Wikipedia and the Promise of Web 2.0: Collaboration Over Control - WANG YIKE--3.1

In the early days of the internet, the web was a mostly static space—pages were created by a few and read by many. But the rise of Web 2.0 changed everything. In the first part of the video “Wikis and Internet 2.0”, we see how platforms like blogs, forums, and especially wikis shifted the web from being a broadcasting tool to a participatory space. Users weren’t just consuming information—they were creating it. Wikipedia is the clearest and most successful example of this transformation.

At the core of this shift is the idea of collaborative production, and that’s exactly what Joseph Reagle explores in Chapter 2 of Good Faith Collaboration. Titled “The Puzzle of Openness”, this chapter asks a central question: how can a platform that allows anyone to edit remain functional, accurate, and civil?

The answer lies in Wikipedia’s carefully balanced openness. As Reagle explains, Wikipedia is open in a technical sense (anyone can edit), a cultural sense (there’s an ethic of transparency and egalitarianism), and an institutional sense (its rules and norms are visible and created by the community). However, this openness is not total chaos—it’s structured openness. Policies like the neutral point of view (NPOV), verifiability, and civility act as boundaries that guide freedom without suppressing it.

What’s particularly fascinating is Reagle’s emphasis on the paradoxes of openness. For instance, too little control, and the site becomes vulnerable to vandalism; too much, and it loses the democratic spirit that defines it. Wikipedia’s genius is in constantly negotiating this tension, using social norms and peer regulation rather than top-down enforcement.

The video reinforces this by showing how wikis in general, and Wikipedia in particular, invite users to trust the process. The platform’s history tab, edit summaries, and talk pages create transparency. Mistakes happen—but the system is designed for self-correction, not perfection.