"The Wisdom of the Chaperones"

talking about wikipedia and the percentages of users got me thinking about this slate article from a while about a year ago:

The Wisdom of the Chaperones

the idea that 1 percent of the wikipedia users are responsible for almost half of the overall content is somewhat distressing. as the article points out, the trend continues when expanded out to include other so-called democratizing web 2.0 technologies such as digg.

"Despite the fairy tales about the participatory culture of Web 2.0, direct democracy isn't feasible at the scale on which these sites operate."

"Digg and Wikipedia would do well to stop pretending they're operated by the many and start thinking of ways to rein in the power of the few."