How Neutral Can Kazakh-Language Wikipedians Be?
from the telling-it-as-it-is dept
Although there has been some sniping about the quality of Wikipedia's entries from time to time, we generally take it for granted that when key articles are missing they will get written, and that if they are unbalanced, they will gradually get better -- all thanks to the open, collaborative editing process that sorts out such problems. But an interesting post on registan.net notes that these dynamics may not apply to some versions of Wikipedia -- for example, the one written in the Kazakh language:
I also find the idea that thousands of diligent volunteer Kazakh Wikipedians are hard at work writing up an unbiased encyclopedia of the world and of their country [hard to believe]. The incentives for it are all wrong. The rewards for glowing diatribes on [Kazakhstan's President] Nazarbayev's Kazakhstan are clear, but the risks involved in challenging that narrative are equally so.
It's an important point. Wikipedia may request a "neutral point of view" from all its contributors, but when the consequences of telling the unvarnished truth are rather less pleasant than embellishing the facts a little, we can hardly blame people in countries like Kazakhstan for straying from the Wikipedian ideal.
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Filed Under: kazakhstan, language, neutrality, wikipedia
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It's still probably less biased and more useful than any state sponsored encyclopaedia would be (especially in printed form), but it's a problem.
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As long as you use Wikipedia with the understanding that it is a popularity contest of current knowledge, you'll be fine.
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The truthfulness of a Wikipedia article will converge to the truth only to the extent that the editors' societies allow the truth to be accurately reported.
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1) A large percentage of people ever travel far from the region of birth (generally state/province level much less nation of origin) for an prolonged period of time so rarely have much first hand experience in how good or bad things are by comparison (and understanding something conceptually is vastly different from understanding them experientially).
2)Few people ever really take the time to observe the seamier underbellies of the region the inhabit, much less regions outside their own, unless/until that underbelly somehow affects them directly.
3)Those most familiar with the darker parts of their region/culture are often they least able to inform others about the dangers.
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This isn't all that new
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It's not just not neutral, it's being helped along by Jimmy Wales
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What?!
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