(2005-07-12) Dvorak Public Wiki Entropy

John Dvorak on why Public Wiki-s will inevitably deteriorate in quality (Entropy). Larry Sanger in a long blog post sees the problem as simply that of Wikipedia's lack of respect for expertise. What he doesn't get is that this is a problem with all public processes in a society that, as I mentioned earlier, values individualism and self-regard above all. None of these mechanisms could actually work without someone breaking the rules and moderating the processes. This is called editing, and you just cannot avoid it.

One counter-point is that sites like Wikipedia aim for a Neutral Point Of View, which is the complete opposite of the Product Review sites, where the inherent subjectivity makes editorial Convergence impossible/inappropriate.