Wikipedia Circles the Wagons

An article by Bobbie Johnson in the Guardian (8/14/09) posits that Wikipedia has maxed out its growth. Research by Ed H Chi, a scientist who works at the Palo Alto Research Center in California, showed that contributions have slowed and the complement of editors has stabilized into a small, elite group. Elite editors' edits have a 1% chance of being reverted, while the work of people who contribute less regularly is likely to be reverted 25% of the time.

According to Johnson, there's a war going on between inclusionists and deletionists, with the deletionists acting to to preserve the value of Wikipedia's content. The inclusionists, on the other hand, point out that Wikipedia is not paper and can accomodate plenty of inclusion.

What's really interesting is the maturation of a revolutionary medium and what it suggests for others. Are there diminishing resources on the Internet, too?

Rethinking Trust

Roderick Kramer wrote an article called "Rethinking Trust" in Harvard Business Review (6/2009). Through his research he's validated common sense conclusions about how and why we trust. Kramer says we're not all that smart about who we trust, and we tend to use surface clues like similarity to ourselves. We make mistakes (witness the Bernie Madoff scandal).

The author issues seven rules to help us re-adjust our attudes toward trust. Among them are knowing yourself; starting small; and having an escape clause. I found two items on his list to be striking. They are:

• Recognize the other person's dilemma. They need to decide how much to trust us, too.
• Stay vigilant and always question your assumptions. Things change.

The article is worth a read, and most definitely will make you question your assumptions and others'.