This post was published 7 months 15 days ago which may mean the content is not valid any more.
Unofficial Spiceworks is not responsible for any misunderstanding.

The official Spiceworks blog ( http://blog.spiceworks.com/ ) maybe still alive?

Tragedy Of The Commons and Online Communities was posted July 20, 2009 – 11:53 am

In 1968 Garrett Hardin proposed the concept of the Tragedy of the Commons in an article in the journal Science. The basic concept is as follows. Let’s imagine back to the early days of man where a group of cattle-herders lived in a village. They shared a common pasture to graze their cattle. However a conflict quickly emerged. Each individual herder is motivated to profit from the common area for the benefit of his own herd. He has little incentive to ensure there is pasture left for his neighbor’s herd. When every herder behaves in this way the pasture fails for every herder. However, if the herders worked together a healthy pasture could benefit all of them greatly.

Read the rest