Moving the Blog

We are moving this blog to the Digital Universe Foundation web site at http://www.dufoundation.org/blog/ please update your feeds accordingly.

Thank You

 

“Is There a Neutral View on George W. Bush?”

Mark Glaser has written an op-ed piece arguing, rather poorly, that "if you open it [any encyclopedia?] up for anyone to edit, you’re asking for anything but neutrality."  His argument appears to be that, since in his opinion the Wikipedia article about George W. Bush is not neutral, therefore Wikipedia is incapable of achieving neutrality, and therefore by implication any Web resource that is open is doomed to bias.  (His article is filed under "citizen journalism" and "wikis".)

This is, of course, a fallacious argument.

Glaser fails to distinguish the policy from Wikipedia's implementation of it.  Neutrality, as I formulated it on behalf of Wikipedia (and the Digital Universe will have a similar policy), requires that information, article topics, everything concerning a topic be presented in a way that all sides (in this case, Bush's detractors and his defenders) can recognize as adequately sympathetic, given that the other sides' views are represented in an equally sympathetic way.  Now, if it is true that the article selection and wording of articles about Bush are sympathetic to Bush-bashers but not Bush-lovers, then Wikipedia is to be criticized for failing to follow its own policy.

But to conclude from this one failure, if it is a failure, that Wikipedia as a whole fails to be neutral is what we call an "overgeneralization."  And to conclude that neutrality is actually impossible from this one case is an even further stretch.  Some people have said that Wikipedia's most aggressive and active participants do push it in one political direction.  Is Glaser committing himself to the claim that all open resources will be similarly pushed?  What if there is an enforceable policy against that?  Surely Glaser isn't saying that no project could have an enforceable policy against neutrality just because Wikipedia doesn't successfully enforce its own policy in all cases?

Of course, what makes Glaser's column interesting is the suggestion that he has given some good reason to think that neutrality, in the sense defined by Wikipedia, is either impossible or not a worthy aim (perhaps because it's impossible?).  As a philosopher, I would be very interested to read an actual argument that supports that conclusion, but Glaser has not offered one.  He has simply offered innuendo.

To make matters worse, at the end of the post, he says: "What do you think? Is there a way to explain the life and times of George W. Bush with a neutral point of view? Point us the way."  The implication here seems to be that the burden rests on those who believe that it is possible to represent a debate fairly–in a way that all sides can regard as fair–without actually taking a side.  But surely the burden does not rest on those people, because anyone can find zillions of perfectly neutral articles in Wikipedia and in a host of other sources.  Neutrality is possible.  It is, however, an art that requires practice and a deep understanding of rhetoric and the subject matter.  It's hard to get right.  That doesn't mean that it isn't worth the old college try.  Suggesting, as Glaser seems to be doing, that it is impossible for an open project to achieve neutrality "and perhaps misguided" will actually excuse people who do write unfair, biased prose.  Back when I was in charge of Wikipedia, I often dealt with people who criticized Wikipedia's neutrality policy as impossible and then proceeded to write egregiously biased entries.  Surely Glaser doesn't want to encourage that sort of person?

Some news

Last Friday, April 7, we received news that our application for 501(c)(3) status has been approved. The Digital Universe Foundation is now officially a nonprofit.

A few weeks ago, Howard Rheingold, author of Smart Mobs and The Virtual Community and many more, agreed to join the DUF’s Board of Advisors. We’re very happy about that. If anyone can advise us about virtual communities, it’s Howard Rheingold.

I made a visit to Purdue University March 27-29, and gave a talk and taught a couple of Sorin Matei’s classes. That was an enormously fun and productive week. There are a lot of people at Purdue interested in partnering with the Digital Universe in various ways.

I’ve got a paper forthcoming in the first “issue” of the Digital Universe Journal. It’s the same paper I presented at Purdue and, last December, in Macau.

Welcome to the Blog for the Digital Universe

We are creating an open line of communication to discuss matters related to the construction of the Digital Universe. The Digital Universe is a network of interlinked web portals intended to become—over time—the largest reliable public information resource in history.

An earlier version of this blog was launched last January.  Now we're actually going to start posting regularly.  Come back often!

The Digital Universe in 2006

I want to explain how to take the long view of the Digital Universe project–at least the view of the coming year.

It would have been silly to judge the future of graphical user interfaces based on the first Macintosh. It would have been silly to judge Wikipedia based on the state of the project after just six months.

Similarly, it is of course silly to judge the future of the Digital Universe based on its first release which has been billed as a "prototype." The purpose of this release is to give future users a rough idea of what we're working on–and to invite the future leaders of the project to get on board, to make it better.

Personally, I was persuaded to get involved with this project because I saw its potential, not because I was impressed by what I saw so far. (Although that was pretty impressive–flying around the solar system and "local group" portals is lots of fun, even if it's not yet endless amounts of fun, as the future version will be!)

Here's just some of the potential I see for 2006:

• We'll very likely start a public wiki encyclopedia project this year, managed by experts. It will be like, but importantly different from, Wikipedia. A parallel wiki encyclopedia project will also eventually be opened up to ordinary educated people, but we will require that people use their real-world identities and abide by sensible, enforceable rules.
• Probably, a digital Earth will be fired up. You'll be able to zoom around a 3D Earth and the result will be increasingly integrated with portals, in the same way that you can click on "Mars" in the Solar System portal right now and get to the Mars portal that way.
• Our "interim Steward" program will get started, and we'll have a general, expert-built taxonomy and Web directory, and a multimedia portal-building tool that is coming close to the testing phase. In time, the public will be able to contribute to these efforts as well–and they'll be empowered to use the same tools to build their own personal portals.
• We'll organize an initial group of Stewards to serve on an interim Board of Stewards, who will designate what the future "information coalitions" will be–and we'll start actually organizing some of those coalitions.
• A community, both expert and public, will kick off. We'll have mailing lists and various collaborative projects to work on. We'll together debate and give preliminary approval to a community Charter that we will agree to follow in creating the Digital Universe. There will be project mailing lists, an academic journal, and the kick-off of governance bodies–all in 2006.
• Our very impressive group of 3D software thinkers/engineers, the Emma working group, can be expected to accomplish great things this year. I am particularly excited about a tool one of our guys is working on, that will allow ordinary users to author and save 3D widgets in the DU.

We can't make any promises (always a risky business with such uncharted terrain as we're exploring), but I think these things will happen this year.

As more and more people are introduced to the concepts behind the Digital Universe–which, and please trust me on this, are not instantly obvious, although they are extremely compelling when finally grokked–there will be an increasing groundswell of interest in and support of what we're doing. I think that groundswell will get started this year. I hope that a monograph I'm working on, "Constructing the Digital Universe," will help introduce the concepts and motivate participation for those who need "the long version." (Which I certainly would want, personally.)

This is a free and public project. Our content will be open content. Our tools will (once in a more developed state) be open source. We together will create the world's first free, truly authoritative general information resource. The world desperately needs a reliable free Web–and, since the need is so great and since it will, in time, become so obvious, it will happen, sooner or later. We, of course, want it to be sooner, and there's no question that we are taking our first and very promising steps.

I could go on and give you the longer-term, pie in the sky vision. Sometime I will. But I think what can, together, do in 2006 will be compelling enough by itself–and worthy of your support and participation, both expert and public.

Correcting some misconceptions about the Digital Universe

Beginning with this article, $10m for a Wikipedia for grown-ups, from The Register, a number of misconceptions about the Digital Universe have been passed around. Here are the facts:

The Digital Universe will not be an encyclopedia only. It will include a wiki-based encyclopedia project, but it will include much else: an expert-managed Web directory, 3D content, forums, news, books, video and audio archives, and in general will evolve into an authoritative gateway to the best of the Web. If we are successful, the Digital Universe will be a competitor not of Wikipedia, but a nonprofit and expert-driven alternative to Yahoo, Google, AOL, MSN, etc.

I am not founder of the Digital Universe. You must have me confused me with my employer, Joe Firmage, CEO of ManyOne Networks and one of the founders and leading lights of the Digital Universe. The vision of the Digital Universe is brilliant but it is most definitely Joe’s, and it’s a vision he had long before he hired me to help him carry it out. I started corresponding with the founders of the Digital Universe, Joe and my immediate director, the astrophysicist Dr. Bernard Haisch (President of the Digital Universe Foundation), in January 2005. The idea for the Digital Universe existed long before that. Moreover, ManyOne has dozens of other employees, including some world-class people.

I did not collect $10 million to pay for Stewards (editors). Again, you must have me confused with Joe Firmage, who is among other things an amazingly talented fundraiser. Those millions have mostly already been invested in ManyOne Networks, which has allowed construction of our world-class organization and a brand new, cutting-edge Web platform, as well as the development of content and the launching of the Digital Universe. It is the intention of the Digital Universe Foundation to acquire funding (from ManyOne Networks, philanthropic organizations, government grants, etc.) which will be used to support the stewardship program.

The Digital Universe is a nonprofit, free (open content), and ad-free project. The Digital Universe Foundation has filed for nonprofit status. The nonprofit ManyOne Foundation will become the sole owner of ManyOne Networks as investors are paid off. The Digital Universe will be creating vast amounts of content, including the entire encyclopedia, and a whole lot of other stuff, that will always be free of charge (i.e., the Digital Universe Foundation will recommend that the DU’s managing “information coalitions” use a Creative Commons license). Finally, the project will always be ad-free. Our business model does involve subscriptions for some “premium” content (not to say the encyclopedia, e.g., won’t also be quite excellent in spite of its being free) and an ISP service, but this too will be ultimately driven by and for the nonprofit, noncommercial, world-benefitting purposes of the Digital Universe.

The Digital Universe is not Nupedia. How will it be different? Let me count the ways. (1) It will be more than an encyclopedia (see above). As to the encyclopedia component: (2) It will use a wiki for article development. (3) It will be quite simple; it will certainly not have seven steps. (4) Ordinary uncredentialed people will be able to start articles in the public area without editor approval. (5) There will be an article rating system for public-area articles. Also: (6) The Digital Universe, or more specifically, ManyOne Networks, has a business model that has an excellent chance of funding the work of experts (Nupedia had no such model)–although we cannot make any commitments yet, as the subscription service is just now getting started. (7) The Digital Universe is led by Joe Firmage and Bernard Haisch, not by Jimmy Wales; unlike Jimmy, Firmage and Haisch have from the start been absolutely committed to a vision of an expert-led Web. They will not abandon expert contributors, as Nupedia’s leaders were abandoned. Finally, (8) the Digital Universe is post-Nupedia and post-Wikipedia. I was involved in the founding of both projects, and I understand as well as anyone what the strengths and weaknesses of both projects were and are. I am helping to design the Digital Universe having learned from this experience; so, as far as I am concerned, you can expect the Digital Universe to be better than both projects. It will replicate their strengths and jettison their weaknesses.

One last remark on this point: I am quite sure that the reason that people say that the Digital Universe is “just Nupedia revived” is that they want it to fail, as Nupedia failed–although, as I have argued at length, it is more accurate to say that it was, irresponsibly, allowed to wither untended. Many of those who suggest that the Digital Universe is no more than Nupedia believe that any project in which experts have authority must fail, because, from now on in their eyes, only radically egalitarian projects like Wikipedia can possibly succeed. Of course, this sounds ridiculous, but it is how some people appear to think. And, of course, this viewpoint is wrong. More generally, what very many Web 2.0 thinkers fail to realize is that it is possible to distinguish openness, collaboration, and public participation on the one hand, from radical egalitarianism and near anarchy, on the other. The Digital Universe will demonstrate that it is possible to have the former without the latter.

I (and probably the rest of the leaders of the project) believe the Digital Universe will have the lowest error rate in history. A recent Nature study compared articles from Encyclopedia Britannica and Wikipedia on 42 different scientific subjects, and showed that while the former had on average about 3 errors or omissions, the latter had only 4. For the record, I don’t think that one study in one general subject area, measuring just one type of metric, can possibly establish what many people have said it establishes (viz., that Wikipedia is nearly as reliable as the Britannica). Nevertheless, a few people have used the study to argue that there is no need for a Digital Universe encyclopedia, and even to suggest that the quality of Wikipedia articles will outstrip that of Digital Universe encyclopedia articles. This suggestion is incorrect, as I will explain.

The Digital Universe encyclopedia will feature a very similar wiki-based editing system; like Wikipedia, and unlike the Britannica, many hands will be able to keep articles maximally complete and correct. But unlike Wikipedia, the project will be led by experts, who will have the final say in how articles presented to the public will read. A strongly collaborative project like this, led by experts, has the very best chance, in my opinion, to absolutely eliminate identifiable errors. After all, the scientists who reviewed articles on behalf of the Nature study–who determined whether something was an error in the first place–are exactly the sort of scientists who will be involved in the Digital Universe. Moreover, unlike Britannica articles, Digital Universe encyclopedia articles will be open to editing by multiple scientists and scholars, in real time. It seems highly likely that, if the Digital Universe succeeds in attracting adequate expert participation, it will have the lowest humanly-identifiable error rate in history: that is the beauty of the idea of marrying strong collaboration with expert participation.