On 2/12/06, John Lee <johnleemk(a)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)