How do Wikipedians form Consensus?

Wikipedia is a revolution in organising online content in an easy-to-navigate format. Because it implements open source, there is constant speculation about the reliability of its content. Wiki (as it is affectionately known) is placed under the social software umbrella (Bruns, 2008, 102). Wiki is a primary example of produsage, people are able to create a new entry or update an existing one, which millions of people have access to. Wiki adheres to Bruns' second principle of produsage: fluid heterarchies organised through ad hoc meritocratic governance. This concept is explored in my previous blog:

2. Fluid Heterarchy, ad hoc meritocracy. In open source contributors grow in the community through their esteem and influence on the project. There is no set dictator for the duration of the project. Leaders are fluid and ever changing according to their abilities and the merit of their contributions. In closed source the production development team is subject to traditional hierarchical structures. There is an appointed leader for the duration of the project and each employee has set individual tasks to complete.

As stated by Jenkins (cited in Bruns, 2008, 108), "any knowledge that gets posted can and most likely will be revised and corrected by other readers." Though it has no set hierarchical structure, Wiki remains a popular source of information, especially for university students.

A new search engine, Powerset, has recently been released, allowing questions, phrases and topics to be explored. Answers can be broken down into facts or scan summaries, and searches Wikipedia entries and other reputable sources (such as Freebase). Check this one out...

Reference

Bruns, A. 2008. Wikipedia: Representations of Knowledge in Axel Bruns, Blogs, Wikipedia, Second Life, and Beyond: From Production to Produsage. New York: Peter Lang. p 101-136.