This part of the book relates directly to our last class discussion about the wikipedia case. How could something with 1,300,000 aritcles be organized without any managers, a budget, or a formal work-flow process? The answer is spontaneous division of labor. Wikipedia somehow brings together small, individual, different contributions, by the millions, to accomplish the task of creating a valuable encyclopedia (Shirkey 118). The concept that allows wikipedia to succeed is incremental contributions. Anyone can contribute, and only as much as they want to. If someone is passionate about a subject, they can write page after page of valuable, factual content. If someone is more technical and less knowleageable, they can correct spelling errors to improve the quality of the article. "The inbalance of comtributions on wikipedia drives large social systems rather than damaging them. AKA the Power Law" (Shirkey 125).
The reason wikipedia succeeded over nupedia is that article creation on wikipedia is a process, not a product. Articles are forever being improved.
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Wikipedia did work because it is a process, but don't forget the part about people caring. Anything can be considered a "process" and not a "product" but it doesn't mean it will succeed. If there is only one person out there who cares about something, but 500,000 who care about something else, which do you think will have a higher participation rate? Which will allow more open opinions and flow of information?
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