Re: [Bug-gnupedia] Censorship vs. Discretion (GNUpedia & Nupedia)

[Tom Chance]

I have to say that I thought this project was about
having an entirely decentralised encyclopedia, with no
central editorial team. In that way it would be
different from every other encyclopedia in the world.
If you want editors and culling into pure "facts" then
why not just read Brittanica or Grolier which are
astoundingly good for this purpose. No, the point of
Gnupedia was to have a decentralised, open
enclyclopedia following the GPL, giving access to all
source codes etc. on the main site so people can
mirror the resource, and allowing anyone to contribute
a useful article. Useful, that is, judged by the
readership, not a central group of people who would
ultimately shape the encyclopedia in their interests.


--- Seth Nickell <address@hidden> wrote: > The
web is already a resource for expressing and
> accumulating a diverse
> set of opinions, ideas etc. I do not think we need
> another such
> resource. The value of an encyclopedia is that a
> reader can pick it up
> and find a high-quality, well researched articles
> that deal primarily
> with fact. Where the portrayals of fact alter the
> interpretation or
> perception of a subject, a good encyclopedia will
> strive to present both
> sides of the issue fairly in the same article,
> attempting to clearly
> designate the opinions and possibly providing
> reference to more in-depth
> material from those standpoints. Encyclopedias are
> often used as the
> standard for judging a particular fact to be "common
> knowledge". This
> indeed implies that the very nature of an entry in
> an encyclopedia
> should be more-or-less uncontroversial. Clearly one
> may still address
> controversial issues, but it must be attempted in a
> fair-handed manner!
> 
> Now of course people are easily influenced, biased,
> imperfect creatures,
> so we cannot trust a single person to *necessarily*
> convey accurate,
> balanced material to the peruser of the work. This
> is where an editorial
> board enters the scene... Part of their job is to
> keep sending the
> material back to the author until they are able to
> present an article
> that satisfies the editors in its portrayal of an
> issue. The various
> "absolute freedom", "avoid censorship at all costs"
> suggestions I see
> thrown around this mailing list sound good on paper,
> but essentially
> foist the job of editing the material onto the
> reader. I see two
> distinct things of value in an encyclopedia, that it
> is written by
> knowledgable well-researched authors, and that an
> editorial board has
> gone to the trouble of tuning the presentation and
> culling material.
> This makes it a useful work, not just a hodge-podge
> collection of
> writings, inconsistent in veracity and possibly even
> pure motive.
> 
> This is just not acceptable. Yes, clearly articles
> that are rejected by
> an editorial board for unjust reasons need a method
> of appeal. Yes
> censorship sucks. Yes it is crucial to provide
> mechanisms for ensuring
> it does not prevail... But I hope we are producing a
> work of greater
> merit than a clipboard of mental farts. I will be
> forthright in
> expressing myself, though I know this will rub some
> people wrong who are
> unaccustomed or reject the notion: some opinions and
> ideas are worth
> more than others. And even more dangerous to
> acknowledge... I believe
> some people's opinions and ideas have greater merit
> than others. This
> does not just divid into an aristocracy, or whatever
> your favorite evil
> political structure may be. A well researched, well
> written, carefully
> presented article is worthy of greater merit in an
> academic work than
> one that is conived in order to sway people to a
> particular view. (this
> message, for example, would clearly be inappropriate
> material in an
> encyclopedia ;-)
> 
> You probably want freedom to prevent the spread of
> dis-information,
> conspiracy, rule of the majority, and other manners
> of evil... but
> ultimately you provide more disinformation if a
> reader must themselves
> ascertain the truth of an article in a work like an
> encyclopedia. It is
> not a matter of the reader being unintelligent, it
> is a matter of
> timeliness. Additionally, it is likely that an
> editor will have more
> information regarding the article at their disposal.
> I would hope that
> editors are somewhat knowledgable in the areas they
> are reviewing...this
> is much like peer review for submission to an
> academic journal. The
> reader places their trust in the editors and the
> author him/herself to
> provide them with critical, useful information. They
> are better served
> by some degree of culling, editing, etc. Enhancing
> knowledge and
> understanding is the key, and it is not well served
> if bound by
> cumbersome clutter.
> 
> Discretion != Censorship. It is a fine line, but
> crucial to ascertain if
> one is to siphon information in a valuable way. The
> internet/web suffers
> from an overabundance of information due to its
> relative inaccesibility
> and lack of cohesion (though there are many areas
> with insufficient
> quality information too, I grant you). Commercial
> software and companies
> realize this, and provide convenient ways for
> consumers to access and
> use this information without being overwhelmed. It
> would be sad if free
> software were so bound by misguided idealogy that it
> could not grasp the
> value of discretion and editing in the process of
> delivering
> information, and subsequently knowledge. I don't
> think this is true, but
> we do become obsessed with little catch phrases and
> miss the larger
> forest.
> 
> > you analysis, in that Nupedia seems to be less
> "open"
> > and far more centralised than we would all want
> > Gnupedia to be.
> 
> speak for yourself.
> 
> > This is twice this has been raised - their site
> offers
> > no source code for the web site, or how their
> indexing
> > works. Gnupedia should be "open" in every possible
> > sense, IMO.
> 
> This could definitely be problematic. It would be
> important that not
> only could anyone access the information, but anyone
> could mirror the
> information, change it, redistribute it, etc without
> needing access to
> proprietary systems for information archival,
> storage and delivery.
> 
> -Seth
> 
> _______________________________________________
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> http://mail.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/bug-gnupedia


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