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In chapter three of Good Faith Collaboration: Culture of Wikipedia, J.M. Reagle Jr provides a utopian vision of Wikipedia's collaborative community. Reagle Jr uses the work of Cass Sunstein to demonstrate that the collaboration process is not free of conflict, and as with other types of communities both, "consensus and dissensus each have an important, and unavoidable, role in community" (Sunstein cited in Reagle Jr, 2011, para. 5). While referring to Wikipedia's policy and guidelines, Reagle Jr suggests that by applying a "Neutral Point of View" (NPOV) to the subject matter and practising good faith towards the other contributors, it is possible to achieve a successful collaborative culture (Reagle Jr, 2011, para. 103). This chapter is a useful resource for the study of Wikipedia as an example of an online collaborative tool, as it argues that collaborative communities can function effectively as long as they have a cultural framework to ensure productivity. I also believe this is a useful resource, as it provides a very positive view of collaboration and the work of the Wikipedia community, supporting Surowiecki's idea of 'the wisdom of crowds' (Surowiecki, 2004, p. 5). It is also interesting to compare this article's view on collaboration to the second resource I have chosen, Digital Maoism (Lanier, 2006).

References Lanier, J. (2006). Digital Maoism. Retrieved from http://edge.org/3rd_culture/lanier06/lanier06_index.html Reagle Jr, J.M. (2011). Good Faith Collaboration. In J.M. Reagle Jr, Good Faith Collaboration: Culture of Wikipedia (Online Edition, Chapter 3). Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Retrieved from http://reagle.org/joseph/2010/gfc/chapter-3.html Surowiecki, J. (2004). The wisdom of crowds: Why the many are smarter than the few. New York, NY: Doubleday.

Roy Rosenzweig's article Can History be Open Source? Wikipedia and the Future of the Past, discusses many issues regarding collaboration, with a focus on its historical entries. One of the most interesting points Rosenzweig makes, is that the contributors on Wikipedia, "do not come from a cross-section of the world's population. They are more likely to be English-speaking, males, and denizens of the Internet" (Rosenzweig, 2006, p. 127). Rosenzweig explains that as a collaborative medium, Wikipedia articles show bias towards Western culture and 'nerdy' topics such as computer science, physics and math (Rosenzweig, 2006, p. 127-128). This is interesting information to apply to Surowiecki's idea of 'the wisdom of crowds' (Surowiecki, 2004, p. 5). Is Wikipedia only representative of the wisdom of white, western, geek crowd? While this article was written back in 2006, I still find it makes some very interesting points about Wikipedia and the collaboration process, which are still applicable today. I also found this article valuable, as unlike a lot of other articles that focus mainly on the author's research which was generally conducted on a very small number of Wikipedia entries, Rosenzweig only discusses the research of others. Rosenzweig cites a range of academics that have compared Wikipedia with other encyclopaedias such as, American National Biography Online, Encarta, Columbia Encyclopaedia, and Britannica; providing the reader with an overview of the different research available and the findings made.

References Rosenzweig, R. (2006). Can History Be Open Source? Wikipedia and the Future of the Past. The Journal of American History, 93, 117-146. Retrieved from: http://www.jstor.org/ Surowiecki, J. (2004). The wisdom of crowds: Why the many are smarter than the few. New York, NY: Doubleday.

The many critiques in the article provide good fodder for the academic seeking to justify their position one way or the other. Us users of Wikipedia and traditional books know that Wikipedia works just as we know government process has major flaws. In my personal experience it is Wikipedia that is the most accurate source of information when compared to books on the subject of my father's country of birth. Prior to Wikipedia the books were full of misinformation or no information influenced by politics. So for the purpose of studying internet collaboration - I think this paper gives good argument. Even the people that experience history do not recall it exactly the same.

In the article, Collaboration in context: Comparing article evolution among subject disciplines in Wikipedia, the writers Katherine Ehmann, Andrew Large and Jamshid Beheshti, compare a small selection of articles - some newly created, and some well-established - from three subject disciplines - the hard sciences, soft sciences and humanities - in order to examine the article quality, how it differs from discipline to discipline and if it changes over time (Ehmann, Large & Beheshti, 2008). One of the most interesting findings that was published in this article was that, contrary to previous research (Brandle, 2005; Dondio, et al., 2006; Lig, 2004; Stvilia, et al., 2005a, 2008; Wilkinson and Huberman, 2007), the articles used that had a greater number of edits than the others, were not the articles of the highest quality (Ehmann, Large & Beheshti, 2008). Wikipedia articles on average retained 90.3 percent of their original text and in general, only small edits were made over time (Ehmann, Large & Beheshti, 2008). I believe these new findings still support, 'the wisdom of crowds' theory though (Surowiecki, 2004, p. 5). Even though a large portion of the text remains from the original contributor, the small edits by other contributors over time, still help to fine-tune the article's meaning and readability. The authors' exploration into Wikipedia Talk pages is also of interest, especially how these places aided the collaboration and coordination process and how this in turn contributed to the quality of articles in Wikipedia (Ehmann, Large & Beheshti, 2008). While Ehmann, Large and Beheshti only studied a small number of articles, and another study is required which examines a larger number of articles, in order to make more conclusive findings, I think this article is still a useful resource (Ehmann, Large & Beheshti, 2008). It is constructive to compare this article's findings to the findings in the Rosenzweig article (Rosenzweig, 2006).

I think this article is interesting and pointed wisdom of crowd cannot bring high quality for Wikipedia's article. Talk pages are playing important role in Wikipedia, editors post their suggestion there and other active editors come and follow them or put other suggestion to make a more credible article (in Talk pages the most request belonged to the suggestion for editing and completeness had the less request followed by accuracy and accessibility) (Beheshti, Ehmann & Large, 2088). According to my own research, one of the important things, which mentions in talk pages is about sources of articles which can take a place as print resources, deep web resources external links and inexact references. Disagreement about content of articles is another important subject in Wikipedia and before an article edited, editors discuss in talk pages about adding controversial material or removing content, and then they get a decision to how edit the article. Talk pages may use to notify other users to know this article had recent edit or editors ask their questions there from other or they request for help. However, the author mentioned participation of contributors on different topics is different. There are many articles which have only one comment on their talk page and there is large number of articles who has various comment and suggestions on their talk page (Breslin, Passant & Schneider, 2010). Breslin, J, G., A, Passant. & Schneider, J. (2010). A content analysis: How Wikipedia talk pages are used. 7. Retrieved from http://journal.webscience.org/373/2/websci10_submission_80.pdf

Collaboration in Context takes an in-depth view at the collaboration which produces Wikipedia pages. I was attracted to this resource in that I imagined it would assist me in understanding how users interacted in a organised context - ie. the mindsets of users collaborating on a specific, and, in the case of many Wikipedia pages, complex, task. Whilst the paper examines the development of pages from a 'contributor's' point of view, it does this through statistical interpretation of a set of data the authors assembled on page edits. The result is that the paper doesn't so much uncover the nuances of collaboration in an organisational setting, as relate the nuts and bolts of page editing. Perhaps, the mores of collaboration might be inferred from this reading of Wikipedia's collaborative process, though I found it difficult to see this in numbers rather than testimony from wikipedians themselves. What this paper does do is highlight the efficacy of 'talk pages' in the process of building of 'rich' Wikipedia entries. These forums provide the engine of collaboration on Wikipedia - users able to get together as a group to uncover the most efficient ways to combine their work - the paper concluding, "Talk pages - in addition to article edits themselves - provide wikipedians with a powerful means of shaping the presentation of knowledge. (chap.8)" This information is useful to me in the way I will be able to compare it to the, say, simpler, and more spontaneous collaboration of strangers in bittorrent which does not require a 'talk page'. What I would have liked to have known is how the 'talk' on these pages allowed networks of 'equal' users to perfect articles on complex topics, and what the users themselves thought of the arrangement.

Digital Maoism, by self-confessed ranter Jaron Lanier, provides an alternative (and quite contentious) view on collaboration and the way it is used in Wikipedia. Unlike Reagle Jr, who suggests that collaboration can be successful with the correct cultural infrastructure (Reagle Jr, 2011, para. 103), Lanier argues that the best way to achieve successful collaboration on the web is to always cherish the individual over the collective (Lanier, 2006, para. 68). He expresses his frustration with the inaccuracies of his own Wikipedia page and speaks about the work of collaborative communities (or as he calls it, collectives) on wikis more generally, with disgust (Lanier, 2006, para. 33). Lanier argues that, "[h]istory has shown us again and again that a hive-mind is a cruel idiot when it runs on autopilot. Nasty hive mind outbursts have been flavoured Maoist, Fascist and religious, and these are only a small sampling" and that, "[i]f wikis are to gain any more influence they ought to be improved by mechanisms like the ones they have worked tolerably well in the pre-Internet world" (Lanier, 2006, para. 65). Lanier's essay is an interesting resource to view when thinking about collaboration and 'the wisdom of crowds' theory (Surowiecki, 2004, p. 5), and how this applies to Wikipedia. Lanier, a computer scientist and regular writer on the topic of computers and Internet-based technologies, portrays a controversial viewpoint that differs from much other writing on the topic. While I don't agree with most of Lanier's outspoken views which are often unsubstantiated, I think that there is some merit in the suggestion that there needs to be at least one individual, (as well as the correct infrastructure, as other theorists suggest), to guide the work in collaborative organisations. I also think this resource is useful as it is so far removed from other writing on this topic, which often glorifies the collective, allowing you to think about the topic in another way.

References Lanier, J. (2006). Digital Maoism. Retrieved from http://edge.org/3rd_culture/lanier06/lanier06_index.html Reagle Jr, J.M. (2011). Good Faith Collaboration. In J.M. Reagle Jr, Good Faith Collaboration: Culture of Wikipedia (Online Edition, Chapter 3). Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Retrieved from http://reagle.org/joseph/2010/gfc/chapter-3.html Surowiecki, J. (2004). The wisdom of crowds: Why the many are smarter than the few. New York, NY: Doubleday.

Digital Maoism is a rumination on the direction of online collaboration. Lanier examines this from a self reflexive viewpoint which begins with an examination of his own self as constructed by users on Wikipedia. In doing this he looks at online collaboration not through the empirical standpoint of participation, but the deeper reflection of having been 'produced' by it. The inconsistencies in the online record of his life introduce his perspective of measured criticism toward collaborative networks which increasingly attempt to function as overarching meta-narratives. Larnier's tone is personal, his perspective artistic rather than academic, he relates his arguments in language which brings it to life, "it's important to not lose sight of values just because the question of whether a collective can be smart or not is so fascinating. Accuracy in a text is not enough. A desirable text is more than a collection of accurate references. It is also an expression of personality." Seeing in Emily's introduction that Larnier was a "self-confessed ranter", I was a little concerned as to how balanced the article would be. He is a bit of ranter, but such is his passion for the subject, and I would say that it is a fair and insightful critique on online collaboration. Larnier's main thrust is reaffirming the importance of the individual as conscious participants within networks of online collaboration: aware of their own value as part of a diverse group rather than drones in a 'hive'. The relevance of this essay is its recognition that online collaboration is not smart merely by aggregation, that users must be empowered in their own beliefs for the group to benefit from the multiplication of which.