Crowd-Science

[Enki]

http://www.bostonglobe.com/ideas/2011/1 ... g-science/

My primary interest is in how this can be applied to public policy.

I also see it as an assault on the commodified model of science. How do we maintain reasonable wages for trained scientists when we crowd-source more and more of the research? Is the academy as we know it going to survive?

Jaron Lanier suggests micro-payments solve the problem of payment. I tend to agree. But I think that this sort of free work is ultimately going to undercut the very basis of payment.

[Typhoon]

Does one need to use crowd-sourcing for fix a misdirected link?

[Simple Minded]

Did not crowd sourcing cause the AGW problem?

Stands to reason that only crowd sourcing can fix it.... or eventually ignore it.....

Will be interesting to see how many opt for crowd sourcing where real expertise is needed, like surgery...

[Enki]

Did not crowd sourcing cause the AGW problem?

Stands to reason that only crowd sourcing can fix it.... or eventually ignore it.....

Will be interesting to see how many opt for crowd sourcing where real expertise is needed, like surgery...

[Enki]

http://www.bostonglobe.com/ideas/2011/1 ... story.html

[Simple Minded]

Did not crowd sourcing cause the AGW problem?

Stands to reason that only crowd sourcing can fix it.... or eventually ignore it.....

Will be interesting to see how many opt for crowd sourcing where real expertise is needed, like surgery...

You don't think crowd sourcing can solve the AGW problem?

That is just depressing.

[Enki]

I don't think that idea is even wrong.

[Simple Minded]

I don't think that idea is even wrong.

You're not even trying...... Apathy never solves anything......

think about the children......

How many people does it take to make a crowd anyway? I've always heard three...

[anderson]

http://www.bostonglobe.com/ideas/2011/1 ... g-science/

My primary interest is in how this can be applied to public policy.

I also see it as an assault on the commodified model of science. How do we maintain reasonable wages for trained scientists when we crowd-source more and more of the research? Is the academy as we know it going to survive?

Jaron Lanier suggests micro-payments solve the problem of payment. I tend to agree. But I think that this sort of free work is ultimately going to undercut the very basis of payment.

That's a pretty neat article.
The role of the professional scientist stays in the initial recognition of the important questions to ask, applying for funding, designing the studies, recognizing that a study will produce mounds of data that would benefit from crowdsourcing, overseeing design of the technical infrstructure for the crowdsourcing solution, and collecting and analyzing the stats of the overall higher level patterns of the collected results and helping to communicate this through research literature.
Grunt processing work is and has always been to some extent delegated - usually to low paid grad students or enthusiastic and over achieving undergrads willing to work for recommendations. This is a further extension of the concept to areas where the job is too big for the researchers' grad students to handle.

[Enki]

We were crowd-sourcing a political campaign. It is a workable model, but only if the core campaign staff recognize that all of the things that need to be done require actual management. That bit of things was hard to get across.