Mahalo To Open the Flood Gates
May 22nd, 2008By: Sean Percival
Jason is down in Australia this week for CeBIT and just dropped an announcement about something we’ve been working on lately. Since I started at Mahalo I’ve typically recieved the same two questions over and over again:
- Is it really crazy to work for Jason?
and - How do you plan to scale?
Of course the first answer is yes, and the second a bit more complicated. One of the techniques is naturally going to be pulling resources from the public at large. Soon every guide note (the 200+ word write up on each page) will be editable to the public. This means users who are an authority on a subject (or just passionate about it) can add even more than just their favorite links.
Now we have to look at services like Wikipedia even closer to see how to manage something like this. Mostly to learn what not to do. I’ve always been a huge opponent of the “anonymous questionable librarian like army” that rules Wikipedia. To create quality content you need some type of editorial layer (if not multiple). So we have dedicated staff to oversee every edit that comes in to verify data when necessary. We need to constantly address the issue of bias content but avoid the lame edit wars. All while doing it as transparent and fair as human-poweredly possible.
What are your thoughts?
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May 22nd, 2008 at 6:47 am
This is great news. I hope that Mahalo will be open to all voices in society. Killers like myself are banned from Wikipedia.
May 22nd, 2008 at 6:52 am
Thank you Chola, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard of Wikipedia removing pages. I never really understood this, their justification for who is “notable” is rather unique. If the topic has a presence online we have no problem including it.
May 22nd, 2008 at 7:37 pm
This is very exciting news… I can’t wait to see what is next!! You guys keep stepping up your game. Shame I don’t live out in CA
I’d be banging on the door to let me in 
I know I can/could be a remote/regional guide… but I would love to be in the heart of it all 
June 1st, 2008 at 4:05 am
[...] I blogged a little about last week, Mahalo guide notes are now open for public editing. The guide notes are the small write ups for [...]