The Medieval Fragments Project: when crowdsourcing doesn’t work

> I have concluded that universities do not operate by a merit based system, but rather by a form of elitist inbreeding wherein only a handful of privileged individuals are hand-picked through political intrigue and spoon fed to glory by a handful of privileged individuals who were hand-picked through political intrigue and spoon fed to glory.

That's a chilling description of the academic world. And yet so apt -- as I recollect it, anyway.

I'm not sure why he felt the need to take the Flickr account down. There might not be a curator (if he truly doesn't have time) but that doesn't a member of his crowdsourcing community might make a significant contribution anyway. Either way, good luck with your new career.

Surely this can be "open sourced". Release all data including texts, images etc and turn it into something like a software project. It may be a good experiment instead of shutting it down.