I can remember when we used to tout the fact that three guys in a coffee shop could create a presence on the web that rivaled Fortune 500 companies. The Internet was our great equalizer in the world of ideas. Little did we know that as we quietly sipped our lattes that the big, bad industrial machine would use this very tool against us. Such is destined to be the legacy of the wiki.
A Wired blog recently reported on how some in government and industry may be using the wisdom of crowds to sabotage what has become a grand experiment in data sharing, specifically, Wikipedia. While some of those contributing to the so-called WikiWatch may see a conspiracy behind every edit, the obvious abuses by some organizations makes one wonder if the open wiki model can survive.
...or could it be that some experts might actually believe they know a bit more than rank amateurs?
- Hutch
