Why Digg Isn't "The Wisdom of Crowds"
Originally published on: 9/24/2006 7:57:32 PM
The problem is that Digg doesn't implement the wisdom of crowds. And, it seems, most of the participants in the discussion don't know the difference.
The criteria for when the effect that the book talks about kicks in are fairly simple. They require that every member of a wise crowd is acting without knowing anyone else's actions before they choose. That means that, if Digg were actually based on the WOC principle, you'd never see how many people had dugg an article before you choose to digg it yourself. Additionally, you'd only ever vote on a random selection of articles.
Basically, if you're voting on a list of already popular articles, you're seeing the aggregated existing inputs to the system. And, by seeing numbers, you're seeing even more. Any system that shows those bits before you choose to give an article the thumbs up or thumbs down is both easier to game and not based on the WOC principle.
To truly invoke the wisdom of crowds in a cream-of-the-crop link aggregator like Digg, all voting should be done seperate from displaying links. Links should be held back from display until voting thresholds are met on it. So, if you want to vote on articles, you hit a page that presents a random selection of articles for voting. You vote on articles. Once an article gets the right combination of votes, it leaves the queue and shows up on the front page.
Unfortunately, that's not as neat and fun as what Digg does, meaning it's not likely to get implemented anywhere soon. However, these systems shouldn't be mistaken for being the wisdom of crowds and their failure surely shouldn't be pinned on the wisdom of crowds idea.
Comments
commented on 9/25/2006 You're not wrong. Digg and other systems involving public participation (e.g. Wikipedia) are not based on WOC, at least not as defined by Gustave Le Bon and covered by Surowiecki. Digg or Wikipedia are organizations, where people subordonate their actions to what they understand other people are doing - in other words, it's no different from deliberation, where all kinds of phenomena exist, such as bandwagoning (adopting what you think is the most popular opinion) or underdogging (supporting weaker or marginal opinions).
That does not mean, however, that Digg is not a form of collective intelligence. WOC is not the only way of having a large group of people do things wisely. Public debate, even mediated by a series of numbers representing the aggregate choice of fellow "diggers", may have its flaws, but it's still the closest we've got to what we call "democracy".
commented on 9/25/2006 "That does not mean, however, that Digg is not a form of collective intelligence."
Absolutely correct. I think that Digg, reddit, etc. are all perfectly valid tools/communities. It just bothered me to hear it repeatedly mislabeled as WOC and then WOC blamed for the gaming of the system that goes on.
commented on 9/26/2006 "Unfortunately, that’s not as neat and fun as what Digg does, meaning it’s not likely to get implemented anywhere soon."
In fact, it was implemented before digg and even before WOC book was written (check 3form.com). I think it is no less fun, and may be more useful. It also stimulated research in human-based evolutionary computation. Unfortunately, this website hadn't yet been discovered by many people.