Linus's law, named after Linus Torvalds, the creator of Linux, states that "given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow". More formally: "Given a large enough beta-tester and co-developer base, almost every problem will be characterized quickly and the fix obvious to someone." The rule was formulated and named by Eric S. Raymond in his essay The Cathedral and the Bazaar.
Wikipedia can be viewed as an attempt to implement this principle in the realm of encyclopedia writing.