A wonderful article was posted today in the ReadWriteWeb concerning ‘Questions to consider in the coming privacy wars‘.

Although the entry reaches perfection, I would like to express my opinion about some points.

How do we balance the benefits of data openness with the need for privacy?

Now this is a tricky question. I’m afraid we (the ones participating to the online community) have gone beyond a threshold, where privacy is a very thin layer. Facebook gives us the option to find long gone relatives, acquaintances, love affairs; and be found. With twitter we allow everybody to follow our every move. And anyone can keep a database of these entries.

Our need for privacy (if there is one) is in great danger, if not lost, when we decided to actively enter so many online social communities.

Welcome to the global village.

Are users savvy or motivated enough to control our own data?

If we weren’t capable of controlling our own data, we would be (at least indirectly) allowing the centralization of data in a single vendor (Point No. 6). Either way if we are dealing with private data, then each user alone is responsible for his/her information. I find decentralization a better way to protect information, than leaving it in the hands of a central power.

The result

Our private data are not being threatened from one day to the next. It is a situation, which slowly evolved, elevated; and therefore it is a situation, that is hard to recognize. We don’t realize to what extent our privacy is actually at stake, because we embraced each step of this development. We gladly participate in all these communities, without really considering the side-effects, because we are taking our privacy (each one has a different conception of privacy) for granted. But examples have come forward, proving that these communities can evolve differently. I don’t know if you have heard about the StudiVZ (facebook service in Germany) and how it evolved (see also Karsten Wenzlaff’s post on the subject. this one too). Even facebook phishing scams have been developed, to get a hold of people’s data.

Last thoughts

Under that perspective, maybe a central authority protecting us is needed. But who can guarantee, that this central control will not take advantage of its knowledge?

The subject Marshall is discussing goes beyond the web. With the shadow of national security, individual privacy is constantly at stake. But I wonder if the public has actually a say in the whole process?

The blogosphere has constructed an interesting paradox.

• On the one side readers/viewers/subscribers are mostly interested in quality content. There are numerous blogs and little time; we want to spend our online time – and consequently attention – on blogs that provide quality information. At least that’s what several blog posts are argumenting (How to boost your blog traffic).

• On the other side though, writing a perfect post seems like a trap. When the entry has said it all, then there isn’t much more to say. The blogosphere is mostly an interactive medium (if it can be called a medium) and perfect posts just don’t encourage this interaction (why you shouldn’t be a perfectionist).

Imperfection; the web paradigm
The World Wide Web is human. It is made by humans, for humans and shares a universally human characteristic: imperfection. It consists of millions connections created by people who are willing to communicate.
These connections, as a human construct, are very often broken. It occurs quite often while ’surfing’ to reach a dead-end link, a link that does not exist anymore, is deleted or replaced with completely different material as expected. But no one is annoyed, simply because that is how the web is built; imperfect.
Users happily sacrifice the perfection of a centralized system for an imperfect decentralized network. It is this decentralized structure of the web that makes it so interesting, so democratic and so polyphonic. There is no single power, which chooses who posts what, where and when. Anyone can be part of the web. This fact makes us see perfection under a new lens.

The blogosphere; being informal
In the web, we are facing an ambiguous attitude towards perfection. On the one hand people want to express themselves informally - a sign of interaction between individuals, between human beings. Communicating according to specific rules and suggestions homogenizes the public, a feature highly avoided in the social web.
Everyone wants to have its own, personal voice. This multitude of expressions and voices gives the social web its power; sometimes it is not only intriguing to see what one says, but also how it says it. But being informal also comes along with mistakes.
This does not mean that the users will not get interested to an imperfect post. On the contrary, they will comment on it and propose improvements. The web fascinates users, because it provides direct, informal interaction not because it provides perfect content.

Imperfection as a means of communication
It is true that knowledge is highly praised (offline and online), but this does not mean that it will draw the attention of the crowd.

Material provided by an expert, is usually accompanied with a sense of authority, meaning that it is not open for discussions; it is supposed to be perfect. Users have nothing to add to it, so they just passively read it. But this is not the purpose of the social web. People want to interact, to discuss and argue about subjects – they want to be productive. Perfect content refrains from such a discourse. Occasionally, professionalism stands as an obstacle to development.

The collective intelligence
Of course the presence of experts is needed in the social web to encourage knowledge and provide solutions. But when we are dealing with a collective intelligence, communication and participation can, at times, have much better results. In a group, the individual knowledge loses its importance and the collective wisdom becomes the center of focus. Sometimes when our imperfect judgments are aggregated in the right way, our collective intelligence is often excellent.

The problem

I still don’t get it though. Do readers prefer authoritative posts (so that they don’t look around for other sources), or they like an imperfect post, which encourages a discussion?

True communication had always language as a barrier. Any discourse above the fundamental, pantomimic level requires a common language. Although the worldwide web has brought us all much closer tearing down any sense of space, this basic obstacle in the exchange of information still remains.

Sure there is a multitude of ‘bots’, which can translate any web content, but lets face it: “Automated computer translation is decades away from producing acceptable content for most forms of communication.”

In the steps of Wikipedia, the Worldwide Lexicon calls on the collective knowledge to bring online communication in new realms. The translation of web content is in the hands of the users.

Now the project brings a new plugin, which makes translation much easier. It justs adds a small pencil in the page and by clicking on it you can start translating the site’s content.

Wisdom of crowds

The potential of abuse is quite obvious. By installing this plugin (either in your site or blog), you give everyone the opportunity to translate your content in any way he/she wishes. Still, the worldwidelexicon relies on the wisdom of crowds to aggregate information correctly. Anyone comfortable with two or more languages can choose any web page and translate its content. Meanwhile other users are also free to rate your translation and even redo it or edit it. An emergent microbehavior where many agents work to develop a macrobehavior develops.

Conclusion

Trusting the collective intelligence is, in a sense, an objective issue. It depends on the personal experiences, views and morals of each one of use. Some believe in collaborative projects like wikipedia, where no central control guides the development process. Others are looking forward to projects like the Google Knol, where they see a trustworthy source, capable of collecting high-quality data. But I’m asking you: do you believe in the wisdom of crowds?

Additional resources on worldwide lexicon;

VentureBeat

O’ReillyNet

The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York has started a project called Steve Tagger. According to the museum:

“Steve” is a collaborative research project exploring the potential for user-generated descriptions of the subjects of works of art to improve access to museum collections and encourage engagement with cultural content. We are a group of volunteers, primarily from art museums, who share a common interest in improving access to our collections. We are concerned about barriers to public access to online museum information. Participation in steve is open to anyone with a contribution to make to developing our collective knowledge, whether they formally represent a museum or not.

Anyone can register for free and start tagging the museum’s collection (at least the works of art displayed online)

Judy Breck has also posted an article on the smart Mobs blog about ‘smart mobby activity at the Met Museum tagging site‘

While I’m wondering if we are facing a wise crowd, initiatives like the one of the Met Museum and the davos question show that some people have complete trust in the collective intelligence.

While thinking about the widely discussed ‘Davos Question‘, I asked myself if we are really a wise crowd. What makes a crowd (which under different circumstances behaves completely irrationally) make the right decisions? I leave aside for a moment my posts on aggregating information. Instead i want to point to some other interesting posts on collective intelligence and the wisdom of crowds:

• US Consumers: a wise crowd . An interesting example.
• If there’s wisdom in crowds - why don’t we let the masses rule? Learning from nature; with an insightful link
• Wisdom of the crowd and the bullwhip effect
• Mining the wisdom of crowds . An explanation of a powerful strategy

And the other side of the story:

• Maybe the crowd is not wise
• When crowds aren’t wise; the low fat diet cascade. When informational cascades go wrong.

The question still remains? Are we a wise crowd? And if so, will our views be heard?

Google’s blog posted an article on the ‘Davos question’, which is: “What one thing do you think that countries, companies or individuals must do to make the world a better place in 2008?”

Every year, many of the world’s top leaders from politics, business and the global community — including some of our own — attend the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, to discuss how to make the world a better place. This year, we wanted to give people around the world the chance to join them, and help them, by submitting their own answers to “the Davos Question” according to google’s post.

The principle is that everyone of us should post a short youtube clip to contribute in the improvement of the world (after we think about it during the christmas period). [see also the TechNewsSource post on the subject]
The wisdom of crowds

The Davos question is surely an initiative that shows its trust to the people. It takes advantage of the social web and gives the opportunity to everyone to contribute to the commons. It applies the concept of collective intelligence in its full extent, since it invites a group of diverse, independent individuals to collectively make a decision/suggestion. After all democracy and free markets are based on this ideal.

Some suggestions are already on the run:

• Scobleizer has a suggestion
• Compasion in politics has a post too.

Criticism

Although the Davos initiative honestly makes me very glad, I can’t stop being also a bit skeptical. The reasons are numerous:

• is there really one answer to such a question? Where should we begin? Environment, corruption, wealth, war. The questions sounds a little bit naive.
• will really world’s top leaders listen to the online community?
• My skeptical, conspiracy-prone alter ego, suggests that it is just a way to make the crowd feel like they actually contribute to this discourse.

I really don’t know what to expect. My optimistic side surely finds the Davos question on youtube really great. My pessimistic side is a bit more critical (a view also seen by a mashable post: Davos Question: PR move or security measure?). But anyway I will observe the development of the online (and offline) discussion - and also participate in it - and keep you posted.

But honestly now, how do you find this proposal of an open, online, Davos question?