4 ms·

<quote> My goals are pretty easy to understand, but grand in scope (more fun that way, eh?): to build a global, multilingual, high quality, neutral news service

by eeks 9y ago

<quote> My goals are pretty easy to understand, but grand in scope (more fun that way, eh?): to build a global, multilingual, high quality, neutral news service. </quote> There is no such things as neutral news. But you can strive for some good, honest reporting with high journalistic standards.

Cyberdog 9y ago
Seeing how poorly Wikipedia succeeds at neutrality much of the time, I don't have much hope this project will do any better.
- alexandercrohde 9y ago
  What are you benchmarking against? As compared to what you'll read in published books on the shelf (which seem to write whatever they feel like) or even mainstream media or even the average professor, I think wikipedia does an outstanding job.
- waynecochran 9y ago
  You can't create what can't exist. Neutrality at best is just presenting as many different (credible) views as possible, but usually contains a "straw man" or two.
  - msla 9y ago
    As Wikipedia defines it, anyway, neutrality is biased towards the current scientific consensus, which cuts down on the fringe content and makes the supporters of things like homeopathy very, very angry: They think neutrality should mean "every position gets taken equally seriously", which is false balance, and go a bit berserk when Wikipedia's rules make the homeopathy article largely anti-homeopathy, by presenting the best current knowledge as fact and presenting homeopathy itself as discredited. There's no way to have a coherent, readable article which is philosophically neutral. Good thing Wikipedia doesn't try.
    - glenstein 9y ago
      This is a very important point. The problem with satisfying people's desires for neutrality is that people have incompatible, often incoherent ideas about what neutrality is supposed to be. Naturally, some people don't like Wikipedia's version of neutrality, though I happen to think it's quite a good one: neutral in its reflection of what reliable sources say, not substantively neutral on subject matter. So I'm not particularly troubled by the problem as it pertains to WikiTribune. The fact that some people don't like their notion of neutrality isn't a problem with them in particular, so much as an inevitability that reflects the way people with incompatible opinions will react to any possible version of neutrality. So the question should be which among the notions of neutrality that will inevitably anger some people is the most preferable.
tyrust 9y ago
>There is no such things as neutral news. That's a big statement, can you elaborate? Surely there can be objective reporting on events. So do you mean that filtration that a news organization must perform (i.e. it's impossible to report on every event) will have some bias?
- ThrustVectoring 9y ago
  Every algorithm for promoting certain articles over others favors some groups over others. Even if you evaluate on neutral grounds, you're still favoring the groups that are in fact able to get you to consider things as news (eg, news wire services, active contributors, etc).
  - tyrust 9y ago
    >Every algorithm for promoting certain articles over others favors some groups over others. You could present articles in chronological order. >you're still favoring the groups that are in fact able to get you to consider things as news Yeah, that's essentially what I was saying.
    - ThrustVectoring 9y ago
      Let me elaborate and be more concrete. Suppose a special interest group - say, Comcast's PR team - wants your organization to consider their press release as "news". Either you accept their claim of newsworthiness and have more of a "for" slant, or reject or modify their claim and have more of an "anti" slant. Or another example: the website itself is far easier to contribute to with stable electrical supply, broadband internet access, and an ample supply of free time. You can bet that the news is going to be more relevant to white-collar first-world educated folks than subsistence farmers in rural India. I mean, yeah, Indian subsistence farmers could contribute in principle, but in practice, you're going to get a lot of news suggestions from other folks, and those suggestions are going to wind up as news articles.
      - tyrust 9y ago
alecco 9y ago
By neutral he means aligned with his own biases.

by eeks 9y ago

Cyberdog 9y ago

Seeing how poorly Wikipedia succeeds at neutrality much of the time, I don't have much hope this project will do any better.

alexandercrohde 9y ago
What are you benchmarking against? As compared to what you'll read in published books on the shelf (which seem to write whatever they feel like) or even mainstream media or even the average professor, I think wikipedia does an outstanding job.
waynecochran 9y ago
You can't create what can't exist. Neutrality at best is just presenting as many different (credible) views as possible, but usually contains a "straw man" or two.
- msla 9y ago
  As Wikipedia defines it, anyway, neutrality is biased towards the current scientific consensus, which cuts down on the fringe content and makes the supporters of things like homeopathy very, very angry: They think neutrality should mean "every position gets taken equally seriously", which is false balance, and go a bit berserk when Wikipedia's rules make the homeopathy article largely anti-homeopathy, by presenting the best current knowledge as fact and presenting homeopathy itself as discredited. There's no way to have a coherent, readable article which is philosophically neutral. Good thing Wikipedia doesn't try.
  - glenstein 9y ago
    This is a very important point. The problem with satisfying people's desires for neutrality is that people have incompatible, often incoherent ideas about what neutrality is supposed to be. Naturally, some people don't like Wikipedia's version of neutrality, though I happen to think it's quite a good one: neutral in its reflection of what reliable sources say, not substantively neutral on subject matter. So I'm not particularly troubled by the problem as it pertains to WikiTribune. The fact that some people don't like their notion of neutrality isn't a problem with them in particular, so much as an inevitability that reflects the way people with incompatible opinions will react to any possible version of neutrality. So the question should be which among the notions of neutrality that will inevitably anger some people is the most preferable.

tyrust 9y ago

>There is no such things as neutral news. That's a big statement, can you elaborate? Surely there can be objective reporting on events. So do you mean that filtration that a news organization must perform (i.e. it's impossible to report on every event) will have some bias?

ThrustVectoring 9y ago
Every algorithm for promoting certain articles over others favors some groups over others. Even if you evaluate on neutral grounds, you're still favoring the groups that are in fact able to get you to consider things as news (eg, news wire services, active contributors, etc).
- tyrust 9y ago
  >Every algorithm for promoting certain articles over others favors some groups over others. You could present articles in chronological order. >you're still favoring the groups that are in fact able to get you to consider things as news Yeah, that's essentially what I was saying.
  - ThrustVectoring 9y ago
    Let me elaborate and be more concrete. Suppose a special interest group - say, Comcast's PR team - wants your organization to consider their press release as "news". Either you accept their claim of newsworthiness and have more of a "for" slant, or reject or modify their claim and have more of an "anti" slant. Or another example: the website itself is far easier to contribute to with stable electrical supply, broadband internet access, and an ample supply of free time. You can bet that the news is going to be more relevant to white-collar first-world educated folks than subsistence farmers in rural India. I mean, yeah, Indian subsistence farmers could contribute in principle, but in practice, you're going to get a lot of news suggestions from other folks, and those suggestions are going to wind up as news articles.
    - tyrust 9y ago

alecco 9y ago

By neutral he means aligned with his own biases.