Anti-Credentialism

Modern knowledge exchange is based on a priori institutionalized filtering, i.e. on 'credentials', such as in the process of Peer Review.

Knowledge production and exchange in peer production is based on Anti-Credentialism, on the self-selection of individuals, and on a posteriori Communal Validation of their contributions.

Here's a quote by Jimmy Wales, founder of the Wikipedia project:

“And if a person‘s really smart and they‘re doing fantastic work I don‘t care if they‘re a high school kid or a Harvard professor, it‘s the work that matters. And you can‘t coast on your credentials on Wikipedia. You have to – you have to enter the marketplace of ideas and engage with people.? (http://www.q-and-a.org/Transcript/?ProgramID=1042 )

The difference between peer to peer processes and academic peer review can also be deduced from the following citation:

“One of the early precedents of open source intelligence is the process of academic peer review. As academia established a long time ago, in the absence of fixed and absolute authorities, knowledge has to be established through the tentative process of consensus building. At the core of this process is peer review, the practice of peers evaluating each other's work, rather than relying on external judges. The specifics of the reviewing process are variable, depending on the discipline, but the basic principle is universal. Consensus cannot be imposed, it has to be reached. Dissenting voices cannot be silenced, except through the arduous process of social stigmatization. Of course, not all peers are really equal, not all voices carry the same weight. The opinions of those people to whom high reputation has been assigned by their peers carry more weight. Since reputation must be accumulated over time, these authoritative voices tend to come from established members of the group. This gives the practice of peer review an inherently conservative tendency, particularly when access to the peer group is strictly policed, as it is the case in academia, where diplomas and appointments are necessary to enter the elite circle. The point is that the authority held by some members of the group- which can, at times, distort the consensus-building process - is attributed to them by the group, therefore it cannot be maintained against the will of the other group members." (http://news.openflows.org/article.pl?sid=02/04/23/1518208 )