WikiUtopia
I just read Chris Corrigan’s post, one that makes me upbeat and wanting to go “out there” and do something – make it happen! And this feeling is the same that I get any time I am around other folks I have had the pleasure to meet and know, within the Wiki community and working also at aboutus – really great folks!
But then I still have in the back of my mind this nagging thought that this is still “fringe” movement stuff, and if one looks at the total populace demographics one discovers lots of folks still don’t understand or “buy in”, and I have a hunch that unless this larger demographic does, all the really great “utopian” things will be a long time in coming.
In this vain I try to point out a few issues that I think, if they were better recognized by the Wiki community, would increase the chances of gaining participation of a much larger chuck of the populace – ideally almost all of it.
Chris states, “Imagine if every hour spent working on that was spent working for the world we want”.
Currently I see this “we” in the Wiki community as being a demographic that is small in size relative to the global populace. In that case “we” might also have the effect of creating the world that “we few want”, yet the vast majority don’t want – so I think important to get more of those “others” involved and participating.
Not everybody has a brain type that enjoys being “on-line” for long periods of time, or contributing text or pictures or movies. Lots of people out in the physical world still like to deal with “physical stuff” rather than things that can only be shoved through a digital pipe. I also suspect that stuff that can’t be shoved through a digital pipe will be around for a long time. I think the Wiki community could do more to figure out ways to embrace and gain involvement of people that prefer dealing with physical stuff.
The vast majority of the populace still spends most of its day doing labor it does not like, and is so dead tired or has so many life obligations after such labor, they have little time or motivation to take part and contribute online. Seems to me there should be more Wiki brainstorming about how to facilitate good paying day jobs for these “many” folks. That alone would be interesting subject matter for lots of Joes and Janes, that still don’t drink the Wiki water.
Doing “new stuff” involves risk, which costs money. If you doubt it just ask the founders of aboutus – this web site would not exist without lots of money to start it up. Somebody has to pay for this risk. A radical change in the risk equation could be gained if everybody on the planet with less than 90 cents in their pocket could in effect drop it into a virtual pot, without losing the value of their money during this transfer from physical world to virtual pot. With all the smart minds working on electronic currency systems (such as at MIT, etc.) nobody has yet figured this out, or those that have create systems where they want to generate profit rather than sharing with a larger community or commons, so as to eliminate this typical overhead cost.
There is need for better decision making processes when large groups brainstorm “on-line”. Consensus polling is a step in the right direction, with potential to gain higher quality and more buy in. Gaining this along with increased process speed (in the physical world time lag on a calendar can represent a big inefficiency that drives up costs and prevents execution of projects) is a much tougher nut to crack. So far I don’t see lots of focus or resources applied to gaining both increased “buy in” and fast process speed at the same time.
To gain much more brainstorming participation from the populace I suspect there has to be orders of magnitude improvement in the ease of sharing ideas and content on line. Again with all the smart minds involved with Internet and software development, I still see nothing online so simple in process as sharing my idea via drawing a sketch on a napkin pad in a restaurant – no learning curve, fast and easy - and that just one "ease of use" example out of many.
The Internet is filled with lots and lots of places that one can find “content” and lots of talk but no action - as perceived by large numbers of folks not yet drinking the Wiki water. To gain their interest the Wiki community could do a better job of communicating how taking part in the commons has an upside benefit, how it can impact them personally.
The issues presented are admittedly tough nuts to crack. To increase the chances of cracking them one needs more brains focused on such issues. In such regard on the Internet today these potential brains are still too scattered and fragmented, so there is still no critical mass addressing these issues.
The easiest way to deal with these issues is to write off the “failure to participate dynamics” or concerns of the larger populace as a dying dinosaur whose issues are not worth our time or attention – but I have a hunch that attitude won’t help make the world a better place.
Do I think the mentioned problems are insurmountable? No. If I thought that I would spend none of my time contributing such content to any Wiki communities. My point is, in general I think a lot more people in the Wiki community need to spend more time focusing on such issues, if the community really expects to draw in much larger numbers of participants. MartinPfahler
