The Digital Universe really is the solution.

I left Wikipedia for reasons stated here, here, and (earlier) here. Bomis lost the ability to pay me (I was the last of many Bomis employees to be laid off, I was told), and I was not about to devalue my labor by continuing to do what I was doing without pay; besides, I needed a job. But I permanently distanced myself from the project, and later began criticizing it, because it was clear to me that Jimmy Wales did not personally intend to do what it would take to solve the problems I described here. Then, surely not by coincidence, I was hired by Joe Firmage to work with Bernard Haisch and many others to build the Digital Universe.

I didn’t say that all Wikipedia entries have problems with NPOV, or that it wasn’t achievable in some cases. But I wondered whether NPOV was possible in these particular cases with an open system. I can see that Wikipedia is trying to close off edits or monitor them more closely on some subjects. Is that still an open system? And who decides what to close off?

I don’t claim to have all the answers, and that’s why I closed by asking for other people’s opinions on this. I appreciate hearing yours.

I think that achieving NPOV for controversial subjects is difficult, and only possible when you include more controls, more moderation and a clear, transparent chain of who’s deciding what.

Or if you neuter the article, as Blissyu2 suggests.

Can you explain why you left Wikipedia?

If you said, for example:

“George W. Bush was born on (date) in (area) and his father, George H. Bush was a former president. George W. Bush was governor of Texas and is currently president of USA”.

Things along those lines are purely factual and hence neutral.

The problem is that the “meat”, or the interesting areas of an article by their very nature cannot be neutral. You could easily make every article neutral, but to do so you would need to make them all very short, and rather useless. I personally prefer a biased article that teaches me something to a neutral article that teaches me nothing. There is nothing wrong with bias, as long as we have some idea what that bias is, and account for it. Just so long as it is factually accurate.

If I may extend your comment about Wikipedia’s *implementation* of the NPOV policy, I would note that people are expecting the wrong thing from Wikipedia. The expectation is that Wikipedia has already achieved its goal of neutrality. Far from it! “Wikipedia” is an ambiguous term. It refers both to the encyclopaedia and the project to build that encyclopaedia. We can therefore see that Wikipedia isn’t finished! We haven’t made it yet! Nor, indeed, do we claim to have done.

Now, this could easily be taken as excusing Wikipedia’s errors, along the lines of “It’s not our problem – you shouldn’t expect us to be perrfect”. On the contrary. You SHOULD expect us to be perfect. You SHOULD get cross when we don’t manage it. If people don’t get annoyed with bias and inaccuracies, they’ll never get fixed. But, all the same, we aren’t going to manage all this straightaway, however much we should.

There are certainly legitimate criticisms of Wikipedia-the-project. Lack of respect for experts in their fields is an issue, and it is one that needs to be addressed. This doesn’t, of course, mean that Wikipedia should take their words as gospel truth. That would contravene the idea of NPOV. But it does mean that give them respect when they edit and give them credit for their credentials (this notably already happens in the field of theology with several users). And it is certainly possible to criticise Wikipedia-the-encyclopaedia’s current state.

But I agree with Larry, here, that Wikipedia’s goals *are* achievable, and I believe this can happen with the open environment remaining intact. However, it does need some changing, particularly in respect towards people who are experts in their field.

And yes, George W. Bush is currently a very, very difficult subject to be neutral on. But truth is the daughter of time, and, I believe, a neutral Wikipedia article on Bush will happen.

Just not quite yet.

I am glad that you wrote this response, as it was important to see it from the point of view of the person who developed the Neutral Point of View policy. It is a pity that Wikipedia does not point this out clearly enough, as you should be given all due credit for this.

I have written my response to the article on the article itself, and feel no need to add further comment, other than to say thank you to you for giving your voice. It will help greatly in enabling people to understand the issue.

Adrian