[logicallee]

Not really - Wikipedia still makes you say, "That can't possibly work." Think about it - the first and most definitive, accessible source on any subject you don't know anything about, is something strangers on the Internet can collaboratively edit, troll, or subtlely subvert. This just can't work - except that it does!

It goes counter to everything on the Internet. You would expect it to read like the comments section of a news article - instead, it's more definitive and factual than news articles themselves. Amazing!

[cooper12]

In a more general sense this can be applied to any form of crowdsourcing. How can open source software work with a bunch of strangers adding code? How can citizen scientists provide accurate data? How can airbnb provide a good hospitality service? How can uber be safe and on time?

It's all just our natural prejudice towards people who aren't "qualified" or experienced. Humans are pretty terrible at judging qualification. Either they'll use some irrational subconscious criteria like the person dressing appropriately or appearing confident, or they'll rely on faulty measurements like scores on some test or having some sort of certification. Sure these are all useful to some extent but we have to start realizing that design has a limit, especially when you enter fields governed by things other than hard science.

[TeMPOraL]

I disagree, though we may be living in different Internets :). At least for me, Wikipedia was an obvious continuation of everything I saw on-line when I was growing up.

Wikipedia works like every reasonable Internet community - read: just fine as long as someone is not trying to make money on it, and as long as those attempts are actively and ruthlessly punished. For some the default picture of Internet is comments under a news article on some big portal. For me, the default picture of the Internet is Hacker News.

[Nimitz14]

> Think about it - the first and most definitive, accessible source on any subject you don't know anything about, is something strangers on the Internet can collaboratively edit, troll, or subtlely subvert.

That's not true. Go to this page

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_celebrities

pick a list and add yourself into it. Within an hour your change will have been reverted.

This claim that anybody can edit wikipedia is bullshit and rather annoying.

[DanBC]

You've pointed out one page that has good monitoring. There are plenty of pages that don't have anybody watching them where changes can be made.

[JoeAltmaier]

Still the point is valid - the wildcard "anybody can edit" is not at all true, for many of the most 'followed' pages. Which are the one that are most interesting to change.

I've had old company listings disappear because they had no links. The company is gone! History! Nothing to link to. So that meant some busybody made it their job to delete that piece.