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Why Selfish Activiy Matters
The discussion over at Wikipedia continues over whether or not to allow my page to stay up. I am fine with whatever decision they come to. I understand that Wikipedia has rules and I didn't play by them. But I also firmly believe that they ought to let the page stay up. We'll see what happens.
Anyway, this whole episode, plus extensive readings of Jaron Lanier's Digital Maoism essay and many of the replies (some of which are on this delicious tag of mine) have got me thinking about selfish activity and why it matters.
Clearly there are people who do amazing work for reasons that aren't entirely clear. Jason Calacanis turned me on to this book about Dr. W.C. Minor who provided literally thousands of entries to the editors of the Oxford English Dictionary. But Minor, an American expatriate in England and a Civil War veteran, was actually a certified lunatic who turned in his dictionary entries from the Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum.
I am not saying that Wikipedians are madmen. Nothing could be further from the truth and that assertion would clearly end all chance of getting my Wikipedia page approved. But I am pointing out that people do amazing things for many different reasons that often have nothing to do with money.
But many more do things because they are selfish and vain. That is an important part of the blogging phenomenon and increasingly an important part of the Wikipedia phenomenon. And it should not be condoned, it should simply be understood and managed.
Selfish activity taken too far is spam. But selfish activity within reason is very healthy. If my Wikipedia page stays up, I will check it regularly to make sure it is accurate. Because I care about the accuracy of a page about me. I don't intend to control it but I do intend to monitor its accuracy.
Search engine optimiziation is healthy to a degree. The machines at Google and Yahoo! may not have initially made Coca-Cola's home page the number one result when someone typed in "coke". But it is now. Coke's marketers made sure of that. And that is good.
Search engine marketing/paid results are good. There are certainly plenty of searches where the paid results are better than the organic ones. That was Bill Gross' initial insight that led to the creation of a business model for the search business, the best business model invented so far for the Internet.
Self tagging is good to a degree. Publishers and bloggers who provide a bunch of descriptive tags on their content to delicious, technorati, and others are doing all of us a service. It makes it easier to find what we are looking for. But those who take it too far are tag spammers.
So I think selfish activity should be celebrated not condoned as long as its within reason. Of course, a soft term like "within reason" is a problem for people who write algorithms. But most people can determine "within reason" fairly easily. Maybe that's a really good job for the hive mind.
Comments (11) | Posted June 13, 2006 in Venture Capital and Technology
Comments
The thing I find troubling about your wikipedia debate is that it puts motivations for creation ahead of the actual creation itself.
For me it's a simple test...
Is Wikipedia a better product with the Fred Wison Entry or without the Fred Wilson entry?
If the product is better with the entry, they WHY the entry was made is really a moot issue.
Posted by: Erik Schwartz | Jun 13, 2006 7:51:20 AM
Considering that Fred is a "public figure" I think that it is silly that hey are saying it doesnt have a place on Wikipedia. Considering the number of places Fred Wilson comes up on the Internet and in magazines I'd argue that you are a public figure and worthy of including.
Posted by: Ben Rodda | Jun 13, 2006 8:40:03 AM
I will not launch myself in a "bazaar psycho analysis" but what you describe at least on an individual point of view is what i call in french an "Ego-trip".
And Ego-trip is @ the center of Web 2.0.
Ego-trip is a good expression because it's braoder than selfish ... and describe why anyone want to "put another brick on the wall".
Hope you enjoy the concept. If it's not clear I will be glad to exchange with you to clarify it.... it's my ego trip to find a concept you will like ! A trade-off bor the freemium concept you offered me for an evangelism ego-trip reason.
Posted by: leafar | Jun 13, 2006 8:45:27 AM
PS: wikipedia has some issue with money and corporate.
Maybe you should try to put a poll on the wikipage. Democraty should rule also on wiki.
Posted by: leafar | Jun 13, 2006 8:48:12 AM
Fred, are you aware that, on the topic of Fred Wilson, you are quite certainly biased? Do you think you are the best person to ensure accuracy of your article? Would you trust, say, your random politician or media personality to write an accurate article about themselves? Don't you think that frowning upon self-authored bio articles is a reasonable policy on Wikipedia's part?
Posted by: Richard Cyganiak | Jun 13, 2006 9:35:49 AM
Selfishness is the backbone of capitalism and is therefore the highest moral good. No need to go into any futher discussion about it.
Be selfish and create wealth.
That's the only moral way.
Posted by: Dave | Jun 13, 2006 9:42:16 AM
richard,
i realize that i am biased which i why i said i wouldn't want to control my wikipedia page
but i would want to monitor it
if someone wrote "fred is a well known filmmaker" as they did about Jaron inaccurately, i'd certainly suggest changing that in the talk page
fred
Posted by: fred | Jun 13, 2006 9:45:37 AM
> Don't you think that frowning upon
> self-authored bio articles is a reasonable
> policy on Wikipedia's part
They should be aware of them and cautious about them, but it's silly to ban them. After all, Ben Franklin's autobiography is a great book.
Posted by: Derek Scruggs | Jun 13, 2006 11:46:09 AM
I am *not* vain!
-- sincerely,
Everyone on MySpace.com
p.s. Heat pull off a miracle. What's next? George Bush pulls out of Iraq and decides to let Iraqis have what's under their soil?
Posted by: Peter | Jun 14, 2006 12:17:36 AM
If you want to keep your page up, do something really selfish...create some more accounts on Wikipedia using alias's. Then edit your page and ad information or conversely, ask people who know you (or blog readers) to post to it.
Posted by: Luke Archer | Jun 14, 2006 11:53:32 AM
I think your original post about Dr. W.C. Minor is quite fascinating, and reminiscent of the Open Source community.
Selfish *and* selfless activities are what blurs the lines between "market" and "community." I would argue that both are required today --but like our founding fathers asserted about self-interest, there must also be an uncorrupted system of checks and balances. Which is why I think the wikipedia debate is thriving, and a healthy exercise for all to engage in.
It is easy to see how selfess activities (mentoring, tech support on forums, product reviews) make for a happier community, and how selfish activities make for better business...but in emerging online arenas --like social networking-- the motivation behind one person's actions is less of a concern than the end result for the participants in the service. If you didn't see some selfish potential benefit in it, would you ever take the time to respond to a LinkedIn request, or post your own profile page? Selfishness goes hand in hand with the building of a social network: it's the gas in the tank that drives its growth. As long as there is a respect for the community and the policies, selfishness of community participants is healthy. That's why they're growing so quickly, and so powerful.
Posted by: Megan Cunningham | Jun 14, 2006 12:31:54 PM
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