This recent article highlights some of the pitfalls of crowdsourcing. Do you agree or disagree or have any pitfalls you've noticed yourself?

Here's a brief overview of some of the pitfalls he mentioned:
1) Damaged Reputation if crowd is dissatisfied
2) Unmanageable Labor Force
3) Sabotage from competitors
4) Rewards That Lose Their Luster
5) Difficult to Predict

I also believe that crowdsourcing can often tend to crowd mediocrity. Instead of finding a revolutionary idea that changes the world, we only find solutions that are averaged across the crowd.

It's definitely possible to get mediocrity, but one of the great benefits of crowdsourcing is its ability to get revolutionary ideas from creative people around the world (that a traditional project wouldn't have reached).

Yeah, you might get a ton of mediocre or even sub-par ideas/input/submissions, but you only need that 1 (or few) great ideas, which is far more common.

I agree with David. Even though mediocrity can be a possibility, people always latch onto better ideas. So even if ideas are crowdsourced, the crowd will always latch onto the idea that seems better, refining the process as better ideas are revealed by various individuals.

The danger is in opinion based crowdsourcing. If you have a lot of opinions about something, and it's not necessarily to advance a common cause, then I don't think crowdsourcing will work very well. But for scientific research, or product creation, information gathering, or etc, I believe it will create great results.

I would absolutely agree with 1 and 2 on that list. While they aren't necessary pitfalls from my standpoint right now, they are definitely opportunities to become pitfalls very, very quickly. I am constantly communicating with our workers to make sure that they are 100 percent clear on our instructions, that they are getting feedback in their work and that they are satisfied all of the time. I have also found some trouble in managing such a large labor force; it is a constant job to qualify workers, check their stats and make sure they are producing the work you want.

Maggie, I hear you on the trouble of managing such a large labor force. Qualifying workers, checking them for integrity, & following up on their work can be a full time job.

Have you found anything to make that process any easier?