Tag Archives: Reddit


When crowdsourcing goes wrong: Lessons in crowd control

Posted on August 29, 2012 by Ville Miettinen

… As discussed in a recent Crowdsourcing.org post, the process was hijacked by pranksters from Reddit and 4chan, leaving the online leader-board filled with suggestions like “Gushing Granny” and “Fapple.” This is not an isolated incident. As General Motors once painfully found out, sometimes the crowd acts unpredictably.

The thing is, it’s not hard to see why Villa Fresh turned to crowdsourcing in this instance. Crowdsourcing efforts in very similar scenarios have brought …

Tags: crowdsourcing Diabetes mellitus Discovery Channel Facebook General Motors microtask microwork Mountain Dew Pepsi Reddit

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Cracking the code: The crowd vs the virus

Posted on April 25, 2012 by Ville Miettinen

… code. Within hours a crowd was born, colonizing the comment thread and establishing a presence on Reddit.

The man with the golden crowd

Soumenkov’s crowd is a perfect example of the power of collective reasoning. Members quickly sifted through the code, picking out familiar features and eliminating possible answers. Some worked alone, some in groups. With their help, Soumenkov was able to close the case and identify the code. He concluded that Duqu appears to be the work of the same …

Tags: crowdsourcing Duqu Iran Israel Kaspersky Lab Mahmoud Ahmadinejad microtask microwork Reddit Soumenkov Stuxnet

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Welcome to the Open Ministry

Posted on May 2, 2012 by Jack Reynolds

After casually revolutionizing the worlds of design, data-processing and translation, the crowd is now getting to work on the business of government. Iceland is preparing to implement a crowdsourced constitution, and this March the Finnish Parliament passed the Citizens’ Initiative Act. The Act allows any citizen to present a law to Parliament, providing they can get the …

Tags: crowdsourcing Duqu Iran Israel Kaspersky Lab Mahmoud Ahmadinejad microtask microwork Reddit Soumenkov Stuxnet

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When stupid beats smart: the power of collective ignorance

Posted on March 21, 2012 by Ville Miettinen

The human brain is an amazing thing. A few pounds of gray matter has taken us from eating bananas in the trees to walking on the moon (it’s also brought us LOLcats, the Car Laptop Tray and Maailmanennätys muurahaispesässä, but still: the moon). With our heads filled with crackling synapses, it’s easy to feel smug about our computational prowess.

But if the history …

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