Clay Shirky: Wikipedia and Seeds for Transforming Capitalism?

I just finished reading three chapters of Clay Shirky's book Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations. I think Shirky just might gives us a possible site to think about how capitalism can be altered through the Wikipedia model of doing good — just for the sake of it. No monetary remuneration. He makes a compelling argument for exactly why Wikipedia is revolutionary and human beings have the power to be the same. He goes on to explain that we are living through the most "human expressive period in history." The potential to alter life as we know it through collective action, participation and organization that in turn gathers knowledge, distribution and speed to make change. Group action.

Shirky explains that wikis are only worth their salt if people care about them, and that "a wiki is a hybrid of tool and community."Experts, professionals and amateurs alike make additions and corrections to Wikipedia out of the pure love, enjoyment and for betterment of everyone who uses it around the world. I repeat. They don't get paid to do it. Isn't that the old adage we've all heard— to do great work you have to do what you love? Somewhere in Shirky's book is a balance between working collectively, making change, doing it in a nearly effortless manner and loving it.

Protest Culture -- Ad Hoc vs Institutional, and What it Means (Event Video/Audio) Clay Shirky joined an intimate group at the Berkman Center for a deep dive discussion on one chapter of his book, Here Comes Everybody, which deals with protest culture -- ad hoc vs institutional, and what it means.

TO WIKIPEDIA OR NOT TO WIKIPEDIA?

I have to confess, I like Wikipedia. I think everyone probably knows what Wikipedia is— but just in case—Wikipedia is an online encylopedia that anyone can enter facts and figures or create an article. Or as their tagline succinctly states, " the free enclopedia that anyone can edit." Many articles are written by several people. Once I went to Wikipedia to look up some really silly subject that I can't even recall now, but what astonished me was that it was incorrect. Perhaps what bothered me even more was my naivete, it wasn't apparent to me at the time that anyone could add any type of information. And I thought I was savvy! If anyone can edit it, there's bound to be errors and incorrect information. But the cool thing is anyone can dispute the information and correct it. I still go to Wikipedia, but now I double check my facts elsewhere—always a good idea. An interesting article was just published in the Chronicle of Higher Education entitled Can Wikipedia Ever Make the Grade? Turns out some high profile studies show that the site does a pretty decent job at getting the facts straight. Especially when the subject is science. Last year the journal Nature found in a study of factual accuracy that Britannica averaged three errors and Wikipedia averaged four on the same subject. Britannica rebutted the study stating that it was loaded with errors. "Well isn't that special!" Healthy competition for encyclopedias is a good thing. They can only get better from here. Here's one example of why Wikipedia is good source, compare Britannica's description of podcasting and Wikipedia's description of podcasting. Which is more useful?