The Wikipedia model - one of open collaboration by the entire world - has been under fire since it was recently revealed that the site would be adding a new layer of editorial oversight for articles about living individuals. Some even questioned the future of the collaboration model that Wikipedia pioneered. We were curious as well.

We've just heard from someone who was able to address those concerns: Jimmy Wales, the co-founder of Wikipedia. He took the stage today at the Social Ad Summit in New York City to discuss the Wikipedia model and the rules of building community. Here are some of the highlights of his talk:

Wikipedia is NOT about crowdsourcing: Jimmy compared crowdsouring to tricking people into free labor. Instead, he compared Wikipedia to bowling. Yes, bowling. "It's about providing a nice bowling alley for people," he stated as he explained that when people enjoy contributing rather than being tricked in free labor, it's not crowdsouring. The world is information dense: Culture has become smarter. He compared the plots and jokes of I Love Lucy to Seinfeld and just how much more complicated storylines have become. TV has become a more engaging experience because there are so many more characters and storylines. He then pointed out Lostpedia, a wiki for the TV show Lost which has over 5,700 articles. Yes, that's how complex TV shows have become. Openness is not the enemy of quality: He directly addressed the issue of having editors check on edits of articles on living people, saying it is still very much an open system while striving for even greater quality. He defended Wikipedia's content, though he admitted that Wikipedia hasn't reached the same quality level of the standard encyclopedia (though Wikipedia kicks their butts in breadth of topics covered). The future of the world is in the non-English world: Wikipedia is in 175 languages (with over 1000 articles) and can support up to 200 languages currently.

Image courtesy of Wikipedia