The mainstream media has a lot of negative things to say about blogs and user based content on the web. Most of them can be discounted but there is one that I think does need to be taken seriously. The ability of communities to form and to some extent to close around themselves and to simply reinforce their own predjudices is a serious problem and one that we need to work against.

I have said before that I think we could benefit from the involvement of social scientists in understanding the possible cultural issues involved in the move towards more open practises.