I just shared a cab with James Bridle, a UK publisher and digital activist (my designation, not his) who is the brilliance behind the printing out of the changes to the Wikipedia article on the Iraq War. It turns out that those changes — just the changed portions — fill up twelve volumes.

What does the project show? “The argument,” James says. Of course it also shows the power of the cognitive surplus: we just casually created twelve volumes of changes in our spare time. If only all users of Wikipedia all understood how it’s put together! (Rather than banning students from using Wikipedia, it’d be far better if teachers required students to click on the “Discussion” tab.)

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