How wise are online communities?

 

In JR Minkel’s post in Scientific American’s blog, Most Hated Digg Comment Proves (Part of) Jaron Lanier’s Point about the Cracked Wisdom of Crowds, he discusses a recent incident on digg where a user’s comment was buried because it looked like spam. Read Chandler Kent’s post, What Happens When You Spam Digg? Updated 14x, for his experience of how horrendously digg users responded to his comment. Minkel goes on to relate this to the idea that online users increasingly believe that the collective is always wiser than the individual. Communities are now an essential part of the web, can they ever be more than just mobs?

HOW TO – Watch TV

Watching Television is an art. It is easy to waste your life in front of a T.V. and still get nothing out of it (believe me, I know). One must learn how to maximize entertainment and education while minimizing mindlessness and preventing the T.V. from taking control of your life. Here are some helpful guidelines I have developed through many years of intensive television viewing: