Spontaneous order is only occassionally logical order

 Wikipedia is an example of global spontaneous order which works usefully most the time and with little centralized intervention.  Most of the time.  But not always.  Wikipedia has multiple editions by language.  One of which is Scots.  From The Sad Story of Scots Wikipedia by Natalie Solent.  She quotes the Guardian:

The Scots Wikipedia entry on the Canada goose – or “Canadae guiss” – was at first honest about its provenance. A tag warned: “The ‘Scots’ that wis uised in this airticle wis written bi a body that’s mither tongue isna Scots. Please impruive this airticle gin ye can.”

 

But, as the author grew in confidence, so he removed the caveat, and continued on his Scots-writing spree.

 

Now an American teenager – who does not speak Scots, the language of Robert Burns – has been revealed as responsible for almost half of the entries on the Scots language version of Wikipedia.

Half all the contributions by a single contributor?  Apparently he started when he was 12 and became habituated.  

Solent has some good observations.

One additional point - emergent order really depends on the free movement of information, ideas, and competition.  Scots Wikipedia is not so much an example of emergent order gone wrong as it is an example of what happens when there is such low interest that there is effectively no competition and a natural monopoly emerges.