I’m not the first to discuss this topic, not by far, but this is a very interesting problem: Is Web 2.0 a Friend of True Knowledge? This article talks about recent events surrounding Wikipedia and one of its co-founders, Larry Sanger. Sanger is planning a “high brow” intellectual spin-off of Wikipedia, due to what he feels are 4 “serious and endemic” problems:

1. The Wikipedia community doesn’t follow its own rules, fostering abuse of the system.
2. Anonymity means that no one takes responsibility for their work, and thus trouble-makers have the ability to mess things up without consequences—the troll problem.
3. The leaders of the community have become insular—it’s hard for qualified individuals to join.
4. The community is “off-putting” to academics and professionals. They don’t feel comfortable about contributing to a community that won’t adequately reward or protect their work.

The Danger of Communal Knowledge

The problem with many communal knowledge pools is that, because everyone can participate, the quality of knowledge and information contained in the pool can be dragged down to the level of the least qualified participant—to the lowest common denominator. It’s like group work in school classes—it can be very difficult for the group to produce high-quality work when a member of the group is contributing poorly or even actively hampering the group’s progress. It can be easier to simply remove such a person from the group and continue with those who are constructively contributing. This is what Sanger is proposing to do with his Wikipedia spin-off.

So, Is Web 2.0 a Friend of True Knowledge?

Where bodies of knowledge are open to any contribution and there are malicious or under-qualified contributors, the answer is no. Such bodies will never rise above the lowest common denominator. Too much salt will ruin a cake, no matter what the quality of the other ingredients is.

To be friendly to true knowledge, Web 2.0 groups and applications must:

1. Establish and follow rules for contributions and reviews
2. Be able to eject sub-par contributors and bogus content
3. Capitalize on above-average knowledge and expertise

Web 2.0 is About Collaboration

Web 2.0 philosophies and applications are about enabling and fostering collaboration. Establishing group rules and choosing collaborators is a problem that has always existed and is not unique to Web 2.0 projects. However, as collaboration becomes easier, it is easy to make the mistake of including too many group members and relaxing participation rules so that no one feels left out, increasing the chances that the mix of “ingredients” will contain something “spoiled.” As aggregating and organizing knowledge becomes easier, discerning good work from bad work is the next serious problem.

If problems with groups and rules can be resolved, then Web 2.0 is a friend of true knowledge—Web 2.0 is simply a tool that can facilitate the collaboration and growth of experts and the distillation of scattered pieces of information into new and exciting works. As with other tools, garbage in equals garbage out. We have awesome tools, but we must use the correct inputs.