Wisdom of the Crowds: Is There Such a Thing?
I came across this interesting read on degreetutor.com about why libraries and librarians are not obsolete–and are in fact still extremely important–in this Internet age. Will Sherman gives 33 reasons, and one of them, #20 says “Wisdom of crowds is untrustworthy, because of the tipping point.”
In a vacuum, crowds probably are very wise. But all too often we see the caveat to James Surowiecki’s crowd wisdom in Malcom Gladwell’s “tipping point”, which, in this context, explains that groups are easily influenced by their vanguard – those who are the first to do something and who automatically have extra influence, even if what they are doing is not necessarily the best idea.
The highly social nature of the web therefore makes it highly susceptible to, for example, sensationalized, low-quality information with the sole merit of being popular. Libraries, in contrast, provide quality control in the form of a stopgap. Only information that is carefully vetted is allowed in. Libraries are likely to stay separate from the internet, even if they can be found online. Therefore, it is extremely important that libraries remain alive and well, as a counterpoint to the fragile populism of the web.
True, true. I’ve been a fan of social media from the start, including social bookmarkers (like del.icio.us and Stumbleupon) and social news sites (like DIGG, the new Netscape and Reddit). However, I have also been skeptical of their value per se, particularly with what people truly consider important.
For instance, is it just me or do you also notice that about half of the news items that get to frontpage on DIGG is junk? Sure, there is a “consensus” within the set of users, but then again, there’s the tipping point. To better illustrate, I usually ask the question: do items get on front page because they’re DUGG, or do items get DUGG because they’re on front page?
Sure, the fact that an item is already on front page means a lot of people have already DUGG. But because they’re on front page, there is a higher tendency for more people to DIGG–perhaps because frontpage items are more visible, and perhaps because people are influenced to believe those items are indeed of value.
Short of calling most Internet users (or at least users of these social media) lemmings, I would think the wisdom of the crowds does not exactly produce something wise.
This is why I prefer those social tools that don’t rely on popularity, but rather on the interaction between contacts (“friends” if you may).
[...] I’ve said before that the wisdom of crowds may not exactly be wise. That’s (mostly) because of the tipping point. The crowd can be influenced! But then again, in the blogosphere, the wisdom of the crowds is in numbers. Technorati says so. The more people write about a topic, the hotter it gets on Technorati’s popularity charts. [...]
What’s Wrong With The Echo Chamber? » Jack Of All Blogs said this on February 10, 2007 1:40 am
[...] The blogosphere exists for people to have a voice and to express themselves. But where there are people—more especially groups of people—there will inevitably be mass stupidity. [...]
Jack Of All Blogs → Blog Archive » Blogging and the Angry Mob Mentality said this on August 16, 2007 5:44 pm