Ask500

I have on at least one occasion. But I always temper others' opinions with my own, and make sure that the final decision is my decision.

A quick read of surowecki's "The wisdom of crowds" and i'm all game. Collective intelligence is the new... something. the theori is that the 'bad apples' who just answer to be funny, annoing or what have you, are few enough that it wont make a real difference

lol, I'd answer if there was a "maybe" option!

"One of the key ideas in Shockwave Rider is the notion of a Delphi group, or Delphi pool. Read on for Brunner's explanation from the book.

It works, approximately, like this.

First you corner a large - if possible, a very large - number of people who, while they've never formally studied the subject you're going to ask them about and hence are unlikely to recall the correct answer, are nonetheless plugged into the culture to which the question relates.

Then you ask them, as it might be, to estimate how many people died in the great influenza epidemic which followed World War I...

Curiously, when you consolidate their replies they tend to cluster around the actual figure as recorded in almanacs, yearbooks and statical returns.

It's rather as though this paradox has proved true: that while nobody knows what's going on around here, everybody knows what's going on around here.

Well, if it works for the past, why can't it work for the future? Three hundred million people with access to the integrated North American data-net is a nice big number of potential consultees."

For more discussion of this idea, you can go here:

http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/content.asp?Bnum=661

BTW, it was published in 1975.

Or google 'Delphi pool'

And my answer is "maybe."

Yes or No is just too final, I would still have to think it over, 'maybe' has to be the answer.