Nicholas Carr, author of The Big Switch and Mediabistro Circus speaker, is one hell of a theorist when it comes to the culture of online communities like Ebay, Digg, Wikipedia that run on a "power to the people" type of infrastructure, where self-governing is viewed upon as the way to online harmony, apes talk like humans, and nothing is what it seems. Well, maybe just the first thing.

Anyway, a self-regulating online wonderland sounds great, but Carr thinks they won't last unless some good old-fashioned non-civilian policing is introduced. Perhaps he was convinced of this theory after visiting our Thunderdome-like TV News Forum, where a "make your own Keith Olbermann or Bill O'Reilly voodoo doll" party is in the works.

Carr, who serves on the Editorial Board of Advisors for Encyclopedia Britannica, and contributes frequently to their blog, recently posted a great piece on the fault of self-governing online communities, and writes in detail about Ebay and their long-deteriorating, soon-to-be-overhauled feedback system.