How is the war in Georgia described in the Georgian language Wikipedia and in the Russian language version? That would be very interesting to know. Ideally, if the Wikipedia norm of neutral point of view (NPOV) works, the variations on the important issues between those two versions and the entry about the war in English version should be small. But if we assume there are significant differences, then at least the English version should give us the global common ground on the events, as it were. This is important, no, it is crucial, because Wikipedia entries will increasingly be the first stop for users when they look for background information to an ongoing event — especially when the event includes otherwise obscure places such as South Ossetia and Abkhazia (obscure for the great majority of the world’s citizens). Wikipedia does not have the same strong, direct impact as the big media, but since journalists also are heavy Wikipedia users, there is reason to believe that the indirect impact on the interpretation of events and presentation of news is substantial. And because Wikipedia is so easily accessible, you can get up to speed on an unknown and difficult topic in a very short time. For example, if you as journalist take the time to read about ethnic cleansing of Georgians in Abkhazia, that will surely influence how you interpret the current conflict in that area.
Hence, Wikipedia will become more and more important in global opinion formation, but will the Wikipedia model work under these conditions? Or will it be broken down by ever more violent edit wars? Is reform the solution, such as more stable versions of Wikipedia? It would be interesting to hear active Wikipedia contributors’ views on this. NPOV is evolving into a really important political idea, or norm. Can it be upheld?
