Communities as Our Instruments for Information

Participating in communities and measuring data in experiments share a common purpose.

In physics, experimental data is obtained by measurement.

There are two factors of measurement performance, accuracy and precision.

Accuracy means getting correct data, while precision means getting consistent data.

Both characteristics are important for measurement data to a certain extent.

When we are trying to obtain information socially, we are also doing measurement, with communities as the instruments.

The accuracy of communities describe whether we are obtaining useful information from the community.

The precision of communities describe whether we are obtaining irrelevant information from the community.

Both characteristics of communities affect the quality of information that we can obtain from them.

Now with the internet, communities can also be created online, which give opportunities for communities to improve in terms of accuracy and precision.

Online communities have the opportunity to encounter a great number of visitors, which is not possible for communities in real-life. If those external visitors find the community good for them, they may join the community to contribute quality information, which improves the accuracy of the community.

Since there are numerous visitors on the internet, it is possible for communities to be more specialized on topics, so that the information within the communities can be more consistent. That improves the precision of the community.

Thus, physicists use measurement to obtain experimental data, while we participate in communities to obtain information, sharing the common purpose.