[WikiEN-l] Boston Globe: "Bias, sabotage haunt Wikipedia's free world"

[Andrew Lih]

On 2/12/06, John Lee <johnleemk at gawab.com> wrote:
> That was seriously one of the best articles I've ever seen written about
> us. I've shot an email to the author thanking him for doing his research
> instead of shabbily ommitting and making up stuff to support a
> particular viewpoint as most other journalists do. I don't think it's
> negative at all; I find it highlights some of the best and worst parts
> of Wikipedia and would probably comply with [[WP:NPOV]], if not [[WP:NOR]].

I agree it is one of the better newspaper stories about Wikipedia. The
fact that it's the subject of a "two-part series" is a nod to
Wikipedia's prominence.

However, the concept of NPOV was not explained significantly, which
would have given the casual reader a better understanding of how the
community works. The only mention was in a list of other Wikipedia
values:

"However many there are, the Wikipedians have developed a complex and
more-or-less democratic system of rules and policies for
contributions, such as neutral point of view, civility, citation of
sources, and no libel or vandalism."

Even the phrase "more-or-less democratic" makes me wince. The word
"consensus" is not used at all in the two articles.

-Andrew (User:Fuzheado)