The idea of Panopticon, a “perfect prison”, as conceived by English utilitarian Jeremy Bentham in 1785, uses ideas similar to those that make Wikis work.
Similarities
- Transparency makes it easy to monitor and detect any problems early.
- Maintaining the whole thing considerably cheaper because of that.
- You never know who and when is watching, so you can’t behave differently depending on the audience.
- “Control station”, a central point from where you can monitor activities of everyone involved, called RecentChanges page on the Wiki.
- A simple idea that is (supposed to be) revolutionary.
“Morals reformed — health preserved — industry invigorated — instruction diffused — public burthens lightened — Economy seated, as it were, upon a rock — the gordian knot of the poor-law not cut, but untied — all by a simple idea in Architecture!” – Jeremy Bentham, Panopticon, In Miran Bozovic (ed.), The Panopticon Writings, London: Verso, 1995, 29-95.
- The participants are supposed to perform useful work.
- The founder often doesn’t receive benefits other than just satisfaction for his hard work:
“I will be the gaoler. You will see […] that the gaoler will have no salary — will cost nothing to the nation.” – Jeremy Bentham
Differences
- On the wiki you have RightToLeave, so we can assume that people who participate do it out of their own will and can stop whenever they like.
- In the wiki, prisoners are the guards, everyone can monitor activities of everyone else, making it even cheaper.
- On the wiki there is no law, external policy, dictating what the participants should do, what is allowed and what is not, etc., except for the “bylaws” that the participants make up for themselves (and of course the laws of countries in which the participants live).
- Wiki infrastructure is cheap to build and maintain, it’s extremely easy to start a new one – the space is infinite. Panopticon was never built because Jeremy Bentham could not get permissions, land, funds, etc. for it.
- On the wiki, work performed by the participants is voluntary and collaborative, improving the work of others. In Panopticon, prisoners were supposed to be used as menial labor walking on wheels to spin looms or run a water wheel.
- The wikis live in eternal WikiNow, so it’s not that important when anyone is watching.
- In Panopticon, access to the control station is limited to the correctional officers on duty, leaving everything to their judgment. In wikis, everyone has access to it and can perform PeerReview