How I Live Better With One Weird Trick

https://pixabay.com/p-152572/?no_redirect

I don't always find myself in groups, but when I do, I prefer Primary groups. Primary groups are collections of two or more people, usually small and long-term focused, with members having more of an emotional bond with each other. This includes friends and family members. In my experience, hanging out with friends and family is essential to my well-being, especially when immersed in stressful environments like university or work. Whenever I'm feeling down or stressed out, I know I can always count on a friend or family member to stand me back up. On the flip side, I'm more likely to be found in my day to day life engaged with Secondary groups. These are groups that are larger, more goal-focused, and less intimate. Generally the students in my college classes would fit this type of group. Now I'm not saying that I don't enjoy socializing with others outside of my immediate friend group, those experiences are necessary, I just tend to find more fulfillment in Primary groups.

Wiki Collaborators HATE This:

By Randall Munroe (en:User:Xkcd) - http://xkcd.com/285/, CC BY 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2817512

Wikipedia is a fantastic collaboration tool for people to share and gain knowledge, most of the time. I say most of the time because wiki contributors can generally be placed into two groups: those who meaningfully add to the largest crowd-sourced database of human knowledge in existence, and those who just want to troll. Collaboration works when a group of people strive to complete a shared objective. However, it only takes a small number of people with malicious intent to muck things up. For example, the Wikipedia page on Hillary Clinton was locked after many different users attempted to vandalize the information on her page. The only people who can edit her page now are those with template change permissions, and those who actually work at Wikipedia. This brings up an interesting question, how much should companies who build collaborative tools like Wikipedia be allowed to restrict users' ability to change or provide information? If there is no oversight, I can only imagine something like Wikipedia turning into a pure anarchy. With total oversight, Wikipedia wouldn't be much of a "Wiki" anymore. It's obvious there needs to be some kind of balance, and as long as there exists a large number of users with access to the same resource, there's gonna be politics involved. The point is collaboration can be a good way to get lots of content online fast, but with great power comes a great need for maturity.