by divine right. They're the people who participate the most

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Despite the fairy tales about the participatory culture of Web 2.0, direct democracy isn't feasible at the scale on which these sites operate. Still, it's curious to note that these sites seem to have the hierarchical structure of the old-guard institutions they've sought to supplant.

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eople who've made more than 10,000 edits add nearly twice as many words to Wikipedia as they delete. By contrast, those who've made fewer than 100 edits are the only group that deletes more words than it adds. A small number of people are writing the articles, it seems, while less-frequent users are given the tasks of error correction and typo fixing.

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