Crowd Sourcing

I think of all the projects I do, and how many people contribute ideas or props to it, and it amazes me that I've never really contemplated crowd sourcing to its full extent before.


I watched the Wikipedia video while my mom was in the room, and she commented; "It's a noble cause, but my personal experience has been that many of my students don't own their own computer, so this is only as good as its intended's access to internet."

She has a point--if someone has access to a library computer, they also have access to a library's other resources--including an encyclopedia. My teachers growing up made the word "Wikipedia" synonymous with swear words.
Plus, one of my classmates just wrote random things on many wikipedia pages--one of them used to bully another student. Although it is entirely that individual's responsibility to keep himself in check, others also have to make sure that what they're reading is valid at the same time.

While reading the part about her time at UC Berkeley in "The Cloudmaking Manifesto", I imagined a world where we didn't have a digital database to send and share ideas--what if we used letters and newspapers and celluloid to send in crowdsourcing ideas to the creator?! My sympathetic headache begins. Where would it all be stored? How would they keep themselves organized?! I'm nearly in hives here worrying about this imaginary world. Thanks, Tiffany.
I have to disagree, though. I don't think that this specific era is the "Age of Collaboration". I believe that is the essence of the human experience: we are always collaborating with others for nearly everything we do in life.