Talk:crowdsourcing

Another sense[edit]

This is the sense for the term on MacMillan Dictionary: "trying to find a way of completing a task, a solution to a problem, etc. by asking a wide range of people or organisations if they can help, typically by using the Internet." I think this sense has a lot in it that is not fully covered by the existing Wiktionary sense ("delegating a task to a large diffuse group, usually without substantial monetary compensation"). Moreover, by my reading of this term in recent years, I think the MacMillan definition is more representative as to how the word is normally used. What do others think? N2e 20:43, 21 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Currently, the only sense given in the entry is this: "delegating a task to a large diffuse group, usually without substantial monetary compensation". I think that gets at one sense of how the term is used, and is thus valid. In this case, some decision maker or one-to-whom-has-authority "delegates" out the task. Fine.

But what about the spontaneous order or emergent sense? One in which noone is in charge but the diffuse and amorphous crowd of "little people" each do their thing (write on a blog, share photographs or video, etc.) and, only after the fact, can an observer note that the outcome (say, coverage of a disaster or other news event) had been crowdsourced. In this case, the sense that says "delegating" cannot be correct, so we really do need a second sense. N2e 19:35, 4 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

RFV discussion[edit]

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Rfv-senses 2 to 5 - seem to be not much different from the first. Shouldn't the first definition just be expanded a little? SemperBlotto 09:55, 16 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'd happily delete 2 and 3, but 4 and 5 seem a bit different. They should be here at RFV (where I think they will fail). Any objections to straight deleting 2 and 3? Mglovesfun (talk) 10:00, 16 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It looks as if the contributor wants us to sort out the "definitions" offered by various sources. Sense 2 is from WP. Sense 1 includes all the others. Who performed a task previously is immaterial to the definition. For example, the task might be one never performed before, as a not-for-profit organization compiling a new set of linked online reference works. In principle, there could be pay for some or all of the crowd, as in crowdsourcing to one's employees. DCDuring TALK 11:18, 16 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, I'm the one who added those. The important difference between {1,4,5} on the one hand, and {2,3} on the other, is that 2 and 3 make no reference to the amount of compensation. This seems to me to be more like what you would expect the word to mean by analogy with the word "outsourcing"; that is, it means merely employing the crowd, with no implicit judgment about fairness. However, in some quarters the word "crowdsourcing" seems to have acquired the negative connotation of exploitation. For example,

"one name you may have heard is called crowdsourcing. crowdsourcing is a system where you get a lot of suckers and yahoos and rubes, and you get them to do a lot of work for you, and then you take all that work that they gave to you and you sell it back to them, and you make a lot of money and these guys all get screwed over, and it's really fantastic, and it's the best kind of business ever, and if you've read books like wikinomics, or other kinds of wiki economics books, this is the kind of model that they're trying to sell, that there's a sucker born every minute, and if you can get them to work on your site for free, ha ha ha. I think that's possibly the worst thing I've ever heard. I really think that's a terrible system, I hate the term crowdsourcing, it's one of the ugliest terms yet invented on the internet." -- 10:55 of Evan Prodromou's talk on Wiki Commercialization

So, {2,3} are the only definitions in the list which provide a sense of the word when it is not connoting exploitation, but merely employment of the crowd. It seems to me that there are at least two sense of the word, one exploitative and one not. Btw, {3,4,5} are from http://p2pfoundation.net/Crowdsourcing

I guess I'm supposed to find more uses of the non-exploitative/having-nothing-to-do-with-cheapness sense?

"First identified by journalist Jeff Howe in a June 2006 Wired article, “crowdsourcing” describes the process by which the power of the many can be leveraged to accomplish feats that were once the province of the specialized few." -- http://www.amazon.com/Crowdsourcing-Power-Driving-Future-Business/dp/0307396207

"...and the word they invented, crowdsourcing, was defined as the tapping of "the latent talent of the [online] crowd"" -- page 4 of http://www.amazon.com/reader/0132244799?_encoding=UTF8&ref_=sib_books_pg&qid=1276076938&query=crowdsourcing#reader_0132244799 We Are Smarter Than Me: How to Unleash the Power of Crowds in Your Business (Hardcover) by Barry Libert (Author), Jon Spector (Author), Don Tapscott (Foreword)

"Simply defined, crowdsourcing represents the act of a company or institution taking a function once performed by employees and outsourcing it to an undefined (and generally large) network of people in the form of an open call. This can take the form of peer-production (when the job is performed collaboratively), but is also often undertaken by sole individuals. The crucial prerequisite is the use of the open call format and the large network of potential laborers. (2006a: 5)" quote of Howe via Crowdsourcing as a Model for Problem Solving, DC Brabham, DOI: 10.1177/1354856507084420.

and, the source of sense 3 isn't "durable" media, but it is a direct quote from the blog of the person who coined the term, which should count for something.. "I like to use two definitions for crowdsourcing:

The White Paper Version: Crowdsourcing is the act of taking a job traditionally performed by a designated agent (usually an employee) and outsourcing it to an undefined, generally large group of people in the form of an open call.

The Soundbyte Version: The application of Open Source principles to fields outside of software." -- http://crowdsourcing.typepad.com/

Bayle Shanks 09:34, 9 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

RFV failed, senses removed. —Ruakh_TALK 17:45, 7 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]