[WEB4LIB] Re: Co-founder of Wikipedia talks about problems

[K.G. Schneider]

> Your conclusion is that "Good encyclopedias already exist.  Wikipedia
> is fixing a problem that isn't there".  This criticism goes far
> beyond Larry Sanger's, and I think you both miss your target. (In your
> blog you might want to correct the spelling of his name.)

Done--the typical problem of something that hasn't been through editorial
review. 

> First we must agree that Wikipedia is needed, or this discussion
> becomes pointless. 

No, we don't. There's no rhetorical support for that position in this
discussion. There is support for the idea that people need high-quality,
freely-available content, but it's an extreme leap to say that Wikipedia
meets that need, and in fact, Stanger's article belies that point. 

> A third and minor detail is that I think you have misunderstood
> Wikipedia's concept of Neutral Point of View.  NPOV does not mean the
> encyclopedia must arrive at a single point of view.  Instead, it often
> means that the text of the encyclopedia should be neutral in the
> presentation of the various points of view that exist in society.

I haven't misunderstood anything. This "neutral" presentation, however
cobbled together from various compromises, IS one point of view, or it would
be called something else. It's not called neutral "presentations," and as I
explain in my post, part of the problem with having ONE post on an issue,
particularly when matched with the Lord of the Flies duke-outs between
people of expertise and people with too much time on their hands, is that
entries can end up as internal struggles over what that "neutral" point of
view is. As I say in my post, multiple points of view are the best path
toward "neutrality." (Note that this is also the problem with using one and
only one print or online encyclopedia.) 

> That the web needs a free encyclopedia (and none existed before 2001)
> is shown by Wikipedia's outstanding popularity.  

Do people need cigarettes and SUVs? More to the point, there's no strong
relationship between what people need and what they use. Just because it
exists does not mean it is really meeting their needs or the broader needs
of information. 

There is a need for high-quality, freely-available information, and I'm all
too aware of the gaps out there. I wish some of the energy behind Wikipedia
had gone into advocating for the retention and restoration of important
information resources that have been removed from the Internet. 

Karen G. Schneider
kgs at bluehighways.com