Brun's Plump Sets of Human Knowledge

If Bolter gives us the historical perspective of organizing knowledge in traditional forms of production such as the library and encyclopedias, then Axel Brun in chapter 6 “The Palimpsest of Human Knowledge: Wikipedia and Beyond” evaluates the online forms of knowledge that account for the community aspect of creating and maintaining knowledge.

Brun gives a thorough discussion of the changing approaches to content that result from “produsage” communities such as Wikipedia that create and participate in content as well as police or maintain it.  He argues that fixing content into a stable form that is typical of traditional production models undermines the community presence and dynamism of Wikipedia.  The value of “produsage” communities comes from the process of discussion that includes the systematic rules and regulations as well as the community’s enactment and interpretation.

Brun argues that the process of re-mediating the content functions like a historical palimpsest of an overwritten document that carries traces of prior versions.  Yet this over-writing process also fundamentally changes the relationships between text creators and users.  The territory of knowledge is now fluid and changeable without fixed positions or canons of knowledge.

Governance

Brun then discusses the inherent problems that arise from these new knowledge territories.  The first is the question of administrative and community governance.  The shift from hierarchical administration to ad hoc forms of community governance is a product of keeping their structures openly accessible to maximize community participation.

Accreditation

The problem with maximizing community participation then becomes the problem of accrediting users and creators of content.  Brun argues that if Wikipedia and "produsage" forms do not want to appear as anarchic chaos then authors expertise or content evaluation forms may need to be included rather than relying on content source alone such as the way some foreign sites already incorporate into their structure.

Towards and Against Stability

The evaluation of content and contributors then begins to look more like stable forms of production.  Brun argues that stable release models of open source software design provide a working analogy to remediate instability.  However, as "produsage" acts like more stable production, then casual collapse can happen as corporate production takes over.

Finally Brun addresses other open forms of knowledge on the internet such as travel discussion, opinion content and the like.  He argues that the Web is the ultimate open participation network, and the smaller communities of Wikipedia or these other collaborative content forms alter the conception of knowledge to include the deliberative processes as well.