[p2p-research] [P2P Foundation] From Citizendium To Eduzendium

[Henrik Ingo]

Hi Jon, welcome to the list and for taking this discussion here too:

On Feb 4, 2008 7:40 AM, Jon Awbrey <jawbrey at att.net> wrote:
> Let me begin with your definition of peer production,
> even though I remain a little troubled by a nagging
> sense that some essential element of equality is
> missing from the mix.
>

...

> C. What does it say about the level of voluntary contribution
>    when there is a very high level of involuntary exclusion?
>

Just as a side comment to the above: When talking about peer
production in general, one should not be too keen on seeing any
equality or egalitarianism in its processes. In fact, the principle of
"benevolent dictator" and meritocracy explicitly state that some
leaders of the project will use their own power above other, and those
leaders are often not elected to their positions in any democratic way
(and this works very well in Free Software). Exclusion again is a very
important ingredient to almost any successful Free Software project,
its users would expect everything but the most high quality
contributions to be excluded, again nothing wrong there.

The problem with Wikipedia simply seems to be that a growing number of
people is disagreeing with the actions of its "leadership", that there
is exclusionism where there shouldn't be, etc. In fact, Wikipedia
would probably gain from a more explicit, yet still undemocratic
leadership. Now it seems that the more stubborn one always wins, this
is a terrible state of affairs. If a "dictatorship" powers where
clearly given to a small set of leaders, who wouldn't be acting behind
pseudonyms, it would be better than the current situation.

Even so, the Citizendium model with more rigid and democratic-like
governing processes is probably a very healthy step at this point, and
it may well be that for an encyclopedia project it is the right thing
to do. (Debian is an example from the Free Software world, where a
demcoratic governance model clearly is the best fit.)

henrik





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