Collaboration in editing encourages democratic principles  The process of collaboration required to create and maintain an up-to-date, factual source of information encourages democratic practices and principles. Wikipedia seeks to achieve its democratic goal of the spread of free, open material by democratic means. As an open-source project it relies upon the collaboration of tens of thousands of people who constantly add, check and edit articles. Disagreements and disputes are sent up the line to moderators, who oversee the editing process. This “socialisation of expertise” as David Weinberger puts it [1] ensures that errors and omissions are rapidly identified and corrected and that the site is constantly and accurately updated. No traditional encyclopaedia can match this scrutiny. Indeed, “Wikipedia has the potential to be the greatest effort in collaborative knowledge gathering the world has ever known, and it may well be the greatest effort in voluntary collaboration of any kind.” [2] Not only do such democratic processes encourage democracy more generally, but they are an effective means to create a user-friendly product, as illustrated by open source software such as Firefox and Linux.  [1] The Economist. (2006, April 20). The wiki principle. Retrieved 16 May 2012, from The Economist.  [2] Poe, M. (2006, September). The hive. Retrieved May 11, 2012, from The Atlantic.