The TragedyOfTheCommons assumes a ZeroSumGame. Physical commons are like that. But virtual commons, like this here wiki, are inexhaustible. Therefore what results is a ComedyOfTheCommons. You may LaughOutLoud now. Yes!

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The time a person has to make use of the virtual commons is not inexhaustible. So that wiki-vandalism becomes an attack on the person's time.



	'''You'll forgive me for not being amused.'''
	There is nothing comical about a ranting lunatic prancing 
	through the meeting hall where several hundred people are
	trying to hear each other in discussions of issues toward
	enlightenment, said rant generating so much noise, confusion, 
	and distraction that the people who gather there can no longer
	conduct meaningful congress with one another.
	The assertion that "virtual commons ... are inexhaustible" is
	false.  Radio waves take up no space, but if you jam them their
	usefulness is ruined.  The disk may be so large that you can
	never use all of it, but if I can inject enough noise that you
	can't store or retrieve anything with it, a denial of service
	is accomplished that renders the ''extent'' of the resource
	irrelevant.
	-- GarryHamilton

''You missed the point. My ears and my attention are limited resources; radio frequencies are a limited resource; bandwidth, whether network or disk IO is a limited resource. The essential feature of the common referred to in "the tragedy of the commons" is limited resources. A better rebuttal of this page's proposal is that there is no such thing as a "virtual common"; if the resources are inexhaustible, it ain't no common. --mt''

Yes even though the the virtual commons are seemingly vast limitless endless, people, as is our wont to do so, will still erect our maypoles to dance around, replete with fancy ribbons to attract each other. Only now we call them things like Blogothingeys, Podomajigs, etc. So even though all bandwidth starts out at equal value we insist on creating real estate culture in a world that started out with such promise of freedom of a few short years ago.

* ''What the hell is all that supposed to mean? I told you not to let your mother near the computer. Now go refactor your self...and clean up your room!''
* The guy is obviously KittenHuffing. To use land, you have to plough it into fields.