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"The bottom-line is that the more "democratic" a forum/board/discussion media gets, the more clueless it becomes." The voice in the back of my head reading tha
by edd 17y ago
"The bottom-line is that the more "democratic" a forum/board/discussion media gets, the more clueless it becomes."
The voice in the back of my head reading that is shouting" but what about the "Wisdom of Crowds"? I think the problem we are seeing here though is that we are starting with a very "smart crowd" and only adding people with less knowledge of the subject.
- berntb 17y agoAll examples in the article had self selected crowds that later got diluted. It is the common problem, not only HN.
- rubinelli 17y agoThe "Wisdom of the Crowds" is simply a specialization of the Law of Big Numbers to average out the noise and leave the signal. As such, it has two weaknesses: (1) if all you have as input is garbage, no matter how much garbage you put in, you will get garbage as output, e.g. "the Emperor's nose" (2) every action has to be independent, or the math behind it is no longer sound; due to the anchoring effect and social pressure, early noise tends to be amplified.
- ahoyhere 17y ago"The Wisdom of Crowds" - as the book explains - applies only to questions with concrete answers, and it works because groups are wrong in a predictable distribution so that they average out to right. I, for one, believe the state of social software on the internet would be better if people actually read the book.