In another post I pointed out that I think Conservapedia is a bit of a tragedy. An encyclopedia, with or without an explicit point of view, should ideally be an interesting and useful reference work. That goal needs to be front-and-center, over and above questions of how to resolve editorial disputes or whatever.
An encyclopedia with a point of view should still have high quality standards and a focus on collecting information that readers will want. Conservapedia seemed to instantly go in a direction of "hey, a forum to score political points! whoo!!".
One thing that might help (apart from cultural issues about people's motivations for contributing, maybe?) would be to say that articles are still expected to present all significant points of view (just as Wikipedia NPOV aspires to do), without the constraint that the article has to avoid favoring one of them (or has to give them weight in proportion to their presence in particular media outlets). I've seen the Catholic Encyclopedia and Jewish Encyclopedia try to fairly explain other religions' histories, practices, and tenets, and sometimes then mention the ways that those religious contradict Catholic or Jewish teachings. The main intended use of this information may be missionary or counter-missionary, but it's trying to be careful and thorough and also not tendentious -- it's not like "we have to slip in a THIS IS TOTALLY WRONG AND DUMB AND SO ARE PEOPLE WHO BELIEVE IT remark every other sentence when writing about other belief systems".
Also, trying to edit and add encyclopedic content that isn't just focused on disagreements with other points of view or positions...
One thing I was just reminded of is Paul Graham's Hierarchy of Disagreement:
A great thing would be for consciously-POV encyclopedias to always aim as high up on the Hierarchy of Disagreement as they can, on all topics. Imagine having a POV encyclopedia article on the Israel-Palestine conflict, or the U.S. abortion debate, for example, that argued or concluded that one side was "right" but still tried hard to fairly describe the beliefs and motivations of the "wrong" side and its supporters, and also mentioned historical events or facts that reflected well on the "wrong" side or poorly on the "right" side. More generally, one such that reading it made you genuinely more informed about the background and context of the issue, and better-equipped to have meaningful, substantive conversations about it with someone with a different background or opinion!
An encyclopedia with a point of view should still have high quality standards and a focus on collecting information that readers will want. Conservapedia seemed to instantly go in a direction of "hey, a forum to score political points! whoo!!".
One thing that might help (apart from cultural issues about people's motivations for contributing, maybe?) would be to say that articles are still expected to present all significant points of view (just as Wikipedia NPOV aspires to do), without the constraint that the article has to avoid favoring one of them (or has to give them weight in proportion to their presence in particular media outlets). I've seen the Catholic Encyclopedia and Jewish Encyclopedia try to fairly explain other religions' histories, practices, and tenets, and sometimes then mention the ways that those religious contradict Catholic or Jewish teachings. The main intended use of this information may be missionary or counter-missionary, but it's trying to be careful and thorough and also not tendentious -- it's not like "we have to slip in a THIS IS TOTALLY WRONG AND DUMB AND SO ARE PEOPLE WHO BELIEVE IT remark every other sentence when writing about other belief systems".
Also, trying to edit and add encyclopedic content that isn't just focused on disagreements with other points of view or positions...
One thing I was just reminded of is Paul Graham's Hierarchy of Disagreement:
http://www.paulgraham.com/disagree.html
A great thing would be for consciously-POV encyclopedias to always aim as high up on the Hierarchy of Disagreement as they can, on all topics. Imagine having a POV encyclopedia article on the Israel-Palestine conflict, or the U.S. abortion debate, for example, that argued or concluded that one side was "right" but still tried hard to fairly describe the beliefs and motivations of the "wrong" side and its supporters, and also mentioned historical events or facts that reflected well on the "wrong" side or poorly on the "right" side. More generally, one such that reading it made you genuinely more informed about the background and context of the issue, and better-equipped to have meaningful, substantive conversations about it with someone with a different background or opinion!