Christopher Mahan wrote:
> Pressure such a project could face: Competing products, lawsuits, loss
of
> qualified staff, denial-of-service attacks, copyright infringement
lawsuits
> (all it takes is one), that sort of thing.
*nod* Risks I'm prepared to take. If I was afraid of all of those things,
I would never have started my own company. :-)
> Contact a copyright attorney for futher info on that, for the project's
> sake.
We have attorneys. We've been in the web business for years. Trust me,
we know what we are doing.
> Ok. About reviewers. Let's say you get this great article, but you can't
> really edit it yourself or check its fact because it's outside of your
areas
> of expertise.
This is almost always the case, to be sure. In fact, as it currently
stands, I don't personally do *any* of the reviewing, and Larry only does
a little, in his area (philosophy).
> Then you look for qualified reviewers, and you find a couple
> that would do it great, but they want $300-$500 to do it. What do you
do?
> Shelve the article? Cough up the dough? This could get expensive.
We don't pay reviewers, we find volunteers. So far, there is no shortage
of volunteers.
> On the "you're biased" bit, you could have a Jewish group that says: do
you
> have any Jewish reviewers? The NAACP might want to find out if there are
> colored people on staff. The Asian League might want to know if you have
> asians on staff. The Christians might want to know if you... The
Muslims...
> the Japanese... the Germans... the French (God forbid!)... the
Republicans,
> the Democrats, the Green, the Reds, the Feds... Hark!!! The British are
> Coming!!!
It is of course true that people might behave in that fashion. What can we
do about it? I think that the only thing we can do is to be open, be
welcoming
to all.
Do you intend this to be a specific comment on some specific policy of
ours, or
merely a general rant about the difficulty of doing anything at all in a
litigious
and politically correct age? If the latter, then, well I'm certainly
sympathetic,
but I still press onward. We'll deal with those things as best we can
whenever
they do come up.
But if you feel that there is some specific policy of ours which doesn't
sufficiently
address the possibility for bias against Jewish people, Asian people, etc.,
then let's
discuss that specifically, because if that's true then we need to change.
> And that was one of the original arguments about the GNE. As long as
there
> is any type of editorial control, there will be accusations of bias.
But without any editorial control at all, then you are guaranteed to be
biased.
When a member of the KKK writes an irrational rant against the genetic
deficiencies
of Africans, and when GNE posts that article without comment, then you are
*certainly*
going to have people complaining (and rightly so!) about giving a platform
for evil
people. Richard Stallman points out that he would not have an article
denying the
holocaust on his servers -- and I think he's right.
Far from providing an opportunity for people to scream about bias, having a
good
review process *helps reduce* the likelihood and legitimacy of those
complaints.
We can answer them by saying: "Look, we have an open review process. If
you want
to see an article changed, or if you want to add to an article, you can
join the
review process yourself."
> Now note that GNE is not really meant to be an encyclopedia in the first
> place.
I understand what you are saying.
--Jimbo