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Weblog:   How Users Participate in Building Google
Subject:   IMDB and CDDB As Exceptions?
Date:   2003-05-19 11:48:12
From:   anonymous2
If I understand the paradigm correctly, these two huge databases fully implemented this philosophy in the beginning, but then shied away from it.
In both cases, user-contributed content was the main basis in that user contribution wasn't an extra thing added to the "official" content. Said content is now closed (to a certain extent) and contributing users may feel frustrated because their "work" has been reappropriated. There might be a notion from the general public that we need the information to be checked, but the model's switch left a sour taste to some.
A similar thing would happen if, say, Wired Magazine were to take control of Slashdot and only allow officially sanctioned authors to contribute. If the Slashdot model shows anything it's that while we need structure and verification, it doesn't need to be dealt with by an officially sanctioned individual or committee.
In anthropology, this is related to the concept of "structured anarchy" of "acephalous societies," meaning that social groups don't necessarily need a power structure to work out.
Going back to the [IM,CD]DB examples, the notion of greed and corporate control certainly comes into place in the user's opinion. Whether or not it's what happened (that these were both "sold out" in the most vile manner), financial considerations always come into place. After all, Amazon, eBay, Yahoo!, and (to a certain extent) Google were prominent parts of the Internet bubble which was, after all, a fabricated financial process...