Concerning Wikipedia.

1)I see a first contradiction between accepting all contributions, but outlawing quotes from websites and wiki’s; granted that these are not scientifically peer reviewed facts, but they are documentary evidence about opinions and receptions of topics and ideas. This is a first scarcity.

2) the neutral point of view is something that not really exists, and a recognition of different perspectives, which have to be fairly represented, would have been better. This is a second scarcity

As a result of pressure from mass media last year, the community decided to focus on quality, but unfortunately this gave rise to deletionists who patrol pages and slap codes and regulations on them, arguing for their removal; from a low treshold activity, this turn writing in a political battle of wills requiring mobilisation, which only the most fanatic will muster, and I believe that this is one of the key reasons why it stopped growing and why the fundraising is stalling in certain communities that were traditionally supportive.

As for your second query. The open design communities are emerging, and benefit from the same kind of trends towards distribution/miniaturisation that made the internet possible, i.e. desktop manufacturing, personal fabrication (3d printing, etc..), multi-purpose machinery, rapid manufacturing and rapid tooling. However, remember it took 10 years for Linux to mature, and most open design communities are just 2-3 years old at the maximum while they have to solve harder physical problems (contrary to software, there is more iteration with physical reality necessary_). A crucial issue is the connection between non-reciprocal (voluntary) open design, and the necessity of a return in physical production. This has rarely been solved yet I think.

Molecular manufacturing will probably face the same downward trend in the physical cost of capital, resulting in increasing possiblities for small scale and local production. In a world after peak oil, and high raw material and environmental costs, it is likely that there will be much more incentives for a relocalization of production.

You should perhaps read Christian Siefkes proposals for physical peer production in his book, From Exchange to Contributions.

I would also be interested in your views on what the practices of the emerging open design movements tell us about the way that things would be likely to develop were molecular manufacturing to prove viable, and viable in a way that promised some kind of post-scarcity economy? I.e. what do we learn from these movements in this regard?

Richard