The Wisdom of Crowds - 26 views
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#5 Mitchell Houwen on 07 Apr 12With the 'Wisdom of Crowds' coming in so many variations it is important to understand how things are categorized. The advantages that are produced from 'Wisdom of Crowds', Surowiecki categorises as cognition, coordination and cooperation. Wikipedia itself has all these advantages from which to choose from, firstly cognition. The information processing stage of Wikipedia occurs as the article is written. With several mediators there is more chance for the information to be entered and edited correctly which results in far more succinct information. Coordination indicates the trust that people have in the people that are partaking in the editing process of the articles. Networks are formed throughout Wikipedia as people are brought together with common interests which exceed the limitations of Wikipedia. Also to form a wise crowd you need diverse opinions, independent opinions, decentralization and aggregation. All four of these factors are found in the Wikipedia medium. People are of course coming from across the globe so opinions are diverse. People do not actual know each other so their confidence to share their opinion is amplified. Does this mean however that all the voices in the article become one unified information front? Collaboration allows many different individuals to voice their opinion and this is why Wikipedia is the perfect version of 'Wisdom of Crowds'.