Re: [Bug-gnupedia] Nupedia

[Tom Chance]

I agree. Nupedia to me seems like a missed
opportunity, by going too far towards editorship and
effectively making a slightly more free, web based
version of britannica with no copyrights etc.

This is why I believe Gnupedia (or whatever it gets
called) should be a seperate project sharing articles.
This way those of us (like Bob and I) who want no
editorship can have our own approach, and those who
want some editorship go to Nupedia. Why merge them and
complicate it unecessarily by having "off-shoot"
projects. Why not just give each project equal,
inepedent importance?

Oh I'll post up my organisation ideas (basically a
complete description of the hosting, submitting and
"moderating" processes) here later. I would suggest
anybody who wants to be in Nupedia goes to it, and I
wish the very best for you all. The reamaining few can
stay here and work at a different approach.

Thom Chance
--- Bob Dodd <address@hidden> wrote: > [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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=====
"True security is to be found in social solidarity rather than in isolated 
individual effort - Fyodor Dostoyevsky"

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