Andrew McAfee and Karim Lakhani created the first Harvard Business School case on Wikipedia which is available for free online and published under the GFDL. The case explains Wikipedia mechanics and the story of the Enterprise 2.0 article for deletion debate. I guess we now have peer reviewed evidence that not only does Enterprise 2.0 exist, but Wikipedia exists.
Andrew shares how he will discuss the case with his students:
- Why Nupedia (Wikipedia's more formal predecessor) failed to gather momentum, and why Wikipedia has gathered so much.
- Whether Wikipedia's highly egalitarian and freeform editing processes and policies yield good results and, if so, how this happens.
- How decision rights are allocated in Wikipedia.
- The merits of the Inclusionist and Deletionist perspectives.
- Whether Wikipedia really has become a "post-revolutionary Bolshevik Soviet, with an inscrutable central power structure wielding control over a legion of workers."
- Whether
the Wikipedia community practices the 'right' level of deference to the
opinions and judgments of subject matter 'experts.'
- If Wikipedia's policies are being correctly followed, what the fate of the "Enterprise 2.0" article should be.
