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Bullard, Claude L (Len) wrote:
> Which makes it suitable for picking the contestants on
> American Idol but probably not for picking tools to
> use in surgery.
>
> The problem of the 'wisdom of crowds' is knowing
> 'crowds of what?' in advance of applying the wisdom.
>
One of the revelations of Wikipedia is that crowds are pretty effective
at self-selecting and self-policing. A random crowd would not be
effective at picking surgical tools. A self-selected group of people
interested enough in surgical tools to participate in a discussion of
surgical tools likely would be; and in fact probably would do better
than any one individual would, no matter well educated and credentialed.
--
Elliotte Rusty Harold elharo@metalab.unc.edu
XML in a Nutshell 3rd Edition Just Published!
http://www.cafeconleche.org/books/xian3/
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=0596007647/cafeaulaitA/ref=nosim
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