Joseph Reagle talks about “Is Wikipedia Neutral?” He says that question provokes scoffs from academics. He started out thinking “neutrality” was a bad term to use, but now he’s not so sure. [As always, I’m paraphrasing poorly.] For one thing, the term acts as a “heat shield,” allowing discourse to focus on writing an encyclopedia. But there are difficulties, he says. Is there a non-circular definition? Is it talking about the platform, processes, policies, people, practices or articles?

He points to the ancient practice of deciding who’s “it” by doing a “one potato, two potato” protocol. Wikipedia can learn about playing fair from this.

From policy neutrality in technical standards, we can learn to seek “plurality and impartiality, where possible” but with “a relization that this impartiality itself might have less than desirable consequences.” E.g., the PICS standard was neutral but would have helped China be even more totalitarian.

From content neutrality in speech regulation, we learn that we need an explicit justification for discrimination.

From neutrality in times of war, we can learn the value of staying engaged with all even while not participating in the war.

He provides considered definitions of objective, neutral and transparent. Objective means the claims correspond to reality, and are made within a validating framework. Neutrality means that the claims are satisfactory to the claims’ constituencies. Transparent means the claims don’t pretend to be objective nor accommodating various constituences, but “plainly represent the speaker’s bias.” (He acknowledges there are problems with all of these.)

A framework for neutrality: Sensitivity to multiple claims, a notion of impartiality and pluarlity, sporstmanlike good-faith and adherence to known rules, and a commitment to use least-onerous rules to improve.

Is “neutral” the right word to talk about Wikipedia? Yes. It’s better than “unbiased,” the original coinage of Nupedia. Wikipedia aims at countering systemic bias. It is struggling to supporting the world’s languages. And neutrality is “not understood so much as an end result, but as a process and frame of mind.” [I’ve done way too much compression…]

Q: Is it neutral to point a long set of paragraphs denying the Holocaust in the Holocaust article?
A: There are ways to handle this… [Sorry, I’m not presenting his answer adequately.]

Q: [me] Really interesting presentation. But doesn’t this just push the question of neutrality further down? The contending “constituencies” are satisfied but there’s a decision about which constituencies to take seriously.

A: Yes, this is tough. Wikipedia is practical and tries to come up with practical solutions… [Tags: wikimania2006 wikipediabetsy_devine]

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