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Another concern is that nearly every stackoverflow answer or wikipedia article that isn't a trivial algorithm tends to be buggy at its edge conditions. Most of
by lamontcg 4y ago
Another concern is that nearly every stackoverflow answer or wikipedia article that isn't a trivial algorithm tends to be buggy at its edge conditions. Most of them look like they were submitted by college students and not experts.
- shadowgovt 4y agoRemember when we believed that experts were over because the wisdom of the crowds would reign supreme? Been a hell of a decade, hasn't it.
- TimTheTinker 4y agoWhen the wisdom of the crowds is all easily accessible, the hard part becomes curating.
- xpe 4y agoThe "wisdom of the crowds" doesn't mean what many people think it means. The wisdom of crowds works best when: 1. participants are independent (otherwise you may get failure modes, such as "groupthink" or "information cascades") 2. participants are informed, but in different ways, with different opinions; 3. there is a clear, accepted aggregation mechanism, where individual errors "cancel out" to some degree I view the topics in James Surowiecki's book (or the Wikipedia summary of it, at least) as required thinkinpg for everyone, preferably synthesized with a study of statistics and political economy. In particular, the Wikipedia article's section on "Five elements required to form a wise crowd" is a slightly different slicing of the required elements that I offer above. * If you read that section, trust is listed. I, however, don't see trust as a necessary condition for a "wise crowd". Trust is often useful (or even necessary) when a collective decision is used for governance, decision-making, and policy.