Cognitive Scaffold

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MENTAL MODEL · M7336

Well Completed, Do Not Cover

Well Completed, Do Not Cover
TechnicalmediumEcology
Included
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Updated 2026-08-10

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INTRODUCTION

English translation pending.

CORE DEFINITION

Well Completed, Do Not Cover comes from the I Ching hexagram Jing, where the well has been finished and the water raised, and the instruction is to leave it open rather than covered. Its core proposition is that the value of shared infrastructure grows with the number of people allowed to draw on it, so openness is the stronger strategy once the base is built. The key qualifier is that the base must actually work: opening an unfinished or unreliable well spreads frustration rather than value.

SCAFFOLDING EFFECT

psychology

Reduce cognitive load

- Openness default: leave the finished platform accessible instead of gating it off too early. - Friction removal: lower the practical barriers to using and extending the shared infrastructure yourself. - Ecosystem leverage: let participants amplify the value rather than capturing all of it yourself.

anchor

Anchor fast decisions

A shared platform becomes more useful as more participants use and extend it, because each addition raises the value for everyone else. Gating it early captures a small share of a small pool, while openness grows the pool and leaves the operator holding the scarce central layer. The cost of access falls, participation rises, and the network effect compounds the base investment.

MINIMUM ACTION

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Source support: Explicit

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    zh.wikisource.orghttps://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/%E5%91%A8%E6%98%93/%E4%BA%95ZH · Explicit
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