<CPOV> Ilmpedia

[Elad Wieder]

One of the very apparent deficiencies of Wikipedia, inherent to choosing
wiki as the platform for building and encyclopedia, is that is does not
serve as a "market" for opinions or for PoVs; rather it is being used as a
battlefield for getting one's PoV to prevail: only one version of a
document/term is presented to the general public at each point in time.

One may say that ideally the version presented in Wikipedia should be
pluralistic so to represent different PoVs for each term/subject, but this
way of thinking by itself is very much a liberal PoV, biased by itself; it
can be argued on behalf of any dogmatic PoV (be it any of the religions or
dogmas like political stands etc.) that in order to "do justice" with its
arguments, the public should be able to observe its definitions (or
encyclopedic entries) in a holistic manner, not being digested and compared
to other ideas on a "by paragraph" basis.

Because Wikipedia does not enable the presentation of parallel dogmatic PoVs
to the general public in the same time, those who support other PoVs
(essentially, less pluralistic/liberal) are driven to come up with
separated encyclopedias.

The outcome, IMHO, is that dominant sectors would get tired from the
"battlefield" and thus from the dialog; the "pluralistic" Wikipedia will
either (1) be hijacked by a certain dogma, or (2) lack the contribution of
the "enthusiasts" who in turn will go to present their ideas on a separate,
more supportive, stage.



Elad


On Mon, Jun 14, 2010 at 17:04, Maja van der Velden <majava at ifi.uio.no>wrote:

> Hi Juliana,
>
> I am traveling and i don't have much time. I find this an interesting
> topic. I am sorry i have to be brief in my reply. Maybe i misunderstand, but
> i understand in this context 'christianization' and 'western' as different
> from each other. I based my comment on the fact that there are christian
> websites, christian search engines, christian software releases (e.g.
> http://www.ubuntuce.com/) etc. that target people with Christian religious
> beliefs.
>
> In my CPOV presentation i proposed the idea of a distributed Wikipedia. I
> know that is understood as something else as the sites mentioned in your
> article. But i think we already have many POVs. Having your POV made
> invisible may do more harm.
>
> Greetings,
>
> Maja
>
>
> On Jun 14, 2010, at 3:47 PM, Juliana Brunello wrote:
>
>  Hi Maja,
>>
>> I don't believe we can speak of 'christianization of the web', but from a
>> 'westernization'. Basically, the internet was born in the west and it was
>> only natural for it to represent western views. I do praise diversity, but
>> that was not my point. The question is, if separating povs - a chinese
>> encyclopedia, a muslim, a 'western' - that do not communicate with one
>> another. Will the definitions of reality of each nation be strengthen and
>> cooperation and understanding among them be weakened?
>>
>> Juliana
>>
>>  Hi Juliana,
>>>
>>> We can also speak of the 'christianization on the web' - but that
>>> trend does not seem to attract the same media coverage.
>>>
>>> About 'separatism': If 'western' is perceived as representative of the
>>> world, then, I guess you can call the move away 'separatism'.
>>>
>>> I find it sometimes more productive to look for the differences
>>> (diversity) within a system or category and the similarities across
>>> systems or categories.
>>>
>>> Greetings,
>>>
>>> Maja
>>>
>>> On Jun 14, 2010, at 2:39 PM, Juliana Brunello wrote:
>>>
>>>  Islamicfacebook.com, NaqaTube, imhalal.com and now Ilmpedia. These
>>>> are all
>>>> Muslim sites based on well known 'western' social sites. Ilmpedia
>>>> will be
>>>> an encyclopedia based mostly on Islamic sources. The article linked
>>>> below
>>>> states that "websites like these are part of a growing trend of
>>>> Islamisation on the web". I ask myself, what the consequences of this
>>>> separatism from the 'western' websites are going to be. Will we have
>>>> more
>>>> information sources with different povs, so that we will be able to
>>>> form
>>>> our own opinions in a more balanced way; or will we have the
>>>> opposite, one
>>>> stream fighting the other and strengthening biased povs even more? I
>>>> wish
>>>> for the first, but I am not all too positive about it.
>>>>
>>>> http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=244958
>>>>
>>>> Juliana
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Institute of Network Cultures
>>>> HvA Interactive Media
>>>> t: +31 (0)20 595 18 66
>>>> f: +31 (0)20 595 18 40
>>>> www.networkcultures.org
>>>>
>>>>
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>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>
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