Re: [Bug-gne]How Nupedia solves this

[Tom Chance]

 > I'm not criticising the peer review process, or the
> individuals
> concerned, I just don't think you can claim lack of
> bias in your
> articles, just eccentricity :-) I also don't think
> you can do any
> better if you want a single entry on a particular
> topic (or even if you
> choose the selection of writers for the subject:
> your own selection
> will be eccentric too).

I think Nupedia's main strength comes from it first of
all being under the GPL (or at least it will be soon),
so it is free and open to the public. Secondly, that
it has authors from all walks of life, so the range of
authors is greater than most encyclopedias so
theoretically it will be a more interesting and
informed resource. And thirdly, it will be concise and
to the point, whatever that point may be :-)

Where we in GNE then come in is to lose the last
advantage, and to gain as much of an advantage in the
freedom of the project without any editorship.

And bias, censorship, freedom. They're all pep words
really, I don't think anybody can qualify them; nobody
could define freedom as being able to read x% of
articles published worldwide. The three terms are very
subjective, so anybody trying to define them is
missing the point. Its all about the degree of bias/
censorship/ freedom. Even GNE will encounter a lot of
bias, certainly to begin with (all our authors will be
from affluent countries for starters).

I should think the greatest two aims of Nupedia and
GNE will be to make as large an accessible a resource
as possible, and then to make it as free as possible
without having detrimental affects on its quality (in
Nupedia's case).

Tom Chance

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