iFixit.com - The Free Repair Manual

My digital topic for this class is Participation. In conjunction with that, I am reading Wisdom of the Crowds, by James Surowiecki. As I have been reading and pondering participation and crowd sourcing in our day and age, I thought of one of my favorite web sites: iFixit.com. It's a phenomenal web site packed with repair manuals for fixing or replacing almost any part you can think of for things like Apple products, game consoles, and lots of other home electronics. The repair manuals are fantastic, with simple step-by-step instructions and a photograph of the instruction for every step. Once you drill down to the part you need to replace or repair, you can reverse the instructions to help you put it back together again.

The site uses a software called Dozuki, which is a program built for writing repair manuals. While iFixit is a private company in San Luis Obispo, CA, people can contribute and write repair manuals which are then posted on the site for others to use. The founder, Kyle Wiens, is helping people reduce their electronic waste and save money be repairing their own electronics. The site sells parts for popular electronics, and has an extensive forum where people ask questions and help each other out.

To me, this site exhibits the wisdom of the crowd at its best. Kyle Wiens doesn't know everything about repairing every single electronic gadget out there. Instead, the site is open and people contribute new repair manuals regularly. The wisdom of the crowd is in the abilities of the people submitting these repair manuals so that the rest of the crowd can benefit. I know I have saved thanks to iFixit. I love Apple products, but taking something to the Apple store to have it fixed can be pricy. Instead, I can use iFixit's repair manuals, knowing that thousands of other like me have used them and have verified their accuracy and usefulness. Thanks, iFixit!