Who Writes Wikipedia? (Aaron Swartz’s Raw Thought). Essential read from Aaron Swartz about who really writes Wikipedia – contradicting the analysis Jimbo Wales has presented many places including at reboot.
Perhaps Wikipedia really is the hive mind when it comes to core creation, allthough when it comes to “formatting” it’s a small community. At least a very important discussion to have about the essential icon of a new era that Wikipedia has become.
Coincidently i wanted to vote for Aaron for the Wikimedia foundation board but got this message.
“Sorry, you are not qualified to vote in this election here on the English Wikipedia. You need to have made 400 edits here before 00:00, 1 August 2006; you have made 5″.
Nails Aaron’s argument pretty strong since i’ve contributed to at least 50 wikipedia articles anonomously – which isn’t valued – but getting to 400 edits is pretty simple. It seems Wikipedia could have a major governance issue here – since it’s the “formatters” that are going the be running the place – not the contributors.