
Journal pudge's Journal: Crowds 22
Quoth Jeremy Zawodny in criticizing Slashdot's editorial model, "Haven't we figured out that the crowd is generally smarter than any one individual in the crowd?"
No, it isn't. I don't know where he got that ridiculous idea, let alone why he thinks it's true, when centuries of history have shown that it's not. It is, after all, the reason we have a republic here in the U.S. and not a democracy: we don't trust the fickle whims of the masses. Nor should we.
Raise your hand if you really think the Perl community is better suited to make the design decisions for Perl 6 than Larry Wall is. The community can, should, and did have significant input, but in the end, someone who is smarter and wiser and so on should make the decisions.
The question is not whether the individual can be smarter and better suited to doing a certain task than the crowd is, because it's obviously true. The only questions have to do with which individuals we're talking about, for which crowds, and so on. The specifics matter.
So I'm not saying the Slashdot editors are necessarily better than the crowd, just because they are the Slashdot editors. It's a given that this isn't true. But it's also a given that they *could* be.
That's also not to say that crowds should be ignored. To stick with the government theme, most politicians think well-conducted public opinion polls are useful tools for providing effective government, but, as Edmund Burke said:
Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays instead of serving you if he sacrifices it to your opinion.
Maybe there's more room for "public participation" in the editorial process, but the public should never serve as a replacement for the personal editorial process.
At the end of the day, though, he has a point, though he doesn't bring it out very well: if the crowds don't get stories they want at Slashdot, they will stop reading Slashdot. It's quite simple. There are other reasons to stop reading Slashdot too, of course, but if Slashdot really doesn't post the "right" stories, Slashdot will die. Conversely, if Slashdot remains alive and prosperous, then it obviously is posting the "right" stories.
The problem with Jeremy's argument is that this is all true regardless of whether those stories are chosen by a crowd or by individuals, and as someone who's been in the story-posting business for many years, I can confidently say that -- depending on who they are -- you've got a much better chance with the individuals than the crowd.
Pudge, Pudge, Pudge (Score:2)
Re:Pudge, Pudge, Pudge (Score:2)
No, it's not. The issue, specifically, is whether crowds are smarter than any one individual in the crowd. That is what Zawodny was primarily writing about, and it is what I was directly responding to.
What you're talking about is a separate issue.
Re:Pudge, Pudge, Pudge (Score:2)
What might be a separate issue is how big the crowd of current plus former editors is. Are any of the current editors actually former editors using new names?
Re:Pudge, Pudge, Pudge (Score:2)
Sure. And that's something I mentioned in my journal entry, when I wrote, "Maybe there's more room for 'public participation' in the editorial process
So no, I don't think that the issue is a separate one.
Well, it is a separate one. Related, but separate. The primary issue is whether crowds are better suited for the task than individuals. The answer is No. The related, but separate, issue is whether crowds
Re:Pudge, Pudge, Pudge (Score:2)
I have very little idea what goes into who works at
Re:Pudge, Pudge, Pudge (Score:2)
Re:Pudge, Pudge, Pudge (Score:2)
Re:Pudge, Pudge, Pudge (Score:2)
Re:Pudge, Pudge, Pudge (Score:2)
According to various world domination strategy games, they all seem to think that 'democracy' is the final frontier.
Me think, Republic is the answer... just as long as we learn from the Roman Empire's mistake.
Today is conspiracy-busting day! Woohoo (Score:2)
No.
Re:Today is conspiracy-busting day! Woohoo (Score:2)
Re:Today is conspiracy-busting day! Woohoo (Score:2)
Frankly, Jamie probably doesn't know for certain either
Re:Today is conspiracy-busting day! Woohoo (Score:2)
Re:Today is conspiracy-busting day! Woohoo (Score:2)
I'm a firm believer in Kay's analysis. (Score:2)
Yeah, that pretty much sums it up for me whether it's software users, protesters at my local school board, or the herd at Slashdot.
Re:I'm a firm believer in Kay's analysis. (Score:2)
I don't think so (Score:2)
But often if they have an opportunity to get to know the individuals involved, or they are a part of similar circumstances themselves, they gain new insight and become less judgmental.
This kind of thought process
I *like* the top down editorial model (Score:2)
Ah.. slashdot v. K5 .. it's like 2000 all over again! Where's Adequacy when you need it?
Re:I *like* the top down editorial model (Score:2)
i'll take a guess (Score:2)
My family and I were at a conference this summer and they had all kinds of give-aways and drawings. One drawing I entered was one of these- guess how many m&ms are in the jar deals. It was done by a group within our organization (campus crusade for christ) that does i.t. type stuff. After the conference they sent out a deal with the results of the contest. They gave the lowest, highest, closest a
Re:i'll take a guess (Score:2)
I think that in terms of specific skill sets, that a group can do no better than an individual. And if of the 5,000 or so at the conference, there had been an expert m&m counter, he could have crushed us all, but there wasn't one. And so our collective effort was better than any individual.
Exactly.
There are other things like this, where really, there are no outstanding individuals and the group can probably outperform an individual. I would venture to s
Re:i'll take a guess (Score:2)
I think it is interesting that a meta-story was posted to the front page today. Every once in a while I'll get into an extended thread and it can get really hard to keep track of it all. I can't imagine trying to dig through and maintain discussion through an entire post