[Wikipedia-l] non-English Wikipedias

[Jimmy Wales]

Delirium wrote:
> What are the chances, for example, that the Greek Wikipedia
> (assuming it ever gets off the ground) will have a history of the
> Greek-Turkish (or Greek-FYROM) conflict with NPOV standards similar
> to the descriptions of those conflicts in the English Wikipedia?

I don't really know anything about the Greeks, but I would imagine
that the difficulty of approaching NPOV is inversely related to the
diversity of the population, as you surmise.

It is true that English is spoken by people from many countries, but
it is also true that even within the United States, there is
remarkable diversity of opinion.  I would imagine that Germany has a
similarly wide diversity of opinion, even within Germany itself.

Japan might be a good example, in that (it if often said) Japanese
culture is more homogenous than that of most other "large" countries.

> So I guess my question is: do people think it is likely that Wikipedias 
> in languages that are spoken almost exclusively by people of one 
> particular national background can ever hope to achieve anything even 
> remotely resembling the NPOV on the Wikipedias in languages that are 
> spoken by a wide range of people?  Is having contributors from a wide 
> range of backgrounds a necessary prerequisite for NPOV (as I suggest)?

I think you're certainly onto something here, but I'd also say that if
the "people of one particular national background" have significant
internal diversity, that's enough.

I mean, I think that the United States has plenty of people ready to
be sharply critical of the U.S. government, even though they live
here.

--Jimbo