What online communities are meritocracies?
Meritocracy is a way to organize a group where people get a place in the social hierarchy of a group based only on the work they have done regardless of everything else. Meritocracy-based communities are able to create incredible value of very high quality for the community itself and the outside world. High results are accomplished by the fact that the rules of the game are clear and the same for everyone and anyone can participate.
Almost all efficient online communities are meritocracies.
This is a fragment of a draft of the book “Lessons Learned While Working On Stack Overflow”. Read the full book on kindle or the paperback version.