NATIONAL BESTSELLER From the founder of Wikipedia, a sweeping reflection on the global crisis of credibility and knowledge, revealing the rules of trust that transformed Wikipedia from a scrappy experiment into a global utility used by billions of peopleand how those rules can help others build things that last
An important book . . . both hopeful and practical.Yuval Noah Harari, bestselling author of Sapiens and 21 Lessons for the 21st Century
From the beginning, people predicted Wikipedias demise. Instead, this global experiment in sharing knowledge and expertise online has become part of the fabric of modern, connected life. Today, every month, people view Wikipedia 11 billion timesjust in the English language. The Internets encyclopedia has become a global utility, like water or electricity, and we rarely pause to consider the extraordinary fact of its existence.
Long before it became the biggest collection of knowledge in the history of the world, Wikipedia had to overcome its greatest challenge: getting strangers on the Internet to trust each other. They had to trust that others would not be abusive or uncivil. They had to trust that others would not unfairly change or erase their contributions. They had to trust that people had good intentions.
Trust, Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales says, is a treasure. But it is not inanimate, like gold or gems. Trust is a living thing that can and must be cultivated. This book will show you how. And it will reveal how his organization, this one-time punchline, has become a global authorityin the same two decades when the publics trust in everything else, from government to social media, has trended backwards.
Every community on earth depends on trust; it underpins our capacity to know things, and it is at an all-time low. Inspiring, approachable, and packed with candid lessons from the early days of Wikipedia, The Seven Rules of Trust is a guide to kickstarting a positive loop of accountability and creativityand to building things that stand the test of time.
