The theory is fine, but unless we can read the
language(s) we have no
way of knowing whether NPOV is in fact being followed.
Of course, we could go article for article, but some "interesting"
stuff that is apparently acceptable on one of those "national"
Wikipedias is:
http://sr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Свето_Јеванђеље_по_Матеју (Gospel of
Matthew, full edition)
[[Свето Јеванђеље по Марку]] (Gospel of Mark, also full edition)
Not that big of a deal, but still, everybody thinks that it's OK to
post the Holy Bible on Wikipedia.
This is a proposed policy, which resulted after I labeled a bunch of
articles as POV:
http://sr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Википедија:Тачке_гледишта
or, Wikipedia:Points of View
Basically, it's a proposal to allow people to write from certain POVs,
which would be labeled so. Here are the rules (my translation from
that page):
1. At least one editor wants to write about it.
2. At least five editors support legitimacy of that POV.
3. At least one of those five is an admin.
4. At least five articles in user namespace describing that POV.
5. That the POV does not promote racial, religious or other hate and
doesn't call for violence. This is solemly a concern of such things as
fascism or nazism.
6. That the POV has local (i.e. is connected to Serbia somehow) or
global importance.
7. That the POV is described in a proper place on Serbian Wikipedia.
Like I said, this was a proposed policy, from May 2005 (the last time
I was active on Serbian Wikipedia, it was in part a response to the
fact that I overnight labeled a bunch of articles as POV, because I
found them to be essays on Orthodox Christianity, but obviously,
others realized the POV in supporting this policy). Still, it got 5
votes for, and 3 against. I think it describes the inherit POV of such
national projects.
The following users supported the policy:
http://sr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Корисник:Милош
http://sr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Корисник:Горан_Анђелковић
http://sr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Корисник:Bonzo
http://sr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Корисник:Djordjes
http://sr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Корисник:Dzordzm
All of them are admins/bureaucrats, so people of trust there think
that NPOV is not what Wikipedia is about.
Three people voted against, users Zocky (not an admin, not active), me
(not an admin, not active) and Aleksandar (doesn't seem to be an
admin, I don't know if he is active).
That policy never made it thru, but for example, if you visit
[[Категорија:Светитељи]], which is Category:Saints, you will notice in
almost each and every article among those the following line at the
bottom:
"Велики део овог текст је преузет из охридског пролога светог владике
Николаја Велимировића. Он не подлеже ауторским правима" - meaning "Big
chunk of this text was taken from Ohrid's Prologue of St. Ruler (not
sure about translation of his title) Nikolaj Velimirovic. It is not
affected by copyright."
Now,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikolaj_Velimirovic was a part of
Serbian Orthodox Church and writer of big part of its doctrine (or at
least, what some say should be). So, it's much worse than copying
stuff from some outdated encyclopedia, it's actually copying stuff
from the source which is as POV as possible. And that seems acceptable
on Serbian Wiki. Most of the articles are totally POV, as you can
imagine coming from a church source.
The reason I am writing this is to show that national wikipedias are
inheritly biased - they can be very good on covering stuff like
nature, science, etc. but when it comes to more touchy topics, it will
be hard to get editors from different perspectives.
I am pretty much presented with a choice: should I use Serbian,
Bosnian or Croatian wiki? I am not either a Serb, a Bosnian, or a
Croat, and I communicate on daily basis with people from Serbia,
Bosnia and Croatia, using my native language (whatever it is). I work
together with Serbs, Croats and Bosnians on many en.wikipedia
articles. And I chose to only edit, when I do edit in non-english
wikipedias, Serbo-Croatian Wikipedia. Why would I go for anything
else? If I am writing about World War 2, I will write a much better
article if it's together with editors from all of those countries,
than only one of them.
So, if we can't have only one Wikipedia for all of us, than at least
let the ones among us who are capable of working with everyone, work
as we know best.
Dejan