Re: [Bug-gnupedia] Nupedia

[Bob Dodd]

[snip]
> > In itself, that difference is enough to justify two separate
> projects.
> 
> Perhaps, in the future, this is right.  But please do keep in mind
> that no policies of Nupedia are absolutely set in stone.  We have had
> many debates about such things, and will continue to have many
> debates.
> We are interested in fostering experimental side-projects to test
> ideas.
> 
> The interesting thing here is to balance many competing goals.
> 
> > In fact I would go as far as to say that I wouldn't wish to work on
> > Nupedia, since the whole principal of intellectual/academic freedom
> to
> > write on any subject, and then to allow our peers to comment (i.e.
> rate
> > the material), is replaced by small panel of people "who know
> best".
> > You have the possibility int he Nupedia organisation of editors
> > selecting their friends, and/or writers they "respect" as experts,
> > without other voices being given the opportunity to be heard.
> 
> Not really, not if you fully understand the process.
> 
> It's a social process.  And it is an _open_ process.  So the chances
> of Nupedia being co-opted by a small group of dictatorial editors is
> basically the same as the chances of _any_ open project being so
> co-opted.
> To attempt to do so would mean the death of the project, obviously.
> 
> I invite you to come on over to our project.  I think that there is
> at least some chance that the two will be merged.  And then we'll be
> very interested in working on ideas which alleviate these concerns.
> 
> --Jimbo

Hi Jimbo,

I guess it's a cultural difference in how we see the role of an
editor/publisher. I have a strong belief not only in providing free
access to knowledge, but also in providing an un-edited/un-censored 
voice to all aspects of knowledge. Nupedia is doing a fine job of the
first, but not of the second.

I should own up to a little bit of bias on this one, for two reasons. 

The first is that my partner is Chinese. Now, he doesn't believe the
official line that nobody died in Tianemen Square, but he has friends
that do. Now, what will be the Nupedia line on the Tianemen Square
"incident" be? Will you call it an "incident", a "massacre", or a
"counter-revolutionary uprising"?  Since there is a clear difference
between the western view of what happened and the official Chinese
view, how will you structure the entry? Without taking sides in the
debate, it would be difficult for anyone to produce a truly un-biased
account of what happened. Come to that, how are you going to choose the
editor for it? Someone from mainland China, or someone from Wyoming?
For all these reasons, editing a traditional encylopedia (any
encylopedia, including Britannica) whout taking a strong cultural bias
is almost impossible. Even haing the Nupedia "community" vote on
entries will be biased: let's be honest here, both the Nupedia and
Gnupedia communities are basically North American/European in outlook. 
The only way we can approach it so that all points of view get
expressed, is using the Gnupedia (or whatever this project get's
called, and I agree that making the names so similar was somewhat
childish) approach, where *everyone* gets to contribute. OK, the work
with then get rated, but it's still readable if people want to do so.

So, coming back to my starting point, I see a large and unreconcilable
gap between the use of editors between the two projects. You use
editors to preselect voices (albeit with a mechanism to try and handle
bias), Gnupedia uses editors to help rate and organise unsolicited
entries (e.g. making sure that all entries on Tianemen Square get
tagged as synonyms...)

To my mind, Nupedia is one, western-oriented, narrow filter over the
content of Gnupedia (a "Britiannica Filter"?) There is a place for it,
but it's scope needs to be understood.

/Bob Dodd



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