The WSJ has an article today (sub required) discussing a new endangered species: the Wikipedia editor. Apparently 49,000 of them disappeared during the first 3 months of 2009 alone. One of the reasons the Journal cites is the Wikipedia’s “plethora of rules” about the editing process, which has led to infighting among editors:

“‘People generally have this idea that the wisdom of crowds is a pixie dust that you sprinkle on a system and magical things happen,’ says Aniket Kittur, an assistant professor of human-computer interaction at Carnegie Mellon University who has studied Wikipedia and other large online community projects. ‘Yet the more people you throw at a problem, the more difficulty you are going to have with coordinating those people. It’s too many cooks in the kitchen.’”

I have 3 comments about this:

(1) Mr. Kittur appears to be channeling Fred Brooks. (Coincidentally I ordered a copy of the Mythical Man-Month on Saturday.)

(2) “Too many cooks spoil the broth” was yet another of my mom’s pithy phrases.

(3) I’m not thinking the Wikipedia’s going away any time soon, despite the dire warnings we read from time to time.

Submitted by: Dan Giancaterino, Education Services Manager
on November 23, 2009 - 4:18 pm

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