Comments on: The missing chapter of The Wisdom of Crowds

By: mister zee

mister zee — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 06:55:54 +0000

Oxford undergrads here rarely write beyond about 1000 words, but they have to submit one every two weeks during term, each with a reading list that would have Australian undergrads making references to waterboarding. My partner (who has to mark such things) says it makes the good ones’ writing very sharp and precise, but the lesser students’ papers contain next to nothing.

By: Nicholas Gruen

Nicholas Gruen — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 13:07:21 +0000

Well as I understood it the ‘influential few’ earned their influence but effectively winning the votes. Certainly Linux isn’t ‘wise’ because everyone’s got an equal capacity to get code into the project. Rather it’s wise because everyone’s input is filtered up through a knowledgeable hierarchy whose members have earned their reputations. That’s what seemed to happen here.

By: Stephen Bounds

Stephen Bounds — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 12:27:24 +0000

Nicholas,

Not to disparage Michael’s work (it’s a great article), but ‘Kasparov against the World’ doesn’t meet the criteria for a Surowiecki “wise crowd”. It’s clear that the choice of move was heavily influenced by the commentary surrounding each move, and (in the end) disproportionately influenced by a few.

Now, if the crowd had been able to beat Kasparov by voting completely blind, then I would be impressed!

(This is, by the way, one of the problems with one of the other major “buzz outcomes” of Surowiecki’s book — futures markets — because people participating in a futures market generally operate within a constrained domain (e.g. a single company) and therefore do get influenced by each other.)

By: John Greenfield

John Greenfield — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 03:02:07 +0000

Fantastic rules. I wish I’d seen this when I first started my degree. I still haven’t mastered fitting essays into such tiny word limits. This is one area where Australian unis could copy the Americans; compulsory composition/writing courses. Pedro your concerns are valid, but I bet when a History lecturer has to mark one-hundred 3,000 word essays, a little bit of excitement would be much appreciated!

By: pedro

pedro — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 01:32:02 +0000

I hope it doesn’t sound like I was bagging Nielsen. His first 3 rules are positive. The next 2 are like Orwell’s 2, 3 and 4. I do worry a bit about Nielsen’s 1 and 2 because over-excited writing can be tiresome.

I suspect that the chess article could be improved by shortening some sentences and some paragraphs should be combined. But I’m only being picky. The man is clearly no Dan Brown.

By: Nicholas Gruen

Nicholas Gruen — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 01:02:58 +0000

Anyway, MN’s rules are for rewriting.

By: Nicholas Gruen

Nicholas Gruen — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 00:37:33 +0000

Orwell’s is fantastic. His rules are pretty good. But they’re negative. Orwell is against a particular style of writing (for which I salute him).

MN’s rules are positive – are about what one should strive for.

By: pedro

pedro — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 00:03:53 +0000

Orwell’s rules are better:

“One can often be in doubt about the effect of a word or a phrase, and one needs rules that one can rely on when instinct fails. I think the following rules will cover most cases:

Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
Never use a long word where a short one will do.
If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
Never use the passive where you can use the active.
Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.”
* From Orwell’s essayPolitics and the English Language