What is the Quality Control issue?

The open content development model violates the traditional paradigm of how quality content is created and how the content quality is controlled. The traditional, hierarchical mechanism makes a distinction between “experts” and “laypersons”, “professionals” and “amateurs”. The experts are the ones who are trusted to have valuable knowledge to dispense, the layperson’s knowledge is distrusted.

For more on the expert paradigm, read That Withered Paradigm: The Web, the Expert, and the Information Hegemony by Peter Walsh at the MIT Communication Forum Site.

The WikiWiki system is one example of an open content quality control mechanism. Another is used by slashdot.org.

We believe the WikiWiki system is a very interesting approach - you could call it “crazy enough that it might just work”, but obviously still in its infancy. Here are some links:

Wiki Principles

Wiki Design Principles described by Ward Cunningham

Why Wiki Works

Note: We are currently evaluating the TWIKI system for use in the LIFE Open Content initiative.