Re: [Bug-gnupedia] Separating content from presentation

[Bob Dodd]

[snip]
> As a general point, I'm drawn towards the idea of a 'free'
> encyclopedia, in
> part as an opportunity for people who don't have easy access to
> Britannica
> or the like.  However, I feel strongly that the quality of articles
> is
> important to maintain the projects credibility.  And for that there
> has to
> be a degree of editorship, and the right (and responsibility) not to
> accept
> just anything that comes along.  Someone who doesn't believe in the
> holacaust will be emotionally difficult to deal with for a lot of
> people,
> but if  an author can produce a researched article (reasonably) free
> of
> retoric, then surely it ought to be accepted as a viewpoint, and
> balanced by
> other more conventional articles.

I know, it's the problem of getting the balance right (which is Jimbo's
justification for the Nupedia approach to article/author selection and
editing), the problem is always how you acheive that balance...

I think my suggestion of separating content and classification to
provide multiple views of the same material goes a long way towards
hitting that balance; if you don't like certain types of content,
choose a view that excludes them.

It doesn't solve the whole problem though, and you are right, we do
have to reject some submissions: plagiarised content, "hello mum",
"test",  "this is my first post" messages, obvious pornography (though
quite what we would do with an entry on "pornography" I'm not sure: it
would seem a little prudish to make it entirely text based, but if you
allow pictures where do you draw the line?  And what happens if the
article is about "anatomy"?), and obvious spam.  After that it gets a
little more difficult.

/Bob Dodd







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