Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Countering systemic bias/Archive 7

Archive 1

←

Archive 5

Archive 6

Archive 7

Archive 8

Archive 9

Archive 10

Countering Systemic Bias v Ensuring Global Perspective

The current title makes the issue sound as if we're victims fighting back against general Wikipedian oppression, when globalists are supposed to be leading the way - a much more positive connotation. -Everyone- can be part of a globalist movement for truth, but "countering systemic bias" sounds like only victims are welcome to join. A globalist perspective should be a natural outgrowth of "the world educates the world" mission of Wikipedia - no reason to blame anyone. (Except for insular stubbornness, as in the Christian Bible thing - but that sounds like just one Wikipedian being weird.) 19 June 2005

Your point is well taken, but do you have a better title in mind? I think the current title is pretty good, because it is clear; but you're right that it approaches the issue in an inherently negative way. — mark ✎ 08:55, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

The better title is in the title - 'Ensuring Global Perspective' (unsigned)

Agree, much better and clearer --PopUpPirate 00:28, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Addressing Anti-Jewish Bias

The above page has just been nominated for deletion. I was just wondering if this was something that had been discussed here and what the likely outcome would be for this page being nominated for deletion? See Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/WikiProject Addressing Anti-Jewish Bias. I have initially voted for useful content to be merged here but I'm not entirely sure of that vote - it may change. -- Francs2000 | Talk 21:18, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I'm afraid this results from a misunderstanding of what WikiProject Countering systemic bias really aims for. We're not the NPOV police; we're here to correct bias on a meta-level. — mark ✎ 08:50, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

OK, please accept my apologies. -- Francs2000 | Talk 09:16, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I think that there should be a new project to counter Judaeofascism in articles by an administrator named User:Jayjg. He persecutes anybody who doesn't follow his lead on what any article says or does not say about Jews and Judaism. His friends who are also Jewish, share his propensity for steering the articles in their favour. They think it is unbecoming of Goy people to "interfere" in articles that just might say the word "Jew" or affiliated nouns and events related to said topic. If it has nothing at all to do with Jews, then they do not bother and so leave the people alone. How is their systemic bias allowed? By the way, I notice that the website has been hijacked by Nazis and Islamists just as bad. I have already had an encounter with a Nazi and have seen Nazis lurking about here, but how is that different than the Zionists especially the ones who pretend to be tolerant? How is that different than Muslims coming here to say that their religion is only of peace and that Christians are evil. I furthermore and disgusted by Jewish attempts to juxtapose Muslims problems as caused singularly by Christians and not as the result of Jews in any way. TheUnforgiven 8 July 2005 21:29 (UTC)

I think that you should read the posts just above yours. — mark ✎ 8 July 2005 23:09 (UTC)

Whilst there are obviously influential Zionists around here, Jayjg chief among them, I don't think that Nazis are tolerated much. — Chameleon 8 July 2005 23:25 (UTC)

I'm sorry, Chameleon, are you saying that the way to balance Zionists would be to have an equal number of Nazis? Would you say that French nationalists need to be balanced by people who wish to exterminate the French? The balance that is needed is that there ought to be comparable numbers of non-Zionists and anti-Zionists editing in areas where Zionism is an issue: not that there need to be more Jew-haters. We may currently fall short of the balance we should have, but I hope you are not suggesting that Wikipedia should be actively encouraging participation by genocidaires. -- Jmabel | Talk 23:33, August 9, 2005 (UTC)

I think there indeed is a systemetic pro-Isreal bias in Wikipedia due to the demographics. Many editors come from the USA and the pro-Isreal bias in US media gets reflected in the articles. The problem with US media coverage of the Middle East conflicts probably has it's roots in the cold war and the propaganda haven't been cleared out yet. // Liftarn (apparently around 9 Aug 2005)

New WikiProjects and Wikiportals

Just wanted to announce the creation of two new portals with some relevance: Wikipedia:Wikiportal/Algeria and Wikipedia:Wikiportal/Palestine. - Mustafaa 22:33, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Is there a WikiProject_Palestine and WikiProject_Algeria ??? Makes for better organization and categorization when you have a Project/Portal team. see? Quinobi 9 July 2005 01:54 (UTC)

Just wanted to announce the creation of a Portal_Project with some relevance:

• WikiProject_Culture for managing Wikiportal/Culture Please join. Quinobi 9 July 2005 01:54 (UTC)

News and Information Service

Read and write: WikiPraxis - WikiProject News and Information Quinobi 9 July 2005 01:54 (UTC)

Countering U.S. bias against Canadian bloggers

If you're interested in countering systematic Wikipedia U.S. bias, Progressive Bloggers is currently up for deletion. It is an article about a coalition of Canadian bloggers. It seems to be a case of defining "notable" from a U.S. perspective. mennonot 22:01, 10 July 2005 (UTC)

As the editor who put it in VfD, I don't find this true at all. It was about defining "notable" for websites. Websites, by their very nature, are worldwide. Honestly, the overt nationalism that I remember from the VfD was generally pro-Canadian, not anti-Canadian. The assertion was frequently made that only Canadians were qualified to judge the merits of the article. I think Wikipedia should behave as a worldwide community, and not discount editor's opinions simply because of where they happen to be from. I've taken to purposely trying to avoid saying where I live, for this very reason. Friday 17:44, 16 July 2005 (UTC)

It should be pointed out that Alexa ratings/toolbar only works with users that have both Windows and IE installed. 63% of Prog Blogs users use the Firefox browser, according to the Prog Blogs sys admin. Using Alexa ratings so prominently in VfD votes seems not only to be a bias against websites of small countries, but also a bias against those websites whose users use primarily non-Microsoft browsers --Simon.Pole 22:09, 16 July 2005 (UTC)

To be fair, the Alexa ratings of the site were very far outside the realm of the numbers suggested by Wikipedia:websites. It was nowhere near a borderline case. The point of some of the guidelines is to prevent creation of encyclopedia articles on subjects of only local importance. I could write about a local website or a local band, but it's proper for the community to delete such articles if no wider influence can be established. Friday 22:34, 16 July 2005 (UTC)

To be fair, Canada is hardly a 'local band' (It *could* be taken as insulting by. . . well. . . Canadians. . . that you would suggest that), and deleting a set of articles that clearly and accurately introduce groups of political commentators that are almost universally considered crucial to the political process by the Canadian Media (especially given the categorically and similarly low Alexa Rankings of the websites of similarly influencial Canadian commentators who have their own pages ) is a little bit of a stretch, and clearly fits in as a special case here in my opinion. Frankly, it seems really odd to me that given the importance of these blogs to the political process in Canada (something that seems increasingly unique to the Canadian political process), that this article would even be considered for deletion at all. The Wikipedia articles are concise, accurate, NPOV, and give a better idea of the nature of the forum than the sites themselves even do. This is especially important because this is the *second time* these articles have been submitted for deletion, and last time they were kept. I believe that they should be protected, as the deletion debate definitely reflects systemic bias by people who clearly don't understand the *way* they are important, particularly to Canada (Internationalism is not a negation of regional issues, it is intended to *embrace them*, and view them as unique), and the reasons why they don't fit the mold the debate about their deletion is being forced into. Incidentally, I view: "The assertion was frequently made that only Canadians were qualified to judge the merits of the article." as an argument against deletion. That is, after all, the entire argument made in the systemic bias article whose talk page we're on, is it not? If most of Wikipedia's (American) contributors who come across the article vote 'delete' because they (biased) don't understand why it's notable, that would indicate *exactly* the type of bias we're characterizing here. Also, a significant part of having a 'global community' is in acknowledging the distinctness of its constituent parts. Because a site has a pronounced 'local' focus (Canada is the second largest country in the world by land mass, so the argument is ironic if you look at a map while making it) does not mean it's not of 'global' importance. It's (IMO) a better argument that that enhances its global importance; it's a unique perspective. Sigma-6

As I understand it, the current proposal to delete this came about as one Wikipedian's take-no-prisoners War on Blogs. -- Jmabel | Talk 07:38, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

Find a full list of targeted blogs here: User:Timecop/The_war_on_blogs. One doesn't need to look much farther than the title of the project - "BLOGS UNDER TERMINATION FROM US QUEERS (B.U.T.F.U.Q)" - to assess the level of maturity and thoughtfulness at work here. This is apparently a project of The GNAA, a group of organzied trolls on the internet. User:Timecop is their self-proclaimed president. mennonot 17:03, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

Improvement drive

Public education is currently nominated on Wikipedia:This week's improvement drive, because it lacks geographical balance (currently content covers US only). If you are interested, you can vote for this article there. Also the nominations South America, Developing countries' debt, Gaborone, Acholi language, John III of Portugal, Asian values and Grameen Bank may be of interest to you.--Fenice 13:51, 16 July 2005 (UTC)

Totally missing the point

Not to be rude, but I have been ignoring this and similar "countering bias" projects here at Wikipedia for the better part of my 3.5 years here. These projects are missing the whole point.

To be truly objective requires commit to an absolute standard of truth, and to find what is really true, one must simultaneously keep an open mind. Bloom addressed this problem in The Closing of the American Mind, which largely went ignored - except for the "meaty" central chapters on the history of philosophy.

Far too many articles - especially on current, hot controversies - are utter failures. They are heavily biased with whatever is popular among Northern Hemisphere, English-speaking people.

The problem is a complete and unremitting refusal to distinguish between "what I believe" and "what is actually so". I mean, sometimes these do coincide, but not always, and certainly not automatically!

I have been stopped at every turn. Thwarted. Stymied.

Can't even get the simplest NPOV point into the flagship article of Wikipedia: Iraq War. Nothing is a hotter issue in the Western World than Bush's invasion. Uncle Ed 17:00, July 21, 2005 (UTC)

Ed, I don't mean to be rude, but your heading seems to be especially fitting. If you read the project and talk pages more closely, I think you'll know what I mean. — mark ✎ 19:28, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

I read them, and the point is not to correct the mistakes and really be right; rather it is not to think you are right at all. And that's why I disagree with your CSB approach: it's pernicious and vexing. Uncle Ed 23:07, July 21, 2005 (UTC)

rather it is not to think you are right at all. In this case, as in in many others, you would be wise to follow that philosophy. Missing the point indeed. - Xed 00:23, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

Er - "not to think you are right at all" - if you are recomending that people not be totally certain, and generally advocating for doubt, I agree. I'm in favor of doubt, myself. But if you are suggesting that people shouldn't believe that "what I believe" is "actually so" at all, that would seem to be crazy. If I don't believe that what I belive is real, that what do I belive is real? What I don't believe? ;-) I sympathize with your irritation, but I'm somewhat confused by your phrasing... (No offence intended.) JesseW 01:23, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

Delighted, in the most synchronistic way, to have come across all this work and thinking, which seems to me essential, though I do not wish to try to contribute at present - I have too much to learn about Wikipedia, about the phiosophy of NPOV and to try to contribute in other ways. But I have had a brief encounter with Uncle Ed on his page which explains why this work seems so important to me. Jeffrey Newman 07:49, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

Wikiproject Echo

WikiProject Echo is looking for participants to integrate information from other-language Wikipedias into the English one. The scope is to find articles present in another Wikipedia but not this one, and echo and translate them here. Some language skills recommended. This would be at least somewhat related to CSB, because many information in other Wikipedias is on local geography and local celebrities that may not be as well-known in the English-speaking world. Radiant_>|< 13:27, July 23, 2005 (UTC)

English language encyclopaedia or an international encyclopaedia

Two points:

The first one is to do with sources. Let us suppose there is an article on the "Third Ruritian War" If two sources are available. One in English on the web from a reputable organisation does that trump a reference in an obscure (to English readers) book only available in Ruritanian at the central library of Ruritania?--Philip Baird Shearer 14:46, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

If it is obscure to readers likely to know English(i.e. those who would be reading an encyclopeidia in English), then it is not as good as an equally reputable source which is more accessable. But, any source is better than none. JesseW 16:19, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

How does one check the facts are correct and not biased if they are not available in English? Should such a reference be allowed? Does translating it into English fall foul of WP:NOR. Does not translating it fall foul of WP:NOR?

I generally feel that translating a webpage with an automated tool is allowable, but translating by hand would be an unpublished derivative work, and so would fall under WP:NOR. JesseW 16:19, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

The catch here is that if extracting a quote from an English source is OK but not one from a foreign source then one can easily end up with "systemic bias". For example Wellington said "They came on in the same old way and we stopped them in the same old way". Now as it happens there are a lot of information on the Peninsular War and the Battle of Waterloo so that one can make such a judgement from other English sources and translations by others of the French POV on this. But what about if he were talking about the fighting in the Anglo-Mysore War (The British and their allies against France and her allies in India), and someone was to quote an Indian language source which is not translated into English to refute such a statment. If the Indian source is not available in an English translation and if that falls victim to WP:NOR, does a foreign reference and direct translation of a quote from German or French source fall under WP:NOR? If not, then is there a "systemic bias" towards first world sources over third word sources? -- Philip Baird Shearer 17:33, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

I'm a little confused. Yes, there is and will always be a systemic bias in a given language Wikipedia toward the sources that are written(or translated) into that language. If the people who read the language the edition is in can't read a source, they can't include it, obviously. As for the catch that otherwise innocent translations might get caught in WP:NOR, I don't think this a big issue - the English langauge scholarly bias against third world languages is far larger than Wikipedia, and I think this only reflects that. JesseW 04:07, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

JesseW, I'm not sure I follow you, re (in-)admissibility of non-english sources or their translations in en:Wiki. IMO, each of the many and varied language versions of Wikipedia has the same (extremely large)coverage set of potential articles, and ideally strives to document as large a portion of this as it can, as per notability, verifiability, NPOV & other guidelines. Re verifiability, naturally one would prefer to use primary or secondary sources in the same language, but there will equally naturally be times where these are not available, or "not as good as" the original language source. Citations in such instances ought to be admissible, it would seem presumptive to hold that readers of en:Wiki (for example) do not or cannot follow or translate a non-english source if they wish to check up on it. I don't see where original research comes into it, if an editor were to offer a gloss or free translation alongside a quote in some other language. But perhaps you mean something else?--cjllw | TALK 09:01, 2005 July 25 (UTC)

It's not the use of a quote in non-English language that might fall under NOR, but the inclusion of a quote from an unpublished translation that might. But that's Philip's argument, more than mine. And it's also important to note this only applies to sources, not translations of actual articles - the accuracy and reliablity of the newly translated article can be checked, independent of it's faithfullness to the original non-English version. This is not true with unpublished translations of non-English sources. It's late at night, so this may not make much sense; if so, I applogize and will try again when I am more awake... JesseW 09:20, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

---

The second one is a more practical example. It seems that to Spanish (and possibly French and Italian) speakers, that the phrase "The West" would include South American countries, but in English, Latin American is not usually included. Should the Western World be the definition as commonly used in the English language, or should it include without qualification the usage in other languages? --Philip Baird Shearer 14:46, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

AFAIK, the English edition of Wikipedia(i.e. this one) should be orientated in form to the expectations of English speakers; so they article Western World should not itself include Latin America, but(since the encyclopedia should contain all (national and international) content) it should mention, and link, a explanation that, to Spanish (and possibly French and Italian) speakers, the Western World would include Latin America. JesseW 16:19, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

If it is to be "oriantated towards the expectations of English speakers", then is it not going to have "systemic bias"? Philip Baird Shearer 17:33, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

No, what I was trying to say about "oriantated towards the expectations" was that aricles should start from English speakers expectations and correct, illuminate and otherwise fix and educate readers from there, to a state of perfect NPOV(or as close as we can come considering the biases of the range of sources available to us.) JesseW 04:07, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

Your suggestion of mention the link is all well and good but what about "catogories" where the definition is in or out?Philip Baird Shearer 17:38, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

This is one of the reasons categories are bad, and should not be relied on to explain, only to help in accessing articles. On that basis(that a Category:Western World would not explain what is in the the "Western World" but only help readers to find things they expect would be in the Western World) it would be OK to not include South Americia, since readers would not expect to find it there. In an article, of course, it should be mentioned and the variation in meaning explained and linked to. It might even be good to mention at the top of the category(in the summary from the article of the same name) the variation in meaning, for those of our readers who might expect the other meaning. But it's not an example of POV, just better or worse navigation. Thanks for the discussion! JesseW 04:07, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

Subheading

Pardon me if this should be placed under another topic, perhaps existing elsewhere (if so, redirect me, please), or if my reasoning is flawed (please enlighten me): Is there not a FUNDAMENTAL DIFFERENCE between the English language per se (i.e. being literate in English), and English-language sources? It is easy to make the argument that, "If you can't read it, you can't reference it." Also, to define Wikipedia as an English-language encyclopedia, based on NOR(+NPOV+verifiability). This adds up to: "reputable English-language references" are a necessary requirement. But does it not also add up to a clear systemic bias in favor of a specific set of biased reference sources (the English ones), in that, across MANY subject areas, the source material available in English represents an extremely culturally biased subset of "recorded human knowledge" (biased because people/societies tend to cover things from their own, language-driven POV)? IOW, from an end user's perspective, and in light or our somewhat enlightened contemporary outlook on the world that recognizes all sorts of deeply ingrained cultural biases, isn't this "verifiabilty, not necessarily truth" a lot of fine print for an encyclopedia project that presents itself as "open and free"? If the internal rules serve simply to propagate the information sources most convenient to one arbitrary group of human beings on the planet ("the English"), then the public image, including multiple language editions, seems a bit misleading...

What about fluent ESL English-speakers, born, living and working or studying in non-English speaking countries? Available to them are likely (I can only assume, having no first hand experience) different cultural biases, different widely held assumptions about a many subjects, different information resources other than those in English? Yet in using or contributing to Wikipedia, by current rules, they would have to ignore those parts of their cultural knowledge and academic resources that couldn't be referenced IN ENGLISH. Why is this not a form of (aggressive) cultural imperialism, cloaked in a data compatibility issue? --Tsavage 18:19, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

What alternative method of achieving verifiability by any viewer(one of the primary goals of Wikipedia, and a critical check against the insertion of false information into the 'pedia) would you suggest? And, the multiple language editions will each of their own, different systemic biases due to the research published in that language - how is this "cultural imperialism" to have multiple, differing, systemicly biased encylopedias hosted by one organization? I don't understand. Anyone, ESL speaker or not, would have to "ignore those parts of their cultural knowledge" they could not provide sources that were understandable to most of the viewers of wikipedia - that's the basic nature of Verifiability. What alternative do you propose? Trusting random people on the net to be honest, even if they cannot provide any sources reviewable by other users of the pedia? This seems like it would be a far greater betrayal of our goals of creating an open and free encylopedia than the systemic bias of our sources. If we except certain sources (i.e. ones not in English) from the general rules of verifiability, how are we "open and free"? JesseW, the juggling janitor 21:30, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

What alternative method of achieving verifiability by any viewer(one of the primary goals of Wikipedia, and a critical check against the insertion of false information into the 'pedia) would you suggest? Perhaps I'm being both unrealistically romantic and naive, and I'm honestly thinking this through real-time, but anyway, here goes (I will attempt to choose my words carefully). If I start my thought from another point on its circle, the answer to your question specifically may be that NOR+NPOV+verifiability simply doesn't work, a good model on the way to something, but ultimately, not up to the task. In that case, what better model could there be for assembling a "free encyclopedia that anyone can edit"? The only other existing approach that even suggests itself is a journalistic one, by Wikipedia's definition: "a discipline of collecting, verifying, analyzing and presenting information". I can imagine there have been and are long pages of "Wikipedia is not journalism", "Wikipedia is not a newspaper", and so forth, with lots of convincing reasoning. Fine. But to simply finish my immediate point, from my observations:

• Wikipedia currently functions much more like a journalistic endeavour than an academic one (the vast majority of articles do not have references and have not gone through any formal verification process)
• Wikipedia seems to be "working" to some degree, in that it is growing, articles are improving, and it already provides a very useful information resource.
• The "encyclopedic" approach, expressed as NOR+NPOV+verifiability, is VERY difficult to apply across the range of topics here, partly because (IMO, of course) most contributors simply do not have the interest, motivation or resources to fully research, flesh out, and cite sources for the articles they are working on by these standards, and the "worker bees" who may do such things gladly could not possibly keep up with the flow.

So, if my mini-analysis is even close to correct, the gap between the practical reality and the chosen path to approach the (excellent) ideal of a giant, open, free, credible knowledge repository are divergent, and probably getting further apart with every new article and stub.

Questions: What would happen if new articles could only go public after some sort of peer review? Is playing catch-up with quality (as defined by NOR+NPOV+verifiability) ever going to catch up the the 800K+ articles and counting?

Something's working, and that Something may not be what we think/rule/want it to be...

That's all I'm saying. :) As it relates to systemic bias, I will try to write a separate topic below, but the gist of my entire emerging thought is, perhaps for one we're missing the mark in trying to get a more demographically diverse or representative group of (English-speaking) people to participate, partially because, if more people were attracted, they'd be those least likely to conform to a rather demanding NOR+NPOV+verifiability standard. And perhaps the systemic bias is in the source materials we have defined as available (academic-style citable sources). Perhaps a model that combines good faith, NPOV, references, original research, and original synthesis, would work better (of course, all codified, with an explicit reasonable process). It seems to me that NOR+NPOV+verifiability is in current practice a conflict resolution method, a final court system for sorting out sticky stuff, rather than the working reality for most of Wikipedia. But Wikipedia seems to be in general, working...

Please note, again, my intention is simply to contribute to the debate. I could be very off-base and ignorant, these are new thoughts, BUT, this is a DISCUSSION page, right?! Thanks! --Tsavage 23:26, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Thanks, this is an interesting discussion. First, I agree with you that most articles do not have sources(yet), and that most contributors don't add sources. However, I think you made some mistakes in your analysis: I don't think that the gap between the reality and our goals is widening, in fact, I think it's narrowing. Our goal is to havea "giant, open, free, credible encyclopedia", i.e. to have complete, sourced, well-written aricles on all the topics that a encyclopedia should cover. I think there is no doubt that we are closer to that then we were when we started, and that we are getting constantly closer; there are fewer and fewer obvious encylopedic topics that we have no article on, and more articles are getting sourced, and otherwise improved all the time. However, as a byproduct and side effect of the way in which we are achieving this goal, we have also created(and will probably continue to create) a large body of quality work on topics not generally considered part of a general encyclopedia (i.e. gazateer entries, schools, streets, popular culture, and probably many areas I don't even know of). This body of work may be already larger than the core, standard encylopedia topics, and is absolutely guerenteed to eventually be larger than them. This is not a problem. A less nice, but still benign side effect of our process is that we have also created a even larger collection of not particularly well-written, not well-sourced, too short, or otherwise not very high quality material. And this sort of material grows at a faster rate than the higher quality stuff(because it's easier to write). So the percentage of our total holdings which are of high quality will decrease(and probably already are), but the absolute magnitude of our high quality material will continue to increase. I view that as success, not failure. I realize I haven't responded to all your points, but I will get to the rest at a later time. What do you think of what I've written so far? (And thanks again for the discussion.) JesseW, the juggling janitor 02:19, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

If I understand you correctly, we're agree that "Wikipedia seems to be working." There are lots of informative articles on an amazingly wide range of subjects. And I agree with your description of the rest (although, a more empirical view would maybe change both of our minds on some of the easy generalizations, because I like at ratios like Featured Articles:All articles - 820:842,031, "roughly 1 in 1020".) In any case, I guess my core "problem" is my growing awareness of what I see as a systemic bias that favors not just English-language sources, but a certain type of academic vetting process that is ultimately the goal of Wikipedia. There are to me a few serious obvious problems with this:

• The type of skills and interest required to do a half-decent job by anywhere near strict NNV rules are I believe beyond the VAST majority of contributors; skills aside, I think for the majority it's plain NOT INTERESTING to contribute to an article on something you know about, by referencing and citing sources.
• The reference sources are way too broad and varied to be meaningfully handled in this process. If I quote Fox News on a point of fact, what about people who would scream that Fox is clearly a right-wing propaganda machine, and cite other news sources with substantially different reportage? And so on. What about topics that simply don't have "verifiable sources" for what would amount to the most interesting and relevant content, like MANY pop culture areas?

So we have Wikipedia growing by leaps and bounds, with some articles getting improved to varying standards (which is to say, to varying degrees of adherence to one standard). And the improvement drive becomes more and more important. But while it sticks to NNV, the inherent bias I see towards "people who can work within a framework of citations" becomes more and more an issue. It's like, two Wikipedias, one where "everyone" is freely writing and editing away, and another smaller inner group kind of viewing most of it as "substandard", and "to be fixed at a later date", and the "public" side not really aware or concerned with all of that inner infrastructure stuff, and the basic NNV itself. Wikipedia moves more to bureaucracy, and away from an inclusive, open entity.

Where this bias leads is then to begin recruiting people for various reasons, mostly to "fix up critical stuff", in one way or another, to people with a certain set of skills and interests that I don't believe are widely held. Which leads me back to the front page:

Welcome to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit.

Nothing in those introductory links goes against the broad promise of the statement itself, there is no "Warning: NNV adherence required!", just an initial mention of the much more, uh, benign "NPOV". It is somewhat misleading.

This is addresses a bit more what I originally came here to enter as a new topic... --Tsavage 01:22, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

Featured articles in other languages

Please take a look at Wikipedia:Featured articles in other languages (WP:FAOL). It is a project aimed at better highlighting the excellent featured articles in other languages and showing where the English versions are lacking. While other language Wikipedia do have differing standards I think it's quite important to see what they think are good articles. It has already highlighted some articles that are featured on one language but don't appear here. violet/riga (t) 17:09, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

A Biased anti-bias page

"Thus the only way systemic bias would disappear would be if the population of the world all spoke English at the same level of fluency" is highly biased. The author should mean "(...) world all spoke the same language(...)" instead of implying that the language the world should speak is english. I believe this should be corrected.LtDoc 02:24, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

I think the intended meaning was that, the only way the English wikipedia(which is where this WikiProject is located)would be free of systemic bias is for everyone in the world to speak English wit the same level of fluency and interest in using the English language Wikipedia. It's not biased to say that - as this edition of Wikipedia is in English. I rephrased the paragraph in question to make this point clear. Thanks for bringing it up! JesseW 07:18, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

Ok. I also did a minor rephrasing and believe this version is much better now. LtDoc 09:55, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

Anti-American & Leftist Bias

I'm no rightwinger nor a Republican, but I find the Leftist and anti-US slant to be very much over the top and extreme. Perhaps it is because of contributions from rivals like Canada or the UK, or the presence of a lot of college students (many youth swing to the Left during college years). But it really contradicts the NPOV claims of Wikipedia. For example, there are numberous pages on US "imperialism", etc. but when someone tried to make an article on Chinese imperialism it was immediately VfD'ed. VfDs are slapped on any topic which is seen as POV against some Non-American entity, while if a topic is POV against the US, it gets defended as acceptible ("the topic may be POV but the article is not"). Other areas I see this are anythintg related to Islam: Islamophilia was deleted, while Islamophobia kept. Again and again, the VfD weapon is used to eliminate topics that don't fit in a general ideology of blaming the US. If articles were allowed to survive, perhaps bias could be addressed by contributors, but the VfD ensures that anti-US topics simply outnumber other articles. Willowx 06:49, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

It seems unlikely that the citizenship of editors will have anything to do with it given the population of the US (I suppose at least half the contributors will be from the US). You also mention students, but in general the editors will be higher educated and such people have more leftwing tendencies than others (I think). And it may be my education  :) but I notice opposite things like the use of the word 'regime', which is only found for certain countries and not for others (like the US). See my little research in Talk:Regime#Negative connotation in Wikipedia articles. Still, this doesn't refute the possibility of your claim. But you have to take into account that maybe because you're from the US you only notice certain things. And not others like the fact that you claim not to be a Republican is supposed to clarify things for others who are not from the US and where the word Republican might mean something completely different. If I said I was a liberal you'd probably get the wrong idea about me because it means something different in your contry. This is not a reproach, just human nature. Thouigh still this doesn't mean you're wrong (notice how hard I try not to be biased :) ). DirkvdM 08:51, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

To be quite honest, and I'm not an anarcho-primitivist, but I find the Right-wing, US, and capitalist slant to be very much over the top and extreme. Perhaps it is because of the majority population of USians, or the presence of a lot of suburbanites (many suburbanites swing to the right before their bank ballances are repossessed in market collapses, see Argentina). But it really contradicts the NPOV claims of Wikipedia. For example, until my edit the Tet offensive misnamed the PLAF, PAVN and NLF forces, but the miniutae of US operational forces are detailed at length. Precocious unspecialist editing by beer swilling buffoons in the "white belts" of cities continuously degrade specialist articles, and the bombast associated with male chauvanists drives specialists in feminism off core feminist topics. The constant degradation of article quality is used to drive off disciplinary specialists and the oppressed, and the only articles allowed to survive untouched are those with no relevence for the dominant US imperialist world view. The degradation of quality ensures that pro-US anti-disciplinary articles are the only ones that will exist. Fifelfoo 11:26, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

Good point by Fifelfoo. I make his words mine.LtDoc 11:43, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

Well, some things said here are well over the top. Can WP do much about polarization in US politics? Not really. (I think it is now true to say that one blog is started for each English Wikipedia article that is started.) But WP can do some things better than it does now. It is not too good simply to equate systemic bias to political bias and POV getting into things. It is more insidious than that. Charles Matthews 11:28, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

Thank you, Charles. Of course, the original post completely misses the point. This project is about systemic bias. It is probable that most WP editors are young men from Europe, Austalia, New Zealand and North America. This would create a natural bias towards things that these people are in to. an example would be when our article on Klingon is longer than that on an African language. I think that we would all agree that the latter is more important and valuable as an encyclopaedia article than the former. However, the bias of editors would lead them to know more about an invented language for a TV show than a real language in a remote continent. There are so many other examples that could be given of this systemic bias. Correcting such bias may, at times, appear to be anti-American or leftist (which, from the POV of USA, would include the majority of the world's population). The example given by Fifelfoo is a good one. An article about the Vietnam War should include minute detail of US military subjects alongside sketchy and confused articles about Vietnamese military. Trying to balance such articles could be accused of being anti-American and leftist, but that's only because the article is overly pro-American and militarist in the first place. --Gareth Hughes 11:48, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

Improvement Drive

Cultural appropriation has just been nominated on WP:IDRIVE. Public education and Flirting as well as Teenage pregnancy are also currently nominated on Wikipedia:This week's improvement drive and may be of interest to you. If you are interested in contributing, please vote or comment here: This week's improvement drive--Fenice 09:23, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

Systemic bias on articles about mountains

In my work on various Cameroon-related articles, I noticed that the Mount Cameroon page included an infobox. The thing that caught my eye was that Sir Richard Francis Burton was listed in the infobox's first ascent field. This was surprising, since the Bakweri have been living on Mt. Cameroon's slopes for hundreds of years, and the notion that someone from that ethnic group had never climbed the mountain before the Europeans came seems a bit far-fetched. At any rate, I mentioned my concerns on the talk page for the Mountains WikiProject, and got no response. Not until I suggested I would change the infobox to say "first documented ascent" did someone respond, and he quite snippily. Then when I proposed that they make it so users can create the template without mentioning a "first ascent" if they wish, I got no reply. I get the feeling that either the project is not very active, or that I'm being ignored in the hopes that I'll go away.

So am I off base? Am I wrong in suggesting that non-Europeans probably climbed many of the mountains that have a "first ascent" attributed to some Westerner? The problem is finding a source to back up my notion. At any rate, I think it'd be worth it to check out the Mountains page and the articles that link to Template:Mtnbox_climb. Some of these "First ascent" fields should be changed to "unknown Bakweri" or "unknown Aztek" or whatever is appropriate should we be able to find support for such a change. BrianSmithson 02:55, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

This does sound like a small, but meaningful, point. Clearly if people have been living on or near a mountain for many years, claiming the "first ascent" was a European exploror is wrong. I'll pop into the WikiProject and add my support. Thanks for bringing this up here. JesseW 04:23, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

I think the change to the first documented assent would be a good one.--nixie 04:56, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

"first documented ascent" is good, for mountains where there is some reason to believe an non-Westerner ever went to the top. I would point out, though, that for peaks such as the tallest ones in the Himalayas, it's pretty damn safe to say "first ascent": until Europeans started taking on Alpinism as a challenge, no one ever tried to scale monsters like Everest and Annapurna. -- Jmabel | Talk 07:20, August 11, 2005 (UTC)

The use of the word "recorded" would be better than "documented". As that covers media other than written and allows for oral traditions as well. Philip Baird Shearer 23:57, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

Connotation bias, looking for relevant spot

I'm thinking there should be a standardized warning for words like nanotechnology, neoliberalism, neoconservatism, etc that have hidden connotations to them or are used in a vague opportunist way for propaganda purposes. From the talk page for nanotechnology, this comment sparked my current thoughts:

There should be some special wikipedia marker for a "buzzword" or a word primarily used to palaver. Nanotechnology is definitely such a word. The definition given in this article is a good example. It is so broad that it can be used to credit Eric Drexler or Richard Feynman or whoever with the invention of agriculture for who would deny that using evolutionary methods to select nanoscale structures is out of bounds to the nanotechnologist? People were doing such selection when they started selecting the first cultagens for their grain value thousands of years ago. Nor is this an unreasonable generalization of the definition. Artificial life simulations are already used to find reasonably optimal solutions used in many mass market devices and there is little distinction between such methods and the methods used to cultivate highly productive grains. Jim Bowery 20:11, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

Its definition is vague and flexibly used to advertise many products which only in the loosest sense can be considered nanotechnology.

Both neoconservatism and neoliberalism suffer because they are primarily used to describe people in a negative way. The definitions are vague and few people willingly label themselves with the terms (particularly neoliberalism).

I agree with Jim Bowery's assessment that buzzwords should have some warning associated with them as well. Building "action plans" or "leveraging your assets" sounds great, but what does it really mean?

The key criteria seem to be that: 1) the word is vaguely defined so it is easy to apply the word, 2) it has a connotation (positive or negative), and 3) it is subjective, how the word is used and what it means depends on the point of view of the user.

Also, there are other systemic biases than just demographics. Eg, we don't have complete knowledge so naturally we'll write less about things we don't know than things we do know about. We could still have words like the above that have the same vague, subjective connotations for the entire human race or even all intelligence. For example, it's likely that most living things will want to stay alive and the concept of not wanting to be alive will be considered an aberration by virtually all living sentient things. Also, we view things from the human point of view. Or maybe you could consider all of these higher order demographic systemic biases. -- KarlHallowell 21:48, 30 August 2005 (UTC)

Category:SOC occupations

Please note I have nominated this category for deletion as I believe it may be an instance of systematic bias. Opinions are welcome. Hiding talk 09:42, 31 August 2005 (UTC)

Why the talk page?

If the 'request for cleanup' and 'copyediting' tags go on the main page of an article shouldn't the 'World-Wide view' tag go as well? I think that this one even more than the others should go on the actual article page. The other two are already ovbious to people, whereas the world-wide-view may not be.

Does anyone agreee?

Ravedave 14:43, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

• No. I think we already have too many tags we allow on the article page, but the others are grandfathered in. This tag doesn't say that there is anything actively wrong with the material that is there, just that more should be added. -- 01:35, September 10, 2005 (UTC)

Nigerian music FAC

I have nominated Music of Nigeria for WP:FA (see here), but it hasn't garnered much activity at all -- three supports, no opposes and a few comments/neutrals. I think generally at least five or six supports are considered necessary in the absence of opposition, so I'm leaving a message here in case anyone is interested in reading the article and leaving comments on ways it can be approved and voting support or oppose based on if it meets the criteria. You do not have to be familiar with Nigerian music to vote -- actually, it may be better if you aren't -- but please read the article and, even if you vote to support, leave any comments on sections that seem unclear or incomplete, or other suggestions for improvement. Thanks Tuf-Kat 20:44, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

Inventive step bias tag

I've cross posted a comment here, lest it not recieve any comment on the article talk page that it is placed, and as it is possible someone is misusing the tag of your project.

I don't understand the presence of the systematic bias tag upon this article; if the term is only used in Europe then surely its okay for the article to have a European perspective? If the term is used elsewhere, then shouldn't there be at least some reference to this fact in the article already?

The Non-obviousness article seems similarly slanted towards the US, but it doesn't have a tag. Should not an apparent bias in this article imply a similar bias there? --Neo 10:04, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

Do we really create articles?

Hey so just asking but do you guys really create neglected articles? The statement "This project creates and improves neglected articles" implies that you do. 134.173.94.191 08:30, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

to be completely honest yes.Geni 10:13, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

yes, we do. If you would be so kind to take a look at our neglected articles, you'd make us happy. — mark ✎ 10:53, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

Philosophical objection

"Both China and India separately possess populations greater than that of all native English speakers combined; by this measure, information on both specifically Chinese and Indian topics should at least equal that available on anglophone topics."

That's simply not true. An encyclopedia should have more information native to it's language than any other. If you really want to learn about culture, you need to learn the language. Not only is it natural to be more interested in topics native to your own language and culture, it's less awkward - when writing about the culture of another language, there is, essentially, translation going on.

Basically, it's a very naive and idealistic statement. Sure, I agree there should be more articles about Chinese and Indian topics; but as many as English? Firstly, that's never going to happen, and secondly, it shouldn't happen. It just doesn't make sense. Why should readers be more interested in reading about other cultures than their own? Other cultures have less relevance to them. ··gracefool |☺ 07:04, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

• The ideal should be equal coverage, because the sum of human knowledge, which wikipedia is supposed to provide, does not vary from one language to another. Also English is the world's lingua franca (as well as a national language of India), so for example a Spanish speaker might want to use it to learn about China, or vice versa. Kappa 07:11, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

It's impossible for Wikipedia to provide the sum of human knowledge just using English. There just aren't the words. This is a practical problem which affects ideals (unless you're talking about some ideal with no consideration of reality). At the very least it means that non-native articles aren't going to express what can be expressed natively.

As you imply, what's written in Wikipedia should reflect the needs/wants of the readers. Most people who read the English Wikipedia speak English as a native language.

I agree there should be some effort at better coverage of non-anglophone topics; but equal coverage? Even ideally, no. Maybe I'm just quibbling. I guess I had an itch for this philosophical discussion :p ··gracefool |☺ 07:24, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

Well, we can't all be Ezra Pound; sooner or later we all have to look up an article about Seretse Khama without learning Setswana, Ousmane Sembene without learning Wolof or Aung San Suu Kyi without learning Burmese. Don't forget, too, that we do our best to interwiki the articles, and that fabulous editors like User:Guaka are building Wiktionary projects in languages like Bambara and Fulfulde; that way readers can pop into alternate languages whenever they see fit and are qualified to do so. In the meantime I think it's pretty crucial that we prop up the weaker areas of coverage. Sure, it would be naive to think that we're ever going to literally encompass the sum total of human knowledge, but on the other hand, every article written is one more article written... --Dvyost 13:16, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

In response to "what's written in Wikipedia should reflect the needs/wants of the readers". But can these be predicted? Part of the appeal of an encyclopedia like WP is in being lured into learning things you didn't even know existed or didn't know you would be interested in, by stumbling from link to link. That's why people go travelling and exploring, to find things that are not their own backyard: I don't need a guide book to Melbourne because I live here. An encyclopedia is another place to broaden your mind by encountering alien ways of thinking and doing.

The question of English vs other cultures is a little like that of the present vs the past. Here too WP leans heavily toward the familiar: lushly written articles on internet slang and an entire universe of information on video games beside too many reprints of britannica 1911 for pre-2Oth century stuff, hopelessly oudated and a lot of it very dull. In the world generally present things are, relatively speaking, easier to find information about because it's everywhere around us, and then easier to understand because we know so much about it already. But it's where we are not already clued in, for things remote in time and space and language and culture, that we need the most help. And that help, even in an encyclopedia, can't just by dishings out of fact but has to be equipping the distanced reader to understand. Flounderer 13:49, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

Let's change the name

On a related; but side note; since I first encountered it I've had a problem with the name of this project. Doesn't systematic imply some form of concious effort on the part of at least someone or a group of people. I would agree that there is an unconcious bias, but should not the name of the project assume good faith on the part of the participants and have a less reactionary name? --Neo 13:41, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

systemic not systematic. But the name is pretty bad. Someone above suggests "Ensuring Global Perspective" as an alternative. - Xed 14:42, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

But many of the issues are not matters of globalism. Yes, there are aspects of this that have to do with geography (under-coverage of Africa, for example), but others (disproportion of concern with popular culture vs. high culture) do not. -- Jmabel | Talk 18:49, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

Damn,my misreading; then again if I make the mistake others might too... (::smile::) systemic isn't as bad of a word; I like the word 'implicit' - one definition of which is "Contained in the nature of something though not readily apparent" (hopefuly true) as the definition " Implied or understood though not directly expressed" is immidiately not true, and "Having no doubts or reservations" is similaly not applicable. --Neo 19:13, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

The current name may be accurate, but it's too jargony, obscure and combative. And it's frequently misunderstood, requiring repeated explanations - Xed 20:19, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

I agree, "Ensuring Global Perspective" is a better title. It can be just as accurate - just use the word "Global" in the broad sense, not the geographical sense. Anyone dead set against the new title, or have a better one? ··gracefool |☺ 22:28, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

I have nothing against it, although we should keep in mind that whatever name we choose, there will remain editors who are convinced of our 'Anti-American, leftist bias' and they will read that into the 'global' part just as well. — mark ✎ 08:39, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

this project is also ment to cover things that are not covered due to to be blunt lack of interest in them by geeks.Geni 12:51, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

Maybe it's my geography training, but I have trouble getting past "global" in a geographical sense; to me, it doesn't include the other systemic biases identified by this project. Brainstorming here - Ensuring Broader Perspective, Broadening Wikipedia's Coverage, Addressing Underserved Topics... While I generally do favor finding a new name, I do have concerns - it would be a shame if we lose sight of this project's fundamental critique of Wikipedia: there is systemic bias in what is covered, and there are specific reasons for this bias - it's not random, and it's not harmless. It's important, I think, that we keep this critique front-and-center even as we try to become more accessible. CDC (talk) 17:28, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

I agree that this name ought to be fixed, and also with Cdc that "global" is going to make things sound unnecessarily geographic. I like CDC's suggestions but I'm worried that a word like "ensuring" might make us sound a bit Thought-Policish. Since so many other Wikiprojects have only one-word descriptions (Africa, Cricket, etc.), why use a verb at all? I'd suggest Wikiproject Underrepresented Topics; it makes the critique clear but (hopefully) shouldn't be particularly controversial. --Dvyost 17:54, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

I have no real problem with any of this, but it's not just a matter of under-represented topics: it's also that certain topics are covered from a very narrow perspective. -- Jmabel | Talk 03:35, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

Ensuring Broader Perspective is probably the best suggestion so far, then. ··gracefool |☺ 06:06, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

• "Wikiproject Broader Perspective"? Frankly we aren't in a position to "ensure" anything very much. Kappa 11:40, 3 October 2005 (UTC)
• Agreed. Both Broader Perspective and (if we want to keep the verb) Broadening Perspective sound good to me. BrianSmithson 11:47, 3 October 2005 (UTC)
• I think I'd prefer the former (Broader Perspective); a glance at the List of Wikiprojects shows the other projects tend to be all nouns. On the otherhand, being the most active folks on the list couldn't be all bad either... --Dvyost 14:30, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

I like the title Broader Perspective; although should it be singular or plural? Of course Wikipedia offers only one perspective, but the idea is that it should reflect many perspectives. --Neo 14:36, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

or Wikipedia Wide(r) Perspective - Xed 18:40, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

I read Addressing Underserved Topics as Addressing Undeserved Topics... - Xed 18:40, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

It's been almost a week since anyone posted a new comment to this discussion. Does that mean we're at consensus on Broader Perspective? --Dvyost 15:38, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

No, I would like to vote to keep the name. This topic started by someone not reading systemic properly, but that doesn't mean we should abandon it. I feel that broader perspective is far to vague. --Gareth Hughes 16:05, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

I must say I concur with Gareth here. 'Countering systemic bias' is to the point, and its unambiguous. I feel that 'Broadening perspective' leaves the real problem unsaid — Wikipedia often is broad in perspective, but it doesn't include all perspectives (as Neo also pointed out). — mark ✎ 13:16, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

If I have any say in this, I agree; "systemic bias" is fine. u p p l a n d 13:43, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

For what it's worth, I think the current name is much more descriptive than any of the pproposed alternatives. Filiocht | The kettle's on 13:55, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

Try these Wikipedia searches

our culture, our society, our literature, our country, our music, our worldview. — mark ✎ 13:28, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

Took me an embarrassingly long minute to see your point, Mark, but you're right--almost all of these need to be adjusted to US Society, British/Western culture, English lit, etc. Good thinking to do these searches in the first place. I'll try tackling some of them later this weekend. --Dvyost 14:36, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

most appear to be talk pages or dirrect quotes though.Geni 14:54, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, I don't think it's possible to limit Google search to the main namespace. (Wikipedia's own search works fine, but I don't like the way it sorts the results.) Although there are quite a few talk pages and direct quotes among these, the number of articles where this has to fixed is still quite high. When I first did some searches like this, I did not expect to find that much. — mark ✎ 12:55, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

Apart from the obvious "our..." statements that can be left because they are exonerated by context, what would you suggest we do with the others? Do you think "Western..." is a proper replacement, or is there something more appropriate? How does one say Google in Dutch? --Gareth Hughes 13:33, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

Actually there's no easy answer to that. It's often 'Western', but not always; I've come across articles where it really only referred to American society, some where you could use something like 'Anglo culture', some where it meant (Old) Europe, some where it isn't an East/West thing (Duodecimal, see this and the subsequent edit) and a nice one in Bogotá where it was Colombia (this edit).

As for Google in Dutch, it's a loanword which has kept its English phonology, but you can get some Dutch verbal morphology on it when you use it as a verb, as in Heb jij hem ge-Googeld? 'did you Google him'. (But why'd you ask?) — mark ✎ 18:54, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

Ah, loanwords often have to blend in when we start applying native (our culture!) morphology to them. I remember being asked after coming out of German jazz club, "Hast du gut gejazzt?" --Gareth Hughes 21:09, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

Related: Most usages of "came to the united states" really should be "immigrated", "moved", "entered", or similar - "came" assumes the location of the writer and reader. I fixed a bunch of these several months ago, but they're working their way back in. We could probably compile a big list of usages like these; fixing them would be a simple, accessible process that might interest some editors new to the project. 161.55.168.90 18:20, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

Current events in Africa

Africa is the most neglected continent in wikipedia. Wondering how you can help in countering this systemic bias? There's now a revived Current events in Africa page that compile news and update on events related to Africa. It helps to draw more attention to the continent, and it's working already: two of the entries are now also listed in wikipedia's Main Page, "In the news" section! It is easy to contribute to this page, although we need more users to be involved. Check it out, and hope you can help, thank you! --Vsion 01:56, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

FAC possibly of interest to this wikiproject

I nominated Mário de Andrade for featured article (link to FAC) some time ago, but the nomination has stalled. I had trouble getting comments on peer review for the same reason, I think--people aren't interested in commenting on a Brazilian poet. We are very weak in this area, and I think having a featured article might help us attract Brazilian and Portuguese-speaking editors. I'd appreciate any advice on getting this through. Thanks. Chick Bowen 17:35, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

Do we really want this?!

My dear friends and fellow Wikipedians,

A proposal has been made here which could effect the way all featured articles, and perhaps even eventually all articles, are handled in the future. While it has the well-meaning intention of addressing some real problems, if it is adapted, I fear it will actually create more problems and possibly destroy the wonderfully open and collaborative nature of the Wikipedia we all so love.

I therefore, strongly urge you to join us who OPPOSE this potentially dangerous proposal. Thank you for your time, thoughts and words.--R.D.H. (Ghost In The Machine) 08:19, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

Corporate bias

I believe that Wikipedia lacks information about corporate culture. For more information, please see the thread Wikipedia:Reference desk/Language#Corporate slang. Thanks. Samohyl Jan 08:54, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

WikiProject Countering systemic bias/members

I read the article and I find this an interesting matter, and agree that we should strive to get read of this bias. What I do not understand is the suggestion to register oneself in that page. What for? I mean, can't one do the same things atht are suggested in the article without having to register there? Thanks in advance for clarifying this. --Anagnorisis 04:28, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

I think the idea is to identify yourself to other members who want to communicate on a specific topic; if somebody's looking for an editor on African languages, for example, they could find the indefatigable editors Mark Dingemanse and Mustafaa. And it's just fun to build a sense of community where possible, no? --Dvyost 05:07, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

Philosophy articles

Help us to counter systemic bias in the Wiki's philosophy articles: Wikipedia:WikiProject Philosophy/geographic divisions Banno 22:04, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

More exposure

Is there a way to get the CSB box on the main page? Also, is it time to elect a tsar nice person to get the 100+ members working more effectively? - Xed 19:14, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

I don't believe there is any recent precedent for putting WikiProject matters on the front page.

And as for a tsar: if the group decides that anyone is in a position to tell others what to do rather than make suggestions, I, for one, will certainly withdraw my support for the project. In fact, I will almost certainly oppose any shift away from consensus methods. I am often happy when someone steps forward and starts organizing things, but, in general, when they claim special authority to do so, that is another matter. -- Jmabel | Talk 01:29, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

I was thinking more of an organiser than someone holding a whip. - Xed 01:33, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

Then "tsar" is not the term. It implies absolute monarchy. "Coordinator"? "Facilitator"? -- Jmabel | Talk 19:28, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

Changing your comment after it has been responded to, in a way that makes the response look inappropriate, is really out of line. For the record, where Xed has now written "nice person" he originally wrote "tsar". -- Jmabel | Talk 21:32, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

Whoops. Sorry. Yes, "Coordinator" or "Facilitator". - Xed 11:35, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

Thanks. The strikethrough is definitely the right way to do this. -- Jmabel | Talk 17:54, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Now the name is sorted what exactly would a facilitatot be facilitating. I imagine we are active members of this group are engaged in a variety of different practices and with different agendas. I for one already have my hands full and am not sure I can do more than I already am, and I am unlikely to drop what I am doing to fiol;low someone else's systemic bias path. So we need a clear idea of what the remit of a facilitator would be.

The facilitator would perhaps help you get in touch with other editors who were editing similar topics etc. - Xed 22:33, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

Having said this I think getting rid of the American bias throughout wikipedia should be right at the top of the agenda of any facilitator. Because Americans editors have dominated what we have right now in this encyclopedia, because often they lack the international perspective of most of the rest of the world (I imagine because there is so much within the States itself), ridding the encyclopedia of this bias is vital. A good example is Honduras internal party elections described as primary elections, which doesn't really mean anything to people outside the States. They obviously needed to be called internal party elections, Americans tend to have had much less exposure to Brit spelling than Brits have to US spelling (due to US publishers insisting British authors use American English) resulting in it often even being used in articles about British people, being far too dominant within the encyclopedia, etc, etc SqueakBox 18:27, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Hold it. What no one needs is US Pedians versus Rest of World. The perspective that the spelling issue is really not a big deal is much better than having constant edit wars about it. Charles Matthews 17:18, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

Does anyone think a co-ordinator.facilitator would be a good idea? - Xed 22:33, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

I noticed that the CSB box is no longer on the Community Portal. Anyone know why? - Xed 14:37, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

Côte d'Ivoire

Editors might be interested in Talk:Côte d'Ivoire#Requested_move. - Xed 05:48, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

AFD

The following article List of theatres in Mumbai has been put up for deletion: (Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of theatres in Mumbai). Most of the deletion votes are based on western standards of the defination of a cinema/theatre. In other words, people think that small establishments are included here, when the case is just the opposite in Mumbai, which is home to Bollywood. I don't see list of schools in Louisville etc. ever appearing on AFDs. =Nichalp «Talk»= 18:03, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

This is the sort of thing that makes the perennially proposed notability requirement so insidious. Not notable seems to always boil down to "I haven't heard of it," and since only a small cross-section of the population ever votes at AfD, the encyclopedia gets skewed in certain directions. - SimonP 21:35, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

Category "CSB Articles" proposed for deletion

Merely bringing to your attention that Category:CSB Articles has been proposed for deletion; see Wikipedia:Categories for deletion/Log/2005 November 14#Category:CSB Articles. Courtland 00:54, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

I, for one, have voted delete. I don't think anyone is using or maintaining it. Let's clean up after ourselves. — mark ✎ 20:38, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

Not just the Developing World

The Guardian's 0 out of 10 for Haute Couture reminds me that CSB is not just about the Developing World.-Xed 22:54, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

Well said. Systemic bias can be sciences/humanities (rather obvious in terms of depth of coverage). It can even be A-Z: I would bet that lists of red links are filled in more from the beginning of the alphabet. Charles Matthews 23:00, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

Originally, CSB had "Art and Design" as one of it's targets, as well as "Female-oriented subjects" (this was changed into "Women's studies", a dry and academic title, which left fashion-related subjects like Haute Couture and traditionally female occupations like Nursing out in the cold). CSB recently has been synonymous with the Developing World, but even anti-parochialism can become parochial. - Xed 23:31, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

Religious bias

Articles with a "Religious view" section always have Christian, usually have Judaism, occasionally Islam or Buddhism. This does not reflect the global distribution of religions. See this table on my page - the religious beliefs ranked in order of prominence - that is, percentage of world population. Actually reflecting this would mean including Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism (all defined religions with 4% or more of the world population) to any article which has a religious views section. Even in articles where all those religions are covered, there are often many paragraphs for Christianity and one-line statements for Islam and Buddhism - see Religion_and_abortion.

Should we add a mention of the religious bias to the article page for WP:BIAS? KillerChihuahua 13:31, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

It seems to me that the above does fall within this project's concerns. Jkelly 05:15, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Any cons? KillerChihuahua^?!? 04:58, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

No, I wholly agree with what you're saying here... good catch. --Dvyost 05:18, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

I concur. — mark ✎ 08:05, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

yep, sounds eminently sensible.--cjllw | TALK 08:16, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Added. No need to comment here for copyedit, I have no complaints and all encouragement to anyone who can improve it. KillerChihuahua^?!? 12:15, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

If that means excluding Judaism, I would be strongly against. Today's population numbers is only one aspect of the big picture. The Jewish populations were repeatedly decimated throughout the history, but we cannot ignore the fact that both Christianity and Islam have been strongly influenced by Judaism. ←Humus sapiens←ну? 22:43, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

I don't think it means that at all. It just means that some religions are under-represented. This is about adding extra content rather than removing it, even pre-emptively. --Cherry blossom tree 22:51, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

I support that. ←Humus sapiens←ну? 22:59, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Cherry is correct - see the earlier version on my user page. Original verbiage was:

Please help with correcting this bias by adding religious views as appropriate. I am not suggesting the view of any religion which is less that 1% should be removed, or not added. I am merely suggesting that the major religions of the world are poorly represented, and the information is usually presented with a bias towards American distribution. At the very least Islam and Hindu should be presented, and preferably Buddhist also. Chinese folk religion is a group, not a single religion, and as such a single "view" is virtually impossible to find. Tribal religions is also a group.

Should entry on Project page be modified? I was trying to be concise, but I may have been unclear instead. KillerChihuahua^?!? 02:15, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

General anti-conservative leaning political bias.

I know I'm going to be kind of making some generalizations here, but bear with me, the generalizations only apply generally. (LOL) When I'm saying conservative here, I mean in the American sense, with a small 'c'. I'm talking about ... basically a cliche.

I think there's a major problem with systamic anti-conservative political bias in Wikimedia projects, and perhaps it's not really anybody's fault. The simple reason for it is that we have more people on the site against conservative issues than for, and the reason for that is that conservatives are just that: conservative. They don't like change.

Look at it like this: Conservative parents, for example, see the internet as a thing they have to make safe for their kids. They basically want to control everything their kids see. If they start a web site, they aren't wanting to let just anybody edit it. One gets strange reactions by trying to explain what wikipedia is to an american conservative. I've tried it. And it's different than trying to explain it to anybody else. There isn't concern about vandalism/obscenity, for example, thee is instead zero-tolerance for even the slight possibility that obscene vandalism could happen to any article for any amount of time, however short. Ever.

Doesn't it raise a red flag at all that the most vandalised page on Wikipedia is George W. Bush?

The wiki format itself lends itself more easily to people who are against censorship of any kind - and right-wingers are for censorship in many cases. (i.e. they support certain moral standards over certain forms of so-called freedom of expression)

I'm not sure whether anyone has made this point before, but: the fundamental idea that anyone shoud be able to edit the site is POV.'

What can be done about this problem? Or, if I'm totally off on this and it's only a percieved problem, then what can be done to correct the misperception? --Nerd42 22:48, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

I would say that the above is a bit confused, though not totally wrong. For starters, there are a lot of types of "conservative" out there. I agree that some of them (the Christian Right, for example) are under-represented). Others (free-market stalwarts, for example) are probably over-represented.

Yes, people who are opposed to openness and/or cooperation will be inherently under-represented as participants in Wikipedia. And that is a systemic bias, and possibly not a curable one.

BTW, while Bush, probably because of his present-day prominence, is the target of a lot of vandalism, you probably wouldn't believe the amount of vandalism directed at French Revolution and related topics 200+ years after the fact. -- Jmabel | Talk 05:48, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

I am not sure why you think the Christian Right is under-represented. As far as I know this is mainly a US-phenomena and the group is quite small on a global scale. A much more acute problem must be the EU-US focus and the relative lack of Asian participants, the continent that is home to most of us (including me for the time being). Filur 08:55, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

Having worked a bit on articles about some of the leading figures in the Evangelical movement and some of the most prominent megachurches, I can tell you we've got little on these topics. I have to presume that means we lack contributors for whom that's the water they swim in. -- Jmabel | Talk 18:45, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

Unusual Childhood

Wikipedians should know that there are people who have had unusual childhoods, including having been military brats(Soldiers' child), children of personnel who are/who have been in extremely secretive government agencies, who's families have unusual occupations that the average civilian does not comprehend at all. They should know that these people exist before rushing to summarily judge other people. MY childhood was a military oriented one with some kin that were in certain government agencies, thus this explains any and all "quirks" I may have, since I ended up as a secretive person, since secrecy meant survival. Martial Law 21:31, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

How effective will this project be?

I'm not sure this project will work. For every attempt at reducing bias that works, another may actually incorporate more bias. People will perceive themselves at reducing bias when they are actually incorporating it. That's because modern world views on bias are heavily biased themselves. We have a tendency to see ourselves as living in an age that is more enlightened than past ages, without considering the new prejudices we are teaching ourselves. And unfortunately, one of the big prejudices we are learning is prejudice in dealing with prejudice! I could give examples, but people would get their backs up because they don't want to see their prejudice.

To deal with bias you need self-awareness; but people tend to confuse this with political awareness. Many people think they're self-aware if they are challenging old ideas - but if such challenging fits what you'd like to believe or what you're leaning toward, then it doesn't get at the heart of self-awareness. In some ways it's the opposite. Self-awareness is really hard because it means challenging yourself on what you don't want to believe.

I'll try one example that hopefully will be benign: you might think that you're a good, progressive-minded person who has learned all about racism - but you might develop such strong feelings about it that you start to see racism even where it isn't; and in doing so start to prejudge people as being racist when they're not. And since you hate racism, there's no way you're going to admit you've developed it yourself, particularly not if your sympathy is towards the groups you see as victims of racism. I'm not denying the great deal of racism that exists towards many (or should I say all) races. I'm saying it because few people really have the honesty to truly face their biases.

The only way to succeed at this is to stop trying so hard to correct what is wrong in others, and start looking at yourself. If you're going about trying to "remove" systemic bias from articles, that's the least effective way - many people will do this because of their own needs, and increase the bias. The most effective way is to understand yourself more, before you write them.

I wouldn't say any of this if I hadn't done a lot of work on myself - even as I write, I'm reconsidering some of my words. I have to do what I'm suggesting: focus most of my attention inward, rather than in talking to you people. Only by trying to see the other side of everything, no matter how wrong it might seem - to the point of empathizing with it - have I had any success. And still there's many times I avoid being honest. So now I will leave you to your emotional honesty, and try to get back to mine. 24.64.223.203 13:06, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

I think you've misunderstood the thrust of the project. We don't primarily aim to reduce Wikipedia's systemic bias by altering information it already contains to make it more neutral, we try to improve the coverage of areas where it is weakest in terms of breadth and depth (such as those listed on WP:CSBOT.) The 'bias' in 'countering systemic bias' refers to bias in topic selection rather than article content. I suppose its our own fault for having an ambiguous project name.--Cherry blossom tree 16:13, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

That's not exactly what your project states. It seems to refer to both what you call selection bias and personal bias. I'm not sure that preferred topic selection is the same thing as bias. Obviously details about a town in rural Australia will be of more interest to English speakers than a town in rural China (just as Chinese Wikipedia will emphasize the opposite). Volume of articles and bias are two different things. However, I agree with your project's goals nonethless. How about "Increasing Worldwide Content." 24.64.223.203 09:22, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

That's not how I read it, but i'm prepared to let it lie. It's not just about worldwide content (though that's a big part of it.) It's any area that's neglected. Open Tasks lists womens studies, art & desgin, agriculture and so on. It's difficult to find a name that adequatly covers all of it (and we haven't found it yet.) --Cherry blossom tree 17:45, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

WikiProject Organized Labour

Just a note that WikiProject Organized Labour has been created. I would consider it a descendent of the CSB and would like to list it in the "Related WikiProjects" section. As well, would it make sense to place the Organized Labour Tasks template in the labour section of the CSB open tasks, or just a note and a link?--Bookandcoffee 18:05, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Either, I think. -- Jmabel | Talk 06:32, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Article Improvement Drive

Architecture of Africa is currently nominated on Wikipedia:Article Improvement Drive. Come to this page and support it with your vote. Help us improve this article to featured status.--Fenice 08:47, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

New Wikiproject

I started WikiProject Library of Congress Country Studies to incorporate text and information from the public domain LOC Country Studies into Wikipedia. Part of the purpose of these studies was to teach Americans about little known places. Systematically incorporating the studies will go a long way to fighting systematic bias. See what I have already done with Eritrea.--Bkwillwm 00:47, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Propose that the bias against sustainable energy (general in favor of nuclear) be officially recognized

As I have proposed in a recent Arbcom case; I have been witness to what I would identify as a consistent and pervasive bias against renewable energy solutions. Examples of the bias include:

• Protracted criticisms of renewable energy in other articles

Such as in Nuclear power where the wikipedia concludes that wind power is uneconomic due to the fickleness of the resource. This assertion is based on a selective citation of a single study and it hardly fair to the broad spectrum of positions on the complex subject of real-time energy economics.

• Censoring, whitewashing, or fact-softening such items as government studies of the risks of a nuclear accident as in CRAC-II, or the medical consequences of exposure to nuclear radiation as in Price-Anderson Act.
• I would suggest that being geeks generally, Wikipedians share my own tendency to trust complex technological solutions and to place substantially more weight on the value of new scientific discovery than on the risks posed to the general public by new technology - particularly in the field of nuclear irradiation. Benjamin Gatti 20:35, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

• In reply I would state that it is fact of life that the majority of people who understand nuclear science and have made good factual additions to the wiki have not allowed their pro nuclear views to colour what they have written. For instance I have been responsible for writing much of the fission products page, this is a NPOV page about the major fission products which does include some matter which is pro nuclear and it also does mention things which the nuclear industry would be much happier if they did not exist (eg fission products which do nasty things, like Sr/Cs in farming). Even the arch deans of the wilipedia pro nuclear lobby have been responsible for writing plenty of NPOV material on the subject.

I think that Benjamin Gatti wishs to view all pages on nuclear matters which do not paint the subject in a very simple nuclear bad, windfarm good way (think of four legs good, two legs bad from animal farm) as being nasty POV which is biased in favour of the nuclear industry. So I would say that no strong bias exists.Cadmium 22:24, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

I accept that Nuclear Fission may not push an agenda, but certainly Nuclear power does, and has been listed as NPOV for over a year by consensus. I would suggest that where the articles stay focused on subject matter, they do ok, but Nuclear power sets forward an agenda which is very close to the inverse of your animal farm Haiku. I would suggest that an article on Nuclear power has no business asserting the inadequacies of (say) wind power because it is not rationally encompassed by the advertised subject. Broader subjects - such as Future energy may rationally encompass a debate, but a narrowly defined subject does not and should not. The fact that Nuclear power does take pot shots at alternatives discloses the bias, and mis-characterizing the argument as has been done here further demonstrates the systemic nature of the bias. I suggest we accept that the bias is real and begin to deal with it effectively. Benjamin Gatti 17:43, 23 February 2006 (UTC)