We a one aspect that is considered in traditional print publications but not generally actually specified is the issue of intellectual standards. What does it take for a given project to be respected? Ultimately this will depend on the nature of the project.
The subject matter of some projects is subjective to a great enough degree that it is important to have multiple opinions on every decision or piece of data that needs to be collected. Take, for example, a syntactical tagging project. Syntax is often a more subjective task, so having twenty people tag a given piece of text for syntax is going to be more desirable than having only one.
Sometimes the amount of training necessary to do a project is such that high standards must be maintained. For example, New and Old Testament textual criticism are complicated disciplines. If someone wanted to start a collaborative project to do that work online, they might want to consider screening those who would want to participate. Having the data of brilliant text critics mixed in with much more numerous data collected by uninformed workers is data just waiting to be ignored.
A very important step towards filling this need would be to specify to the public what the goals/requirements of the project are in regard to this issue. For example, if you publicize that someone has to have a certain skill level to participate in a project then it is more clear to interested individuals whether or not they can participate. If such is not specified and yet someone is not allowed, then you open yourself up for criticism because you denied someone’s access for no good reason. But if you specify this then you can show them the standards for the work, and since they do not meet the standards they are not allowed to participate. Obviously some projects will not have that kind of requirement, but some will need that to maintain a level of quality.
This will also help differentiate the better projects from those that are not of the same quality. Having high standards, and sticking to them, is a valuable part of a public image. Those that have them and show them publicly fair a better chance of gaining respect in the community.
Publishing intellectual standards will also help others who are doing similar work. If a group doing New Testament textual criticism published a set of quality standards, another group doing textual criticism in the pseudepigraphical works has a good place to start. Theirs will probably end up different due to the differences in the source material, but having the previous work available would be a helpful guide.
Intellectual standards will also be useful when dealing with those who will fight against the free dissemination of data. One of the critiques that will be lodged will be the fear of low-quality work. This is seen frequently in the software industry when commercial software manufacturers debate with open-source advocates. Setting and visually posting high intellectual standards will be a great defense against unwarranted critiques.