Elisabeth Bauer ti 2004/11/24 EP 02:22 sia-kong:
Evan Prodromou wrote:
I think the big thing to understand is that each
wiki takes time,
effort, and money to maintain. Each wiki is a security risk, both
technically and legally; an active community can offset this risk as
well or better than fancy technological security measures.
I fully agree with Evan here. But I want to add some other points which
are largely neglected so far. Maintaining a wiki is not only about
getting some people to work there, we also need to ensure that local
communities get to know and share the fundamental values and principles
of wikipedia: neutrality, openess, freedom of content.
Indeed, that is the struggle on every WP, isn't it. i.e. Striving for
NPOV, fairness, content-centered open discussions, etc. is on-going on
numerous pages. But a bit of context here would be useful: what Evan
is talking about is the undesirability of leaving inactive wikis
unattended (what he calls security risk). What Elizabeth is talking
about pertains to active WPs that may be deemed NPOV in a systemic way
because of demographics. (For comparison, see en:Wikipedia:WikiProject
Countering systemic bias.) I will controversially (and tentatively) say
that what is communally judged POV or NPOV is likely subject to the
values and experiences its members bring to the table. This is a
situation likely present in all WPs -- even older, more mature ones --
albeit in different degrees and manifesting in different ways. That
does not mean I don't see a problem with it, just that problem is
perhaps widespread.
There's a lot of knowledge about wikipedia customs
and processes needed
to get a new wiki started. So far we let people find out on their own -
or not.
I think the knowledge is acquired communally _as_ a wiki grows and
matures. Knowing the principles of, say, the statement on NPOV still
requires lots of practice, and even then opinions differ.
Yesterday a friend translated a sentence on the main
page of the tatar
wikipedia for me: "Tatarlar Böyek! Yäşäsen Törki Dönya!" - "Die Tataren
sind groß! Es lebe die türkische Welt!" (in german, since I don't know
how to translate this in english). But the equivalent would be the
french putting "Vive la France" on their main page. All three sysops
there edited the page later, noone removed the sentence.
I recall the Welsh WP (which I rather like) has a large Welsh flag with
its red dragon prominently and (I imagine) proudly displayed on the main
page. This could be interpreted in NPOV and POV ways. I would not
hazard a guess, but I personally am fine with it. This is related to my
claim that we bring values and experiences to the table which influence
our judgement.
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