[Wikipedia-l] non-English Wikipedias

Thu Dec 4 17:36:53 UTC 2003

Yann Forget wrote:

>Hi,
>
>>Karl Eichwalder wrote:
>>
>>This sort of tangentially raises an issue that's been in the back of my
>>mind for a while: to what extent can the non-English Wikipedias be
>>expected to reach the same levels of NPOV as the English one?  
>>
>Excuse me. I can't agree with that.
>
>Your argumentation assumes that because the contributors of the  English
>WP come from "all over the world", it is more NPOV. On my POV, the English
>is not more NPOV than others (at least the French one which I know),
>because the fact is that there are very few contributors from Arab,
>African and Asian coutries. In fact, most of the contributors come from
>rich countries and very few from Third World countries.
>
>But that also true for other WP. And that OK as long as you don't pretend
>that it is perfectly NPOV. It is NPOV for English contributors from rich
>countries. Not exactly the same. ;o)
>
NPOV is an ideal that we hopefully all strive for.  Hopefully each edit 
gets us closer to it.  What Yann says about the French WP is just as 
true about English.  What participation have we had from Ghana, or 
Guyana, or Kiribati?  These are all officially English speaking countries.  

Still, the NPOV issue needs to be sorted out and worked out separately 
for each language.  Any attempt to impose it or enforce it may be a 
violation of Star Trek's prime directive by the English speakers.  It's 
as stupid as sending troops to another country to enforce democracy. 
 The best way to ensure NPOV may be to model it, not just in what we 
write but in how we respect what others write.  The second tool may be 
by helping when asked to help, and almost only when asked to help.

Neutrality can be a moving target.  It changes as the community change. 
 In a language WP with only one member it is perfectly achieved; adding 
only one more member to it puts it completely out of balance, and new 
accomodations must be found.  The issues that will be important to a 
language group will also vary with time.  For a young community 
formatting, disambiguating, and getting the software to work with the 
language may be the most important issue.  If at the same time all 
members of that community share the same POV about abortion (whether for 
or against) it is as neutral as you can expect under the circumstances.

Ec