Eventualism has become an accepted norm in the community, because by default since the beginning of the project, starting from nothing, articles have overwhelmingly benefited from multiple eyeballs (and edits).

Being free has unexpected advantages. Wikipedia has evolves from being a no-cost alternative into being a superior resource in its own right. Over the years, it has become deeper, broader, and more up-to-date than its traditional rivals. Because of its mission to stay free, it encourages participation-volunteers choose to donate their time and... See more

Since the Web 2.0 era is about user-generated content, it can be a show to newcomers who are not used to the idea when they come to Wikipedia. The community practice of not waiting for a fancy solution and just getting your hands dirty has spawned a special mantra (or admonishment): SOFIXIT.

Unlike other encyclopedias throughout history, Wikipedia has no physical limit on how many pages it can contain.... also, in the age of Google search and hypertext, people can come across Wikipedia's content through any number of avenues... The idea of a volume or alphabetical order is completely irrelevant to a modern Internet encyclopedia.... See more

Wikipedia had to deal with unique problems, since anybody could edit. With its popularity, spam and shameless self-promotion became a constant problem. These were challenges predecessors didn't have to face. Pasting a sales brochure into the Web pages of Britannica was impossible, yet this phenomenon was a continual battle for Wikipedia's... See more

A core idea Wikipedia embraced, borrowed from the original MeatballWiki, was to assume good faith (AGF) when interacting with others. The guidelined promoted optimistic production rather than pessimistic nay-saying, and reds, "unless there is strong evidence to the contrary, assume that people who work on the project are trying to help it, not hurt... See more

The lack of top down editorial oversight resulted in uneven development of Wikipedia's articles, oftentimes with stark examples: The biography of Britney Spears takes up nearly twice the space as the one for Socrates.

It is perhaps an interesting coincidence that the wiki page where new users are encouraged to experiment and "play" safely is called the Sandbox.... "sidewalks work because they permit local interactions to create global order... the information networks of sidewalk life are fine-grained enough to permit higher-level learning to emerge"

Generally, we find most people out there on the Internet are good, says Jimmy Wales. It's one of the wonderful humanitarian discoveries in Wikipedia, that most people only want to help us build this free nonprofit, charitable resource.