Peer Production - Revision history

Andy at 12:35, 22 April 2015

2015-04-22T12:35:39Z

← Older revision		Revision as of 12:35, 22 April 2015
Line 6:		Line 6:

	Joining us this week is Berkman Fellow [https://cyber.law.harvard.edu/people/sklein SJ Klein].		Joining us this week is Berkman Fellow [https://cyber.law.harvard.edu/people/sklein SJ Klein].

			'''[http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2015/File:Peer_Production.pdf Download slides from this week's class]'''

	<onlyinclude>		<onlyinclude>

Hromero10: /* Class Discussion */

2015-04-21T19:59:27Z

Class Discussion

← Older revision		Revision as of 19:59, 21 April 2015
Line 96:		Line 96:

	-----------		-----------

			Hello Kelly. I worked on a NASA project in Astrobiology and one important question came up in regards to SETI. What if extraterrestrial beings are communicatiing through another medium such as light pulses? Then SETI would be completely missing their communication. Focusing on radio waves is kind of like a shot in the dark, and it may work, it may also yield interesting results in a completely different field related to radio waves. [[User:Hromero10\|Hromero10]] ([[User talk:Hromero10\|talk]]) 15:59, 21 April 2015 (EDT)
			----

	'''Thumbs up for Zittrain Video'''		'''Thumbs up for Zittrain Video'''
Line 157:		Line 160:
	[[User:Chanel Rion\|Chanel Rion]] ([[User talk:Chanel Rion\|talk]]) 15:37, 21 April 2015 (EDT)		[[User:Chanel Rion\|Chanel Rion]] ([[User talk:Chanel Rion\|talk]]) 15:37, 21 April 2015 (EDT)

	-------		-------

	---------		---------

Caelum: /* Class Discussion */

2015-04-21T19:53:57Z

Class Discussion

← Older revision		Revision as of 19:53, 21 April 2015
Line 178:		Line 178:

	[[User:Tasha\|Tasha]] ([[User talk:Tasha\|talk]]) 15:47, 21 April 2015 (EDT)		[[User:Tasha\|Tasha]] ([[User talk:Tasha\|talk]]) 15:47, 21 April 2015 (EDT)

			----

			The peer production’s existence would not appear without the participation and acceptance of the people around them. This brings out the best in people. This in fact would contribute to the final product. Yet I do agree with Zuckerman (ref 1), that it could be a two edged sword. To guess a jar of beans, if we are all equally likely to guess it, then the higher the sample, the more likely the mean is close to the actual number. Yet it was also true for the reverse if the likelihood was less than 50%. So that gives the quick summary of the advantages and disadvantages of peer production. It could yield great production due to the contribution of everyone, but it could also encounter problems that makes things worse.

			Of course, when we focus on the optimistic; we could see that peer production does have its merits when done right. With peer production, a permission would not be required. More and more are accepting of it, such as the use of open source software that increases more collaboration on the internet. And as the video tells us (ref 2), after 5 years of Wikipedia’s creation, the accuracy of Britannia and Wikipedia were both considered “bad”; so in a way they were of the same level. Why then should peer production be excluded out then? It brings speedy information out which would be beneficial to news channels; such as obtaining photos, etc. I also like the idea of peer production for collaborations between teachers. I can’t exactly see what kind of strategies would be used; but I do see the value in this.

			I’d like to draw upon the following quote.

			“Social sharing and exchange emerge as a major modality of economic production” – Ref 2

			I believe this is an important part of the video. Social sharing would become a big part of economic production. This also brings us to wonder what kind of regime are we under. This does sound a little… socialism in a way. Social sharing? Providing a little input for the common goal of something? Yet aren’t we under a capitalistic structure? Or has this shaped to be a hybrid of some sort. The internet may provide the type of regime we may eventually see in the future. The purpose of social sharing, peer production has been expressed quite strongly. It’s benefits and advantages could be seen too. If it’s good enough for BBC, then it must have it’s value somewhere.

			Since I’m in finance, I’d like to talk about the collective evaluation of prices. As Hayek believes, it is the collective market’s participants that would derive in a just price for a product, it should also be the case for temperature, price of items, etc. I do understand and agree with Hayek that the market’s way of deriving in the correct price is always right. Afterall, the collective thoughts of millions must beat that of a few smart men. Though I do see the vulnerabilities of this. The advantages of this would only lie in things that could be quantified. Prices, weight, temperature, etc. It is, in my opinion, extremely faulty when dealing with ideas, ideals, thoughts, etc. Those issues cannot result in a mass deliberation that brings us closer to choosing the right regime, or some sort of universal justice we’ll all agree upon. In this sense, the greatest benefit of peer production would be formed on issues that could be quantified. Things that could not be quantified could achieve well if it were for a collective goal of producing something. If it were for some sort of deliberation, it would be extremely hard; and quite plausibly make us get further from the truth.

			If we were to look at current examples on the internet that was a form of peer production, I think we need not look further than Twitter. It is fast, efficient, and quickly sharable of information. Retweets also help make a tweet more important to be viewed by the masses. Though as I mentioned above, these could have draw backs as well. If a piece of news is faulty, that would become viral in minutes, but costly the victim quite a bit of embarrassment. This power of peer production has it’s advantages and disadvantages, but as of now, I do not believe there is any way to control this. I think I am more interested in looking at peer production more of a regime form… sort of a light rhyme to socialism if you may.


			References:

			Ref 1 - http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/2006/11/30/cass-sunsteins-infotopia/

			Ref 2 - http://video.mit.edu/watch/news-information-and-the-wealth-of-networks-9187/

			Ref 3 - http://www.randomhouse.com/features/wisdomofcrowds/excerpt.html

			[[User:Caelum\|Caelum]] ([[User talk:Caelum\|talk]]) 15:53, 21 April 2015 (EDT)

Tasha at 19:47, 21 April 2015

2015-04-21T19:47:51Z

← Older revision		Revision as of 19:47, 21 April 2015
Line 168:		Line 168:
	There are areas like education and information, in which the more we get the better and even in case of misleading information, sources could be cross checked and conclusions could be grounded differently. On the other hand there are fields in which using the potential of the crowdsourcing to solve a problem could bring more problems than solutions and than the main issue of the anonymity in such will be standing again.		There are areas like education and information, in which the more we get the better and even in case of misleading information, sources could be cross checked and conclusions could be grounded differently. On the other hand there are fields in which using the potential of the crowdsourcing to solve a problem could bring more problems than solutions and than the main issue of the anonymity in such will be standing again.
	([[User:Gia\|Gia]] ([[User talk:Gia\|talk]]))		([[User:Gia\|Gia]] ([[User talk:Gia\|talk]]))
			----

			The best companies often work closely with their customers to uncover needs and wants that can be translated into new or improved product or service offerings. Companies using customer needs and preferences to modify current products into new and improved products and services; and how they are using social media for product innovation. Those using social media for product innovation are gaining business benefits, including more (and better) new product ideas or requirements, faster time to market, faster product adoption, lower product costs, and lower product development costs. According to Kenley and Poston (2015), more than 50% of the companies they surveyed were piloting their social media product innovations to some varying degrees. This has created product improvements, which creates increased market share and product revenue. Here is a link to their article: http://kalypso.com/downloads/insights/Kalypso_Social_Media_and_Product_Innovation_1.pdf.

			Reading Von Hippel’s article really illumined the development of products and services over time. Personally, I have seen how many of my peers’ feedback (quite a few engineers) have been incorporated into product development, by merely providing feedback on the product failure and a solution on improving the product. Additionally, it is fascinating how the ability to innovate has become so inexpensive that individuals are filling a product need with very little training. If you look at the current market for phone applications, quite a number are being developed by laypersons. The tools for crafting high-quality developments are now so economical and universally accessible that individuals can innovate for themselves. Here is a great article on how a 12 year old learning to code and developing 5 apps: http://venturebeat.com/2013/08/14/this-12-year-old-kid-learned-to-code-on-codecademy-built-5-apps-and-is-speaking-at-sxsw/

			Here is an interesting article writing about Uber and Airbnb as examples peer production (though not technologically) https://theumlaut.com/2014/04/09/how-uber-and-airbnb-resurrect-dead-capital/


			[[User:Tasha\|Tasha]] ([[User talk:Tasha\|talk]]) 15:47, 21 April 2015 (EDT)

Gia at 19:42, 21 April 2015

2015-04-21T19:42:23Z

← Older revision		Revision as of 19:42, 21 April 2015
Line 156:		Line 156:

	[[User:Chanel Rion\|Chanel Rion]] ([[User talk:Chanel Rion\|talk]]) 15:37, 21 April 2015 (EDT)		[[User:Chanel Rion\|Chanel Rion]] ([[User talk:Chanel Rion\|talk]]) 15:37, 21 April 2015 (EDT)

			-------

			---------


			The questions raised by Jonathan Zittrain in iLaw 2011: “Minds For Sale” and in in their lectures, like who is standing behind a common achievement, the copyright issues, are particularly interesting especially when adding up Internet. As the digital world is giving almost unlimited possibilities for anonymity a group work done online is making us ask ourselves to whom the achievements should be attributed but also who should be blamed in case of liability engaged?

			James Surowiecki tell us about experiments leading to the conclusion that crowd’s results in completing a task are undeniably better than the results of the cleverest individuals, meaning that the majority is always right. The philosophy of this postulate has been largely discussed both defended and denied during the years and it is out of the scope of today’s reading to discuss it but what is important is to make a difference between “crowd” and “team”. In the case of the DARPA project balloons challenge, the quest was done by team of people having similar way of thinking, coming from the same educational background , trained to think and seek solutions using similar methods and technics. When we talk about randomly assembled individuals acting without having the same training to deal with certain situation we could easily come across well-intentioned but chaotic results. Wikipedia project which has been mentioned several times is a great example of group work but also shows that such kind of activity inevitably need to be organised if not centralised and all those efforts should be supervised. In the article about Wikipedia’s reliability the authors have quoted the result of an IBM research in 2003 which found that ''"vandalism is usually repaired extremely quickly—so quickly that most users will never see its effects" and concluded that Wikipedia had "surprisingly effective self-healing capabilities".''

			There are areas like education and information, in which the more we get the better and even in case of misleading information, sources could be cross checked and conclusions could be grounded differently. On the other hand there are fields in which using the potential of the crowdsourcing to solve a problem could bring more problems than solutions and than the main issue of the anonymity in such will be standing again.
			([[User:Gia\|Gia]] ([[User talk:Gia\|talk]]))

Chanel Rion: /* Class Discussion */

2015-04-21T19:37:35Z

Class Discussion

← Older revision		Revision as of 19:37, 21 April 2015
Line 128:		Line 128:

	This is a form of spontaneous crowd sourcing through an informal (generic) platform and the results have been very specific and focused on a particular problem. [[User:Hromero10\|Hromero10]] ([[User talk:Hromero10\|talk]]) 15:02, 21 April 2015 (EDT)		This is a form of spontaneous crowd sourcing through an informal (generic) platform and the results have been very specific and focused on a particular problem. [[User:Hromero10\|Hromero10]] ([[User talk:Hromero10\|talk]]) 15:02, 21 April 2015 (EDT)

			----

			'''Motivations Behind Peer Productions? – Still Fundamentally Selfish'''

			While the idea that the Internet will be—and has proven be—the great floodgate opener of magnanimity, global and community cooperation, is a pleasant one, and one that is not wrong, it still seems misguided to say that cooperation is not selfishly motivated – even, perhaps especially, for the Internet. What Benckler’s ''The Penguin and the Leviathan'' (Frick’s Atlantic article) calls the “end of selfishness” is a well-meaning idea that holds water but only to an extent. There is still an argument to be made that community cooperation is at its core, a selfish endeavor and is simply part of human nature. If we help it is either to make ourselves feel better about ourselves or to ease our current and future consciences, or simply to know that we have spent our time well on an effort we deem worthy. Selfishness has its good masks and its bad masks. And the mistake is to say that the Internet, from peer produced efforts, to creative commons, to free software, to Wikipedia, simply because it seems to not support the bad kind of selfishness (on the whole) doesn’t mean it is devoid of the positive selfishness. One might even argue that all this cooperation is still a mask of the most mass positive selfishness humanity has ever experienced. And we still have the Internet to thank.

			From what we can gather in Frick’s article, Benckler explores why people take the time and effort to, without monetary gain or recognition even, invest in such activities such as Wikipedia. Benckler explores the many reasons why it may be that we sit down before a screen with seemingly altruistic efforts at contributing to the global pool of knowledge and enlightenment.

			The positive selfishness argument can easily make a case that contributing to Wikipedia is an expression of our desire to a) confirm our understanding of a topic, or b) learn more about a topic ourselves.

			Take another peer produced community, like, say, a guitar chord community; a place where guitarists will go online and tabulate popular songs for the rest of the community – motivations I think, are largely driven by users who wanted to learn a song, and by participating in a forum like UltimateGuitar.com, they force themselves to not only learn the song they aimed for, but they also get feedback from other users. So these users are not altruistically motivated to contribute to the pool of lost guitarists. They are self motivated – in other words, goodly selfish.

			Drawing from my own experience in this class through our assignment editing Wikipedia pages -- something I was never interested in doing before and never understood why friends were so excited about doing it… it wasn’t until I started editing my article that I understood why it was actually FUN: I had chosen a topic I was interested in, but not necessarily an expert in – and even when I KNEW the information I was inputting into the article, I had to find reliable sources to back up my claims.

			In the process I learned more about the topic. I found myself enjoying the fact that I was:

			1) Confirming knowledge previously held, but most importantly,

			2) Furthering knowledge: Learning myself facts and details I didn’t previously know. The last consideration was merely an endorphinesque feeling one gets after an intense run:

			3) I was helping contribute to a worldwide web of knowledge about my topic.

			While this third consideration was an important one in my experience with the Wikipedia editing assignment, I certainly order it as THIRD behind the first two motivations for contributing anonymously and without compensation.

			I would be curious to read Benckler’s ''The Penguin and the Leviathan'' – but this week’s readings clarified ideas about Peer Produced motivations for me. Fundamentally, we are still selfishly motivated; it’s just a question of from what side of the tree we are being driven; the good side or the bad side.

			[[User:Chanel Rion\|Chanel Rion]] ([[User talk:Chanel Rion\|talk]]) 15:37, 21 April 2015 (EDT)

Hromero10: /* Class Discussion */

2015-04-21T19:02:54Z

Class Discussion

← Older revision		Revision as of 19:02, 21 April 2015
Line 121:		Line 121:

	[[User:Beccalew\|Beccalew]] ([[User talk:Beccalew\|talk]]) 12:05, 21 April 2015 (EDT)		[[User:Beccalew\|Beccalew]] ([[User talk:Beccalew\|talk]]) 12:05, 21 April 2015 (EDT)
			----

			While learning about peer production on the internet, twitter came to mind, but also you tube, specifically in regards to the latest cases of police brutality that have been posted on line through You Tube, Instagram and other outlets. Along with the hashtag #blacklives matter, videos of police brutality have been crowd sourced in a non coordinated fashion by individuals and activists groups for many years now, and after all the video-body of evidence has been brought out in the open, a national conversation has begun about police and community relations, as well as racial profiling, the use of force and in general the american criminal justice system.

			This is no small feat. No political organization could craft a message like this, no individual group could do it, no individual could ever do this on his own because the scope and complexity of the problem is beyond any one group or person to articulate, even less beginning a plan of action. And yet, comments from people who were not aware of this problem run the gamut of 'this country is becoming a police state' to 'I never thought it was this bad'. In reality, the problem has existed for the past 20-30 years, its just that now technology (video and phone cameras, plus access to the web)has made the evidence more visible to the general population. Let's not forget Rodney King's arrest was videotaped by somebody who happened to have one of those clunky video cameras the size of a briefcase, and the video went viral through the formal media outlets.

			This is a form of spontaneous crowd sourcing through an informal (generic) platform and the results have been very specific and focused on a particular problem. [[User:Hromero10\|Hromero10]] ([[User talk:Hromero10\|talk]]) 15:02, 21 April 2015 (EDT)

Batjarks: /* Class Discussion */

2015-04-21T18:18:50Z

Class Discussion

← Older revision		Revision as of 18:18, 21 April 2015
Line 107:		Line 107:
	[[User:Gary Brown\|Gary Brown]] ([[User talk:Gary Brown\|talk]]) 20:14, 20 April 2015 (EDT)		[[User:Gary Brown\|Gary Brown]] ([[User talk:Gary Brown\|talk]]) 20:14, 20 April 2015 (EDT)
	----		----

			In honor of peer production I would like to mention that I was inspired by Gary Brown’s post.

			Gary, thank you so much for highlighting the “Minds for Sale” video. I agree that it does fill in the blanks and weave together themes from other reading. Zittrain offers a variety of examples of peer production in which communities work together under limited policies and control to benefit the public good. One of my favorite examples was the X Prize. I read about the X Prize in an advanced economics course at Pepperdine while working towards my MBA. Just like in Hergeaux’s Wikipedia experiment, or “Public Goods Game” individuals participating in the X Prize may forego their own financial gains in the event that their social image may be boosted. We can see also, just like in Creative Commons, individuals participating in the X Prize give up “right, title, and interest” to their work. Yet the potential benefit to both an individual company in charge of that specific X Prize, and public at large, can be monumental.

			[[User:Batjarks\|Batjarks]] ([[User talk:Batjarks\|talk]]) 14:18, 21 April 2015 (EDT)
			----


	While reading Eric Von Hippel’s Democratizing Innovation, particularly the passage about windsurfing, I was reminded of the first in-depth article I read about Twitter. I started my own account in January of 2009, but I rarely used it until that summer when I read an in-depth article about it in Time magazine. The article described how Twitter users – not the software team – developed the concept of the hashtag, as well as trending topics. Since that time, these innovations have more or less come to define Twitter as we know it. I specifically remember a quote likening Twitter’s use innovation to a group of people buying a toaster and transforming it into a microwave. This article was directly responsible for my increased usage of Twitter. At a time when Facebook was making sweeping changes to its platform, often to the dismay of its users, the idea of Twitter’s user-based innovation felt refreshing, democratic, and empowering.		While reading Eric Von Hippel’s Democratizing Innovation, particularly the passage about windsurfing, I was reminded of the first in-depth article I read about Twitter. I started my own account in January of 2009, but I rarely used it until that summer when I read an in-depth article about it in Time magazine. The article described how Twitter users – not the software team – developed the concept of the hashtag, as well as trending topics. Since that time, these innovations have more or less come to define Twitter as we know it. I specifically remember a quote likening Twitter’s use innovation to a group of people buying a toaster and transforming it into a microwave. This article was directly responsible for my increased usage of Twitter. At a time when Facebook was making sweeping changes to its platform, often to the dismay of its users, the idea of Twitter’s user-based innovation felt refreshing, democratic, and empowering.

ErikaLRich: /* Class Discussion */

2015-04-21T16:20:12Z

Class Discussion

@@ Line 56: / Line 56: @@
 == Class Discussion ==
 <div style="background-color:#CCCCCC;">Please remember to sign your postings by adding four tildes (<nowiki>~~~~</nowiki>) to the end of your contribution.  This will automatically add your username and the date/time of your post, like so: [[User:Andy|Andy]] 15:12, 7 November 2013 (EST)</div>
 Hey all, I'm screening the NYT at work this week and came across two articles that I thought would be relevant to share here:

Beccalew: /* Class Discussion */

2015-04-21T16:05:22Z

Class Discussion

← Older revision		Revision as of 16:05, 21 April 2015
Line 81:		Line 81:
	[[User:Gary Brown\|Gary Brown]] ([[User talk:Gary Brown\|talk]]) 20:14, 20 April 2015 (EDT)		[[User:Gary Brown\|Gary Brown]] ([[User talk:Gary Brown\|talk]]) 20:14, 20 April 2015 (EDT)
	----		----

			While reading Eric Von Hippel’s Democratizing Innovation, particularly the passage about windsurfing, I was reminded of the first in-depth article I read about Twitter. I started my own account in January of 2009, but I rarely used it until that summer when I read an in-depth article about it in Time magazine. The article described how Twitter users – not the software team – developed the concept of the hashtag, as well as trending topics. Since that time, these innovations have more or less come to define Twitter as we know it. I specifically remember a quote likening Twitter’s use innovation to a group of people buying a toaster and transforming it into a microwave. This article was directly responsible for my increased usage of Twitter. At a time when Facebook was making sweeping changes to its platform, often to the dismay of its users, the idea of Twitter’s user-based innovation felt refreshing, democratic, and empowering.

			What I was feeling is similar to what Yochai Benkler described about Wikipedia: that it has given us "a way of looking at the world around us and seeing the possibility of effective human cooperation, on really complex, large projects, without relying on either market or government processes” (of course, Twitter itself relies on the market, but its users do not necessarily). I was also struck by James Surowiecki’s arguments for the wisdom of crowds. I often fall into a trap of thinking that large groups succumb to the lowest common denominator or develop a mob mentality. However, the way Twitter users make use of hashtags should constantly be reminding me of the opposite. Consistently over the past several years, users have redefined media narratives that have traditionally excluded certain voices. For example, the #yesallwomen and #blacklivesmatter hashtags have given voices to women and African Americans and have launched conversations around gender and race in society in productive ways. It seems like I constantly hear about how the Internet makes us secluded, narcissistic, and vapid, so it was encouraging to read about the ways large numbers of users contribute to the public good through peer production.

			[[User:Beccalew\|Beccalew]] ([[User talk:Beccalew\|talk]]) 12:05, 21 April 2015 (EDT)