In Half an Hour: The Failure of Completely Open Networks?, Stephen Downes writes:

What this proves is something that has been known (and resolutely ignored by pundits) for quite some time: that the network effect is not cumulative.

I don’t quite get it. What Stephen seems to be saying isn’t that the network effect isn’t cumulative, it’s that the quality depends on the diversity of the group whose accumulated attention is in question. Undoubtedly true. Isn’t the real question what is meant by the word “diversity” in this context? Is it simply diversity of any kind (i.e. negating significantly repetitive groups) or is it really a kind of quality selection in disguise.