The Shirky Principle declares that complex solutions, like a company, or an industry, can become so dedicated to the problem they are the solution to, that often they inadvertently perpetuate the problem.
Collaboration is not an absolute good.
Society is not just the product of its individual members; it is also the product of its constituent groups.
It used to be expensive to make things public and cheap to make them private. Now it’s expensive to make things private and cheap to make them public.
We have lived in this world where little things are done for love and big things for money. Now we have Wikipedia. Suddenly big things can be done for love.
Curation comes up when people realize that it isn’t just about information seeking, it’s also about synchronizing a community.
Behavior is motivation filtered through opportunity.
How we put our collective talents to work is a social issue, not solely a personal one.
The real gap is between doing nothing and doing something.
Publishing isn’t a job anymore. It’s a button.
One of the best ways to know you’re completely wrong, is to behave as if you’re complete right.
Civic participants don’t aim to make life better merely for members of the group. They want to improve even the lives of people who never participate...
There are three things you need to be a good writer: you need to read a lot, you need to write a lot, and you need a lot of feedback.
Amateur production, the result of all this new capability, means that the category of ‘consumer’ is now a temporary behavior rather than a permanent identity.
The great tension in media has always been that freedom and quality are conflicting goals.
If it’s a revolution it can’t be predictable. And if it’s predictable it can’t be a revolution.
Even with the sacred printing press, we got erotic novels 150 years before we got scientific journals.
Personal value is the kind of value we receive from being active instead of passive, creative instead of consumptive.
How we treat one another matters, and not just in a “it’s nice to be nice” kind of way: our behavior contributes to an environment that encourages some opportunities and hinders others.
Public and civic value require commitment and hard work among the core group of participants. It also requires that these groups be self-governing and submit to constraints that help them ignore distracting and entertaining material and stay focused instead of some sophisticated task.
The Only Group That Can Categorize Everything Is Everybody.