Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Countering systemic bias/Archive 13

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Systematic bias in articles concerning virology

I am not talking about the systematic bias that emerges in that the only topics discussed are the ones affecting the group capable of witting in Wikipedia; but how articles concerning viruses are almost always centered on human interests. For example, prevention and treatment, since they are of the greatest interest to the writter, are emphasized the most; where as topics directly concerning the disease or virus are placed almost secondary. I'm not stating that articles be written from the virus's point of view or that undue weight be placed on topics directly discussing the virus, but how an article about a virus is overshadowed by human interest (for example, how its treated and prevented) when it should be concentrating on what the virus is (genome, life cycle, methods of transmission, and so on). So what do you guys think. ChyranandChloe (talk) 06:47, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

Since there isn't a cultural bias I don't think that counts. Mdw0 (talk) 01:27, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm not so sure - there's no reason why we couldn't address systemic bias in addressing only human interests. I recall that a few years ago, articles like eye almost exclusively addressed the topic in humans, whereas now the eye article is a good introduction to the various types of eyes in various animals. Whether we want to be the place to address it is one question, but addressing it would be worthwhile and is achievable. Warofdreams talk 10:12, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Point taken - although we're talking about a secondary bias against a group that cant be offended by the text (as far as we know, anyway.) This sounds more like work for a project rather than something for every user to be conscious of. Mdw0 (talk) 02:30, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Very interesting sub-topic, involving as has been mentioned much more than virology. To many articles about body parts & chemistry and their functions, I have added 'human', 'mammalian', 'vertebrate' etc. as appropriate, sometimes rewriting paragraphs to make the point. The human-only approach is an annoyance. This is not because a deer or a parrot may be offended. We all know that school children as well as adults read Wikipedia. The extreme human-centric bias will color the attitudes of a great many people. - Hordaland (talk) 00:40, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

A similar discussion is now under way at Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous) - Anthropocentrism - for those who might be interested. - Hordaland (talk) 19:41, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Possible Travel Bias in place articles

The policy mentions that young men are predominantly editors. Might this account for the seeming bias in place articles that the only good thing about a place, is it acts as a gateway to some other place? I agree that a place article must contain some mention of travel infrastructure if it exists. However, some editors have been inserting infrastructure that does not exist within the place - they have to go to a distant place to obtain it. When the article describes facilities that the place does not actually have, it seems a bit peculiar to me. Why are travel facilities so important that they take such emphasis over other facilities? Why can't those editors rely on the metro articles which usually encompass all that description?Student7 (talk) 13:21, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

Freeware and shareware

Please see:

Additional input is requested. --Timeshifter (talk) 08:47, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

An anon made an excellent point

Talk:MV Teratai Prima ^diff

Last week, several hundred people died in an accident and en:wp has a small stub about it. Some days later several hundred people didn't die in an accident and en:wp has a large article with scores of refs and video. FWIW, I edited only the former article. Cheers, Jack Merridew 12:36, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

That seems more like systemic bias in the sources that we can use than WP itself. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 14:19, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

I don't mean to be rude but, there might be more sources and info for the US airways flight. The anon is right but that is now bias if you ask me.--निर्वृत ^Peace 20:40, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

That is no excuse. Incidents like these will be heavily reported for at least two to three days, even by Indonesian standards. Unfortunately we are sitting on a heap of new reports which are unusable because the vast majority of them are written in a language few in the West have any command of; as a matter of fact, all citations in MV Teratai Prima are derived from English-language sources only, while the Indonesian page contains one English citation and four Indonesian citations. With few able people to interpret these sources, they will be virtually useless, before they become dead links due to abysmal news archiving. I'll be satisfied if the length of MV Teratai Prima is at least 20%-30% of the length of US Airways Flight 1549, but its current state is absolutely appalling to ignore. - 60.52.74.78 (talk) 14:41, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

That's exactly the point. Since English-language media doesn't focus on it, it's hard for the English-language Wikipedia to focus as much on it. It's not really fair to speak in such an accusatory language toward people here simply because they don't know another language. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 17:07, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

What's the problem with making a translation of the sources into English for the English article? Then if someone wants to challenge the translation later they can. Mdw0 (talk) 02:15, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Question How many people from Indonesian have ever run for administrator on the English wikipedia? They are the only people that can put news items on the main page. They only know what their own nations show in their media. Dream Focus 03:27, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Middle Ages

In attempting to expand the focus of the Medieval football article I've run up against a problem of Eurocentrism. The term Medieval refers to the Middle Ages, which is defined as a period in European history, even though it literally means the period between ancient and modern history. Some very literal editors are removing relevant items because they didn't happen in Europe. Because of a systemic bias the reference to a time period has also developed a geographical limiation. Is there a word which covers the time period between say 500 BCE and 1600 BCE which can be applied worldwide? Mdw0 (talk) 01:15, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Probably not. In Asia and Africa, kingdoms were rising and falling during this period entirely out of step with European developments. It is hard to imagine a name that would encompass everything. Maybe someone else can think of something. Rumiton (talk) 11:13, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

The fact that there were other kingdoms keeps being brought up and its irrelevant. It's not like there was a single empire this whole time in Europe. And they weren't entirely out of step. It not as though there was no trade or technical exchange between continents. The actual dates the Middle Ages cover are fuzzy and debated. Its very annoying that the term Medieval is unable to be used for the same time period in China or Africa if the information is relevant just because its more commonly used in Europe, especially considering there's no alternative. I hope this is taken into account when tags are being handed out - it may be that it is actually impossible to make edits to account for a precieved bias. Oh well, we suck it up and move on. Mdw0 (talk) 02:08, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Disccussion of bias against Wikipedia's rules

An interesting exchange with a Wikipedia factotem. Apparently it is not permitted to indicate users' bias, as this is taken to be an argument against the person rather than about the issue. Which, if true, means that it is simply not possible to counter bias on a practical level on Wikipedia, where decisions are actually being made. It's apparently fine to discuss bias in a vague, non-specific way, as long as it doesn't actually point out any *specific* bias. -- SmashTheState (talk) 10:43, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Looks like you've both bunkered down quite early in this exchange. Jerry is wrong to absolutely exclude ANY mention of individual bias, but it should definitely not be a focus of discussion or the only reason for inclusion/exclusion of text. Dont forget that every single piece of text can't be NPOV, but the overall article should be, so that involves balance. This exchange doesnt detail exactly what the debate is about - Are you reasoning that articles should be deleted because they are typical of systemic bias? Or is someone getting precious over a particular line? Mdw0 (talk) 01:24, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm trying to think of a situation where pointing out an editor's bias (as a personal attribute) would add anything to the discussion. An edit stands or falls on its own merits. Even an editor who does have some sort of personal bias will express that bias to different degrees in different edits. A conservative might write something which seems liberal once in a while, etc. To be precise, we should only think of biased edits rather than biased editors. Since Wikipedia doesn't even require editors to register, but allows anyone to edit under IP addresses which may change or be shared by multiple users, we have no ironclad way even to know who is behind a collection of edits, and thus no way to be sure that one editor's bias infects them all. It doesn't matter who makes an edit, the edit either complies or does not comply with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines and we can judge it without knowing who made it or whether the editor passes a religious test etc. Just my (biased) opinion. Since the cited discussion seems to be about a deletion debate, I can understand the general irritation involved - perhaps the most irritating aspect of Wikipedia is working on something only to watch it get deleted. I doubt anyone who thought something was worth working on ever agrees with its deletion. I certainly haven't. However, sometimes you just have to take your lumps, because there seem to be lots of Wikipedians who like to delete things, and they have no need to convince the people whose work they delete. They only have to get a majority of delete votes from their fellow deletionists. --Teratornis (talk) 01:53, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Rather than accuse editors of bias, it is usually more productive to point to point to the user's edit history, and let the bias speak for itself. In the cases where the bias is not self-evident from their edit history, it's probably too subjective to bring up in a discussion without coming across as a personal attack. Refraining from accusations keeps the conversation civil. On the other hand, I encourage editors to announce their biases on their user pages--it helps them to know when to be cautious if they get in arugments, and in a sense, it enlists the help of other editors in maintaining high standards of conduct and intellectual rigor. Cazort (talk) 14:44, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder: Geographical bias/vagueness

Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (aka Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder aka ADD) contains a number of statements like "It affects about 3 - 5% of children with symptoms starting before seven years of age." "ADHD is generally a chronic disorder with 10 to 40% of individuals diagnosed in childhood continuing to meet diagnostic criteria in adulthood."
In the USA?? In the UK?? In the western cultures?? Worldwide??
The sources cited presumably make the geographic areas clear, but we really need to specify these in the article text itself. -- 201.37.230.43 (talk) 16:41, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

Good call. I know that the diagnosis is ballooning in the US and Norway while the UK is more restrictive. Googling "ADHD Japan" indicates that it is "catching on" there, with support groups even. I may try to tackle this, but it's usually difficult without wandering into OR. - Hordaland (talk) 00:59, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Good point. This is discussed in more depth under the epidemiology section. It is a difficult topic as the diagnosis depends on subjective criteria that were put forth by the American Psychiatric Association. The ICD 10 does not have a diagnosis of ADHD but use the term hyperactivity instead for a similar disorder. These criteria however are more restrictive which gives the less than one percent having this condition in the UK.

Complicated yes..

--Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 21:42, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

linking from wikipedia article

can someone provide some references for the text contained within this article, and maybe include/link to it from Wikipedia article's systemic bias section. 212.200.243.116 (talk) 15:31, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Template:Globalize/West

I created this new template because I noticed at least two subjects—history of nudity and binge drinking—which seem to only cover their relevance in areas of Western culture, and do not mention enough/anything relevant to this topic regarding non-Western cultures, or indigenous non-Western cultures in Western countries, and so forth. Having lived in a non-Western country before, I can affirm that there are many topics that are relevant to all of humanity, but in very different ways from culture to culture. - Gilgamesh (talk) 03:23, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Supreme Court of India - create articles on members

The Indian government has this page: http://www.supremecourtofindia.nic.in/new_s/judge.htm

Why don't we create articles about ALL of the judges? WhisperToMe (talk) 21:40, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

New template related to globalize template proposed

Please see here for my proposal of a new template, that would be put on articles that need to have their sources globalized - i.e. on articles that rely on a very similar set of sources likely representing one and the same POV.--_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 13:59, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Globalize template

I love the irony implicit in the use of the American spelling of globalise. :-) --Dweller (talk) 23:01, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

There isn't actually any irony there. Would it seem less incongruous to use the Commonwealth spelling? Why? The Commonwealth is not global either, any more than the States.

There's a prejudice among some Commonwealth speakers that they speak so-called "International English". They are flat wrong. There is no such thing as "International English". --Trovatore (talk) 22:52, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Units

What is the Wikipedia policy concerning units, especially with respect to avoid a systemic bias towards one region of the world? Sorry if I start an old discussion or if this it not the right place to raise the issue. I have found pages with metric units, with US units, with US units and metric units in brackets... what would be a reasonable standard or what is the general Wikipedia policy? I would be grateful for advise or a link where to look for. Mregelsberger (talk) 07:58, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Use the countries units which are usually metric. Can use {{convert|nn|un}} to convert to US since there are a lot of US readers. In US articles, should always use convert from US so that metric will be available in parens. If it not clear on article ownership then it's whoever starts the article! But please always use convert in those cases. Wrongly assigned units (US in an article about Asia) should really be reversed so that metric is not in parens. Student7 (talk) 11:43, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Is there a Wikipedia policy page on this. While US readers should be considered as they are in the majority, looking at this map, and given that what you call the metric system is officially called the International System of Units, would it not be prudent to prefer it over the US system in all articles not directly pertaining to US issues, unless there is a WP policy page stating to the contrary. It is also been adopted in the US in some areas, although NASA's incident with the Mars orbiter has hampered this somewhat. _ɹəə pıɔnı 20:05, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

(Actually, the US has been an essentially crypto-metric country for quite some time. Nowadays an inch is precisely 2.54 cm, and the pound is likewise defined as a precise multiple of the kilogramme.) The best place to discuss how to deal with the situation is probably the talk page of WP:MOSNUM. --Hans Adler (talk) 22:41, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

It is pretty clearly laid out in Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style#Which_system_to_use and the paragraph following. Student7 (talk) 02:14, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

People in America are more likely to use wikipedia than India?

Bias is defined in the Webster dictionary as: 3 a: bent, tendency b: an inclination of temperament or outlook ; especially : a personal and sometimes unreasoned judgment : prejudice c: an instance of such prejudice d (1): deviation of the expected value of a statistical estimate from the quantity it estimates (2): systematic error introduced into sampling or testing by selecting or encouraging one outcome or answer over others

Reading part of the project page, and its mentioned that most users are evil young white male American Christian nerds who are obviously bias against everyone else in the world, and couldn't possible give a fair deal on things. WTF? Do you believe that people in other nations think totally differently than we would, and would prefer to write articles about their history instead of popular movies Hollywood sales to them? What are the most popular movies, television shows, video games, books, and other media influences in those nations, for people with internet access? To say more nerds(technically skilled people) use the wikipedia, would make sense. But there is no need to bring in race, religion, or nationality. A poll showed that 99.9% of people don't answer polls, just hang up on the idiots calling to bother them. All polls therefore have an inherit bias, of only representing the small number of people, who are the type of person that would bother answering them. Did you ever see the pie chart which shows what percentage of views each section gets? Anime and Manga get a very large percentage of views. Do you know why? Because nerds the world over enjoy it and will come here for information on it. And most/all of it comes from Japan. I don't believe most people in Japan are white or Christian. So this whole bias thing is nonsense. Also, 99.9% of all polls are just made up. I did a poll on it. Dream Focus 03:18, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

It's easy to demonstrate that people from different parts of the world are more likely to contribute articles about topics which are relevant to their lives, such as on local geography, history, politics, etc. In cultural terms, people from those different areas will be more likely to write about things which are popular in their country, and in their culture or sub-culture, for the simple reason that they are more likely to be interested in and knowledgeable about them - whether that's English people writing about morris dancing, Jewish people writing about Judaism, or younger males writing about anime. That's not "evil", it's a predictable and expected bias. If you don't believe us, just compare the spread of articles in a Wikipedia in another language and see how areas which speakers of that language relate most closely to are as well or better represented than in the English language edition, whereas there will be far less information on British TV shows or American cities. Warofdreams talk 09:40, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Large percentage of views for the English wikipedia are for Anime and Manga. Those things come from Japan. Dominant cultural influences are from television and internet, not because of race or nationality. To say that you prefer a certain thing, because you are white, is racist. Nerds of any color usually like the same things. If most people surveyed in nations that were majority white, happened to be white themselves, then that's the reason why most wikipedia users from those nations are white. And a large percentage of views for the English wikipedia are surprisingly for sex related articles, showing that people are perverts the world over. So it should read Cultural preferences determine inherit bias, without mentions of race or nationality. The most popular things in countries aren't always given the most articles, but instead what is most popular among the wikipedia nerd population. Thus evident by the anime and manga dominance over other types of articles. Dream Focus 14:27, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

You seem to be confusing talk about what is more common among a group of people who share a common culture which may be based in part on a particular nationality or ethnic origin, which is factual and an essential part of academic discourse, with claims that these cultural identities are in some way determined genetically, which is highly dubious at best and often based on racist assumptions or other predjudices. Dominant cultural influences do come from the television and the internet, in addition to newspapers and other media sources. Some things are popular worldwide, others are not. Cultural influences also come from society - taking a random example from above, morris dancing is very rarely found in the British media, yet is fairly widespread in the UK - whereas it is pretty much unknown in the rest of the world. Warofdreams talk 15:59, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

There is nothing intellectual about their agendas

Wikipedians tend to self-select more heavily among strong adherents to or opponents of certain political ideologies or religious beliefs. Editors with strong opinions tend to edit vigorously and often; editors without an intellectual agenda tend to edit less since they do not desire to represent a particular point of view. This may lead to subjective articles and heavy-handed promotion or criticism of topics.

An intellectual agenda? I thought anyone who disagreed with you about anything was automatically considered an idiot by most people. ;) Seriously though, what do you mean by intellectual agenda? A religious or political belief system people want to argue about, is NOT an intellectual agenda. Shouldn't that read, "people who want to argue back and forth about the same stuff that never gets revolved all day, edit a lot more than people who get tired of that crap, and find something else to do?" Or perhaps its just the more you edit, the more arguments you will find yourself getting into. Dream Focus 03:23, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

I read that passage to mean "an agenda which primarily involves ideas". I can agree that "intellectual agenda" is perhaps redundant, because any kind of agenda begins in the mind, as a set of ideas a person wants to translate into some kind of action. However, I don't see why you think religious or political beliefs are any less "intellectual" - belief is always the product of intellect, although emotion plays into it as well. But a belief system cannot be purely emotional, it has to be packageable somehow in words, or else it cannot spread efficiently. Even when people believe things for emotional reasons, they still almost invariably rationalize their beliefs with words, particularly if other people question their beliefs. The further removed a belief is from reality and common sense, the more intellectual effort a person must make to rationalize it. See cognitive dissonance. Thus some of the most ridiculous agendas might be the most "intellectual". --Teratornis (talk) 02:15, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Bias is not always the reason why one article gets less attention than another

Deaths of those in developed countries are seen as far more significant. The Al-Qaeda attacks on the US, UK and Spain, killing slightly over 3,000 people, are seen as having enormous significance. The Darfur conflict in Sudan, in which 400,000 civilians have so far been massacred, receives less attention.

In this case, it isn't because people in those nations don't have as many internet users. Nor because people report what they hear about on the news most often, or what affects them. In this particular case the reason you have more articles on Al-Qaeda than Darfur, is because Al-Qaeda has more going on to talk about. They have multiple attacks, each one getting mentioned in its own article perhaps. But Darfur is just one ongoing event, nothing new happening in it to justify any additional articles about it. If the people there started attacking other nations, they'd get more articles dedicated to them right away. I reject the claim that this particular item gets less attention do to any bias. Dream Focus 03:47, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

If you read our article on the War in Darfur, you will see that there have been many developments, and that violence has spilled over into Chad and the Central African Republic. There are, of course, many reasons why al-Qaeda gets a great deal of coverage, but notice that the example instead talks about specific attacks, rather than the group in general. Would you not agree that, were there more contributors to the English language Wikipedia who were from Darfur or the surrounding area, they would be highly likely to search out further reliable information on the conflict and expand our coverage of the war? Warofdreams talk 10:09, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Need proof for the software claim. Any examples?

Certain groups of articles, such as those about intellectual property and software, may have a pro-free software/free content bias.

Can you provide an example of this? Most people would prefer something free, and if it was free there would probably be more people using it and writing about it. But I see plenty of articles on open source freeware software being deleted all the time. Dream Focus 03:47, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Why Chinese people prefer to edit the Chinese wikipedia instead of the English one

A lack of articles on particular topics is the most common cultural bias. Separately, both China and India have populations greater than all native English speakers combined; by this measure, information on Chinese and Indian topics should, at least, equal Anglophone topics; yet, Anglophone topics dominate the content of Wikipedia. While the conscious efforts of WikiProject participants have vastly expanded the available information on topics such as the Second Congo War, coverage of comparable Western wars remains much more detailed.

Is this the English wikipedia, or do you mean all wikipedias? Does the Chinese wikipedia have more topics about Anglophone topics than Chinese topics? Or do you believe that those who speak two languages, will translate articles they participate in over to the English wikipedia? Are you aware that the different wikipedia's have different rules? In the Japanese wikipedia, any manga featured in Jump Comics is automatically notable and gets its own article, while in the English wikipedia most of those were deleted, because under the current notability guidelines, if you aren't getting reviewed in third party media, as the overwhelming majority of manga never will, then you aren't able to have an article. The rules that each wikipedia has for notability, determines what articles will be allowed, and if its a lot easier to make and keep an article in one of those other wikipedias, why bother coming to the English wikipedia? And why come to the English wikipedia if you have a wikipedia in your native language? Do those who speak English as their first language go over to the other wikipedias and create a lot of articles there? Dream Focus 03:56, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

WikiProjects are a feature of the English language edition of Wikipedia, and so it is just the English version which the text discusses. The rules and guidelines of other language editions are not relevant. I suspect that you may have misunderstood the purpose of this project - it is to identify expected biases which will arise, and think of ways of addressing these, not to criticise people for choosing to contribute in a particular area, or to make the English Wikipedia more like any particular other language edition. This can include translating articles from other languages, if they are suitably referenced and demonstrate notability. But there are many other possibilities, such as those given on the project page. Warofdreams talk 09:53, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

I was just about to write the same thing. Dream Focus, from these last three sections you started, you seem to be misunderstanding this project a bit. As Warofdreams writes, there is no implication of "evil" in the fact that people tend to write about what they know, and that people writing in the English Wikipedia tend to be tech-savvy English speakers. This project just draws attention to that fact, and tries to compensate; but there is no criticism implied, any more than someone learning Spanish should be criticized for not learning Telugu instead. I am sure that the Chinese language wikipedia(s) have parallel biases; that doesn't mean we shouldn't try to compensate for ours. --GRuban (talk) 17:41, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps the systematic demographic bias of English wikipedia leads the contributors to be more concerned about systematic bias than the population as a whole? Certainly the tone of the statement of the systematic problem is of the kind you'd expect from northern, well-educated, male, middle-aged, technical, middle-class, academics (such as myself). 131.111.21.21 (talk) 12:46, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

Interesting idea; that would be consistent with the notion of White guilt. I don't know whether other cultures feel a similar compulsion to bend over backwards to avoid giving offense to some people in cultures other than their own. According to our Gaijin article, most Japanese television broadcasters now avoid that term, as it is becoming politically incorrect in Japan. Perhaps the phenomenon of conspicuous guilt is more common in wealthy countries than in the developing countries where hundreds of millions of people struggle to survive on less than $1 per person per day. At that level of poverty, a person probably doesn't worry much about other people's concerns - the main priority is probably to obtain the next meal. As to Wikipedia's notability guidelines, they are unquestionably a deliberate attempt to create systemic bias in Wikipedia's topic coverage. Only a small proportion of "the sum of human knowledge" gets past the filtering mechanisms of the publishing industry that produces the reliable sources Wikipedia uses as the measure of notability. In other words, Wikipedia unavoidably reflects the systemic bias of the publishing industry which defines what is important. As the original poster observes, the English-language publishing industry doesn't seem to care very much about Japanese manga. I don't consider bias to be automatically evil, though. Every project must have some sort of bias, or it will become incoherent. A Wikipedia entirely free from bias would allow anybody to write anything, including Advocacy and spam. As Jimbo says, one of the necessary conditions for successful collaboration is a shared vision, and this means the un-shared visions have no place. --Teratornis (talk) 17:22, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

Report on the current state of bracketed disambiguation

I have just published an up-to-date look at the state of article-name disambiguation via the use of brackets; it include the most commonly used terms, national biases and the trends since the last report on the topic, January 2007. I thought you guys at WP:BIAS might appreciate a look at some of the fuller lists, as they do give a general idea of the themes of Wikipedia. Whether they add anything to what you already know, I have no idea, but I thought I'd tell you anyway.

You can view the report's introduction or jump straight to my findings. I would be especially happy to see you editing the pages, drawing their own conclusions or offering historical perspective - this is a wiki, after all. It's very much a work in progress, and if anyone has any questions, I am watching all the relevant pages. - Jarry1250 ^{(t, c)} 18:46, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

UK or US English?

I imagine this has been discussed umpteen times before – but can’t find anything on it. Is there a standard for what form of English is to be used in the English wikipedia articles. I’m asking as I’m new to the set-up and just noticed someone has gone over a piece I wrote and essentially Americanised the spelling. The edit doesn’t make any comment as to why it was done. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.189.18.50 (talk) 23:52, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

There is. Please see this page, which should explain it. //roux 23:55, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

Thought there would be something. Ta. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.189.18.252 (talk) 01:54, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

Bios

One of the problems we all encounter in this encyclopedia is the heavy bias towards entertainers, sports figures, actors and other "personalities" who clutter up television but do really little in the long run to influence the way people live. My hometown mayor probably has more long term influence on my life than most of these ephemeral and often frivolous figures. Great for entertainment, I watch video myself, but what real good do any of them do?

So most bios are on "junk" figures. And since Hollywood dominates the film industry, most are US; since the US supports more professional teams than most (except for association football), most sports bios are also US. So it results in US bias there as well, though most foreigners are generally not interested in US sports figures.

The problem lies in slavishly copying the media IMO. Student7 (talk) 20:35, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

So what, besides the media, do you suggest we use for Wikipedia:Verifiable sources to write about your mayor? --GRuban (talk) 16:20, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

Books. Tv (echoed online) is pretty awful and is very biased towards entertainment. Newspapers are better but desperately try to mirror television in puppylike fashion. But accuracy is superior. Magazines are better yet and don't always mirror television depending on their reliability, often a function of how often they publish, most accuracy and objectivity with less frequent publishing. I'm aware that books can be junk too, but they usually aren't aimed at the least common denominator like tv is. Student7 (talk) 21:48, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

Student7 - I don't disagree with you, but it's amusing that there's quite a bit of systemic bias in your original comment, too; try telling an Indian or a Frenchman that Hollywood dominates the cinema, for example! As to sources - well, I think you mean subjects, since we rarely use TV as a source and frequently do use books. The best way to offset the plethora of junk-entertainment articles is to work on creating and improving articles on other subjects, rather than try to fight them. Barnabypage (talk) 11:18, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

Also, while the home town mayor may have influence over his constituents' lives, if he is the mayor of a small town, he may not influence enough lives to be very notable. My mother has had more influence over my life than any person who has an article on Wikipedia, but that is irrelevant to Wikipedia because my mother is not notable. Frivolous entertainment figures probably have a higher degree of social relevance than a small-town mayor, simply because entertainment figures are more widely known. Hollywood types can go to Washington, D.C. and have far more influence on politicians and big donors than a small-town mayor. If Hollywood gets behind a cause, things happen. In any case, I don't see the harm in having lots of articles about entertainment figures - they are easy enough to ignore. See WP:NOTPAPER - articles I do not care about do not inconvenience me in any way. And if lots of people want to write about entertainers, that's what Wikipedia exists to facilitate. Nobody is under any obligation to write about anything except what they want to write about. Instead of fretting about what happens when we let people be free, why not just accept the consequences of freedom? When people are free, we get lots of articles about American pro athletes - big deal. Even if the articles are useless to me, people are still learning how to edit on Wikipedia, develop templates, write documentation pages, answer Help desk questions, and contribute in other ways that helps the articles I happen to care about. --Teratornis (talk) 02:59, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Priorities

"Wikipedia is blocked in some countries due to government censorship, and editing through open proxies, the most common method of circumventing such censorship, is prohibited by Wikipedia policy."

This fact reveals another: that Wikipedia gives priority to combating vandalism over facilitating censored editors and thereby combating systemic bias (among other net benefits).

At the risk of furthering the USA-centric bias, I think this quote from Thomas Jefferson is appropriate: "I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty, than those attending too small a degree of it."[1] —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.105.246.237 (talk) 15:20, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

One way for you to fix this problem is to assume responsibility for fixing all the vandalism that results from making Wikipedia more accessible. Wikipedia's tolerance for vandalism is directly proportional to the willingness of people like you and me to spend our free time hunting down and reverting vandalism. Most people get tired of manually reverting vandalism, hence the constant pressure to limit vandalism through technology. (How much vandalism have you personally repaired? How many years will you continue?) Jefferson's quote is catchy but ultimately meaningless since Jefferson like everyone else set limits on liberty. The man owned slaves after all - he didn't expose himself to the inconveniences of doing his own domestic labor. Evidently freeing his slaves (before he died) would have been too inconvenient. --Teratornis (talk) 03:09, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

debatable statements

I've just changed the male list of occupations to female ones. This also strikes me as odd: "Despite the many contributions of Wikipedians writing in English as a non-native language, the English Wikipedia is dominated by native English-speaking editors from Anglophone countries." Would any other WP contain an equivalent statement? "The Swahili WP is dominated by native Swahili-speaking editors from countries where Swahili is an official language."

"These Anglophone countries tend to be industrialized, thereby accentuating the encyclopedia's bias to contributions from First World countries." The majority of the world's population lives in industrialised countries, including many poor or middle income ones (BRIC). Many First World countries are post-industrial. Logic doesn't fit. BrainyBabe (talk) 10:02, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

I think your edit was a bit incomplete. Or are "dental technicians, teaching assistants, flight attendants, waitresses" really good examples of blue-collar workers? --Hans Adler (talk) 10:33, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

I understand blue-collar to refer to unskilled, semi-skilled, or skilled jobs that, traditionally, have involved on-the-job training rather than lengthy classroom education, and that involve working with one's hands and body rather than sitting at a desk. BrainyBabe (talk) 10:53, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Hey, Babe. Nice t'see ya, pull up a soapbox. I sees ya gots three different points here.

First the edit: I split the difference; no reason to have a female centric bias either. Also, there are plenty of teaching assistants editing Wikipedia. :-)

Second, the domination. I'm not sure what exactly strikes you as odd about it - do you think it's self evident for every language? Well, it isn't. Not all languages have native speakers; even many of those that do are not the official language of any country; and even for those that are, the number of natives of that country does not correlate with the number of Wikipedia editors. For example, consider Latin. It has a country for which it is the official language. Do editors from Vatican City dominate the Latin Wikipedia? I doubt it. Consider Esperanto, Volapuk, Breton, Cebuano ... there are quite a few languages for which that statement is not the case. In fact, even for English it is not self evident. What do you think is the most populous country for which English is an official language? It's India, by quite a bit of population. More people than most of the other officially English countries combined, in fact. Do Indian editors inevitably dominate this Wikipedia? Just in case you're curious, they don't. Trust me on this one. :-)

Finally, third, "industrialized". I think you are misunderstanding the usage of the term, which, here, is merely meant to differentiate the more developed countries from the less developed ones. "Post-industrialized" would also be considered industrialized in this usage. The blue and green countries in the picture here, as opposed to the red and purple ones. The former have considerably more editors here, both per capita and in aggregate, than the latter. If you can think of a better word than "industrialized", please do suggest it. --GRuban (talk) 11:24, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your detailed response. Yes, I am making several points, but not necessarily those ones...

Firstly, gender. I thought it rather shortsighted for the page to state at the top that there are more male editors than female ones, and then shortly afterwards list, as some of the sorts of people under-represented, a string of overwhelmingly male jobs. I know gender and class map onto systemic bias in different ways, but this seemed egregious blindness. I am very happy to split the difference.

Secondly, language. Ethnologue has catalogued thousands of languages, and of course the vast majority, even of the written ones, are not an official language anywhere, nor do they have a Wikipedia. Of the languages that are still alive, very few lack native speakers -- enthusiasts have been bringing their babies up in Latin, then Esperanto, then colloquial Hebrew, then Cornish, etc. for quite some time. I think there is a real debate to be had - here or elsewhere - about to what extent the English Wikipedia - more than any other Wikipedia - has a responsibility to represent global knowledge.

Finally, developed countries seems to do the trick. Or better yet, "the North", piped to North-South divide. China is more "indutrialised", than, say, Monaco. BrainyBabe (talk) 14:58, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

I don't see anyone implying anywhere that any other Wikipedias have any less responsibility to represent global knowledge. Here's what the Wikipedia is about, after all:

"Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge. That's what we're doing."
— Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia and Chair of the Wikimedia Foundation, http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/English_Wikipedia_Publishes_Millionth_Article

Since we can't hope that every single person on the planet is able to read every language, presumably every language's Wikipedia needs to try to cover the sum of all human knowledge equally. Not just that part that happens to be of greater concern to speakers of their one language. That said, this happens to be the project for achieving that goal for the English language Wikipedia specifically. We work here. If you would like to organize a project that tries to do the same thing on another Wikipedia, or a meta-project, please, go ahead, we wish more power to you, and will give you what support we can. --GRuban (talk) 15:51, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

OK, fair enough. Should I reword the industrialised sentence to include the North? BrainyBabe (talk) 16:51, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Yes, please, if you can find a good way to say it to get across the meaning we want. Welcome! --GRuban (talk) 17:12, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

"Would any other WP contain an equivalent statement?" Have a look at the "other language equivalents" presently linked to the article here. i haven't tried to trace an exactly identical statement. The linked articles are a bit of a mixed bag - ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:日本中心にならないように, cs:Wikipedie:Čechocentrismus and fr:Wikipédia:Guide d'internationalisation are not too bad, though i've just now had to correct the fr version to point out that it's not just a problem of bias in articles, but also the selection of articles themselves - what is a "notable" subject, decisions on deletion, etc. Actually, something close to the same statement in the fr is: La francophonie en Amérique du Nord ne se limite pas à la seule province du Québec, ... Tout comme la francophonie en Europe ne se limite pas seulement à la France et à la Belgique, mais aussi a plusieurs minorités dans plusieurs autres pays européens. Boud (talk) 18:52, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

I see the French statement as quite different from the English one, and therefore implicitly the French WPians are holding themselves to a different standard. The English says, not all of the world lives in the Anglosphere, or another way of putting it, Eng WP should reflect a larger reality than that of "native English-speaking editors from Anglophone countries". The French one says, not all of the French-speaking world is in predictable and limited locations. That posits quite a different scope fo the two WPs. -- But I accept the point that this project is about what can be done within Eng WP only. BrainyBabe (talk) 22:18, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

A comment about technical inclination

WP:BIAS#The origins of bias says:

"Even among their general demographic groups, Wikipedians are more technically inclined. There is a barrier represented by the "edit this page" button and the complex Wiki code that many readers either do not recognise or choose not to use (thinking "It isn't really meant for people like me")."

Two points:

The first sentence sounds plausible, but has anyone attempted to measure "technical inclination"? It would be nice to clarify whether someone has objectively defined "technical inclination" and reliably measured Wikipedians' endowment of it, or whether this is merely a plausible hunch.
The second sentence also sounds plausible, but my experience on the Help desk suggests that wikitext is not the only technical barrier here, and probably not even the biggest. While the questions that appear on the Help desk may themselves represent some selection (because a questioner has to figure out how to type and save a question), we get more questions pertaining to policies, guidelines and procedures than questions about the basic wikitext markup. Compare the relative size of Help:Editing and the other pages primarily about markup to all the other instruction pages in the Editor's index - learning the basic markup barely scratches the surface on what a new editor needs to know. Also note the 63,000+ articles in Deletionpedia, a partial collection of Wikipedia's deleted articles. Many of those articles are reasonably well-formatted, indicating that their authors found it much easier to master the basics of wikitext editing than to figure out Wikipedia's mind-numbing rules about what sort of articles are allowable here. Wikipedia has stupendous complexity beyond the purely technical aspects (which are themselves complex for those who delve into the details). The mental attribute which correlates with a person's ability to handle complexity is IQ, so Wikipedia's complexity functions as a kind of IQ test. We systematically exclude people who lack the capacity to easily digest vast quantities of dense, written instructions. Since Wikipedia is a do it yourself system, we also exclude people who cannot or will not self-educate. I don't think this is necessarily a problem, even if a solution was possible - we will just have to continue attracting intelligent, self-motivated people from every demographic segment - but it's probably worth mentioning Wikipedia's incredible complexity when we run down the list of factors that screen people out.

--Teratornis (talk) 03:40, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Psychological and cultural exclusion

Would it be worth mentioning the exclusion that results from Wikipedia's collaborative editing model? I suspect Wikipedia tends to drive away potential contributors who discover, to their shock, that anyone else can edit their work, and that to get edits to "stick" here, one must learn to write for one's opponents. I suspect the impact is greatest on people who aren't accustomed to having their views questioned. This tends to drive away not only demographic subsets such as privileged white American Evangelical Christian males who feel more comfortable on Conservapedia, but it might also be a substantial barrier to less-privileged members of traditional cultures around the world, who might not appreciate cosmopolitan challenges to their received knowledge. For example, a Haitian Vodou priest, or a conservative Wahhabi Muslim, almost certainly have some strongly held views that would clash with Wikipedia. I suspect much of the world's population would reject the neutral point of view as an absurdity, and the notion that truth results from consensus rather than authority, divine revelation, or the party chairman would be similarly alien. It's possible that in some of the cultures we want to give the gift of Wikipedia to, only a tiny fraction of the people in those cultures are anything like ready for Wikipedia as it currently operates, or necessarily eager to be exposed as ready. Imagine what would happen if, for example, a majority of the population in the Swat Valley of Pakistan were to gain Internet access and learn what we are doing here - how might they react to our Depictions of Muhammad, our extensive coverage of porn stars, etc.? As Moore's law continues to drive down the cost of computing and Internet access, eventually even the world's poorest people will probably gain the means to participate, as computers should eventually be cheaper than food, and it will be interesting to see how disruptive Wikipedia turns out to be if we're still around by then. In the meantime, even within cultures that are relatively well-off, probably a majority of people lack the personality traits that would enable them to accept having their work deleted. To last long on Wikipedia, one must accept a lot of editing "setbacks." This means Wikipedia probably underrepresents the views of people who cannot tolerate being corrected, or edited in ways they disagree with, if such people have some identifiable views. In other words, Wikipedia unavoidably discriminates against anyone who cares about any controversial issue more than they care about Wikipedia as a project. To get along here, one must accept the idea that Wikipedia is more important than always getting one's way. --Teratornis (talk) 04:15, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Free time

WP:BIAS#The origins of bias says:

"Wikipedians are people that have enough free time to participate in the project. The points of view of editors focused on other projects, e.g. earning a living or caring for others, will be under-represented."

While there are undoubtedly some people who find every waking minute fully accounted for, for long periods of calendar time, the leisure industry would not exist if lots of people didn't have lots of idle hours to fill. Clay Shirky wrote about this in Gin, Television, and the Social Surplus where he answered the question, "Where do they find the time?" The vast majority of people in first-world countries have lots of free time, which they mostly fill with leisure activities such as television viewing, sports, drinking, driving, etc. Wikipedia has an inherent bias against people who are unwilling to turn off the television and read our exciting instruction manuals instead. I know lots of people who read Wikipedia when they want to look something up, but would never dream of attempting to edit it, especially if that meant missing their favorite shows. --Teratornis (talk) 04:28, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Do you have a point here or do you just wish to scold television viewers? --Gimme danger (talk) 04:46, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

I would prefer to say "Wikipedians are people who make enough free time to participate in the project." --Teratornis (talk) 08:43, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

I'm afraid I disagree. Just a glance at recent edits will show you plenty made by people who have never read our exciting instruction manuals. --GRuban (talk) 17:45, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

How long do their edits remain in the current revision? (The relevant unit of time is the edit, because two articles may take very different amounts of clock time to accumulate the same number of edits. I suspect that edits which violate our exciting manuals don't last through as many subsequent edits as edits which comply with the manuals.) --Teratornis (talk) 08:43, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

Education

This isn't exactly within the scope of this WikiProject, but if there's an editor here that is interested in reading- and education-related articles, please contact me (on my talk page). I've encountered a new editor that really needs to work with someone who understands Wikipedia's concept of globalization (e.g., one article that includes everyone, not a hundred articles that repeat the same material with trivial differences). Thanks, WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:50, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

Well, Wikipedia does have collections of articles that describe different aspects of the same topic (for example, see Category:Barack Obama, and did you know There's No One as Irish as Barack O'Bama?), along with lots of overlap between articles written by different groups of editors who weren't aware of the other groups writing about the same topic under different synonyms. It takes time for other editors to notice the redundancy and then decide how to merge the similar articles. See WP:MERGE, WP:SPLIT, WP:SIZE, and WP:SUMMARY. In any case, you might get help with your problematic editor sooner if you give more specific details about exactly what the editor is doing wrong, and you could ask on the Help desk which has many volunteers who specialize in helping. --Teratornis (talk) 17:46, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

Talk:Special_education#History is one current dispute. The article contains two short, properly sourced paragraphs about the history of educating students with disabilities. One graph is entirely about the USA; the other is about a USA-based international group. The editor wants to delete that little bit of historical information because it's about the "wrong" country. He doesn't understand incrementalism and WP:There is no deadline he demands that either I (personally) write a full and comprehensive history of special education, or that I allow him to delete the small efforts (by some other editor) currently there. Requests for him to add the history from his country have been rejected.

The editor recently begged an admin to move Reading comprehension to Reading comprehension in the United States (as if only people in the USA are expected to "comprehend" what they read, or as if the relevant neurological activities involved change dramatically when you cross political boundaries). He's attempted multiple page moves along these lines.

As his interest is largely about dyslexia, his ultimate goal seems to be that the couple of dozen subjects connected to reading have a "global" (apparently meaning "no information about anything in the real world unless it happens to be true everywhere in the world") article, plus 200 new articles that largely repeat all of that information, with a few additional details specific to that country. So he thinks it's not good enough to have a high-quality article about Reading: he wants Reading in ______, where the blank is replaced by every possible country.

I'd like to have a good deal of information about historical and current practices from all over the world in these articles, but his "solution" is balkanization and deletion. He doesn't seem to grasp Wikipedia's concept of a single article that reflects many views from around the world. (I suspect that he'd also prefer that all articles were stub-length or start-length, because it's easier for him to read short pages.) It's very frustrating, and I'd be happy to have any other editor involved. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:46, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

Humphrey Winterton Collection of East African Photographs

The Humphrey Winterton Collection of East African Photographs (1860-1960) has been put online: http://repository.library.northwestern.edu/winterton/

Many of the older photographs are public domain and can be uploaded to Wikipedia. Kaldari (talk) 20:04, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

A better place to upload them would be Wikimedia Commons, so all the various language Wikipedias could use them. See Commons:COM:EIC#Free for lists of free media resources. For example, you might list this collection on Commons:Commons:Free media resources/Photography, along with clear guidance on how to determine which of the photos are actually in the public domain. See Commons:Help:Public domain. --Teratornis (talk) 17:38, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

Alternative Core Topics

I've been making a list of topics that are relevant to millions of people but poorly covered by Wikipedia. If you know of stuff to add, put it here: User:Shii/Alternative Core Topics Shii (tock) 18:41, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

Fixing some stuff up

Just want everyone to know that I'm taking a whack at the todo area, partly because it needs it and partly because it allows me to write 1 or 2 sentence summaries on all the topics. Xavexgoem (talk) 08:04, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

official bias

I've noticed a tendency of many editors, perhaps most, to place a strong bias in favor of "official", by which they mean government sources, even when those sources obviously don't reflect a current reality. Is that something this project should be concerned with? Readin (talk) 04:33, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

Could you elaborate on what you mean by "government sources"? Without clarification, I can only answer with a resounding "maybe". --Gimme danger (talk) 04:39, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

bias due to China's power

China is rapidly growing wealthier and militarily stronger. Corporations and other countries desperately want to keep access to China's markets and manufacturing for both current and future wealth. This puts China in a very powerful position to influence what other countries say about China, and what companies are willing to say about China. And China has shown itself very willing to use that influence.

Even scholars are not immune. A western scholar who writes things about China that China doesn't like can find himself cut-off from China and his Chinese sources. Imagine what that does to a western scholar who spends many years learning the Chinese language and becoming a China expert. To be cut-off from his subject of study ruins his career.

Reporters can find themselves in the same situation. Many major news outlets are owned by corporations that do business with China.

While China clearly can't control everything that is said about it, there are a few subjects that China has made taboo and it can be extremely difficult to find the kind of sources that we're supposed to have to write things in Wikipedia.

This problem will only grow as China's power and wealth increase.

What approach should Wikipedia take to this problem? Readin (talk) 04:52, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

This type of problem, if it exists, is not one that is part of Wikipedia but rather a part of the world external to the 'pedia. We can only report what academics and journalists are saying, per our core policies of no original research and verifiability. The systemic bias that this policy refers to is internal; I don't think we can -- or should -- do anything about the systemic bias that occurs in the outside world, at least not in our capacity as Wikipedians. --Gimme danger (talk) 05:04, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

Ubuntu

There's a discussion going on at Talk:Ubuntu that I think could use some input from someone involved in this project. Yworo (talk) 14:52, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

Fixed. :-) --GRuban (talk) 17:35, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Mission

Why this: "Generally, this project concentrates upon remedying omissions (entire topics, or particular sub-topics in extant articles) rather than on either (1) protesting inappropriate inclusions, or (2) trying to remedy issues of how material is presented." Noloop (talk) 23:40, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

I can only speak to 1: this project attempts to increase the Wikipedia's coverage of insufficiently covered topics, not decrease the coverage of well covered topics. --GRuban (talk) 17:37, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

AfD

Please have a look at Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion sorting/Azerbaijan and comment on the debates there if you can. Recently a large number of Azerbaijan-related articles have been nominated for deletion with the rationale "Not notable for English Wikipedia" and other editors are making deletion arguments like "not interesting to non-Azerbaijanis". Most of these articles have multiple Russian- and Azeri-language sources available or already cited. Thanks, cab (talk) 16:33, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Impartiality of review process important in reliability of a journal?

I'm interested in discussing the question of bias in acceptance/rejection of articles submitted to peer-reviewed academic journals, and the way the submission and review process relates to this bias. I am particularly interested in the difference between journals with double-blind reviewing (anonymous submission + anonymous review)...and the degree to which this reduces bias and makes for a more partial review process. This has implications for discrimination based on gender and ethnicity, and affiliation with institutions (see [2]), and these are issues that directly relate to the purpose of this project. A related issue is publication bias. Both of these factor in most often on issues where different perspectives are presented, and where there are concerns of giving undue weight.

I brought this issue up at Wikipedia_talk:Reliable_sources#scholarship_--.3E_double-blind_reviewing_.2F_anonymous_submission with the suggestion that we consider including something in WP's guidelines or policy discussing this, and my suggestions received a negative response from two editors who seemed entirely unconvinced by my arguments or the sources I gave. I still feel that my concern with this issue is backed by solid research, which is why I have come here.

Questions: do others agree that this phenomenon has the potential to introduce a significant amount of bias into Wikipedia, if it is not factored into considering the reliability of sources? Do people agree that anonymous submission and double-blind reviewing reduces impact of this bias, and thus, journals using this process can be seen as more reliable? Do people think these issues are important enough to be mentioned somewhere in guidelines or policy?

Cazort (talk) 22:44, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

I don't think that is the sort of bias this project is trying to address. This project is trying to address areas that don't have many academic journals devoted to them at all. That said ... I'm afraid I sympathize with the responses you got there, that said that any peer reviewed journal is already considered very reliable, and that trying to draw distinctions between kinds of peer review is a solution looking for a problem. What specific problem are you trying to solve? Does it really come up that often? --GRuban (talk) 13:18, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

I think this issue is more related to the purposes of this project than may be initially apparent. This project makes the very good point (under "the origins of bias") that the typical user of wikipedia is a white, male, english-speaking, younger person from a developed, majority-Christian country in the northern hemisphere who is likely employed as a white-collar worker or student. It's self-evident how this would introduce bias. But most of these demographics represent categories of priviledge and high status which are integrated into the structures of our society--inculding who has money, which organizations and institutions are more influential or are seen as prestigious, etc. The WP guidelines refer incessantly to notions like "reputation", "reputable", and "mainstream". Due to the history of western society, the notion of reputation, and what is mainstream, is intimately tied up with the status of the institutions. Furthermore, because of the demographic of wikipedia, editors are more likely to interpret the subjective notions of "reputable" and "mainstream" in terms of their own race, gender, and social class. Thus, we respect scholarship coming out of Yale University (which I feel free to rag on since I have a master's from there) more than scholarship coming out of a community college, even if the merits of the work itself are equal. There is scholarly work demonstrating how the status of institutions an author is affiliated with leads reviewers of non-anonymous submissions to reject or accept work, and then justify their decisions on the basis of their experiences. Thus, there is a very strong bias that is already reflected in the scholarly literature of journals that do not use anonymous reviewing. Relying heavily on these journals will thus run the risk of introducing very hard-to-detect bias that runs contrary to the purposes of this project. Cazort (talk) 19:07, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Does this article itself represent a worldwide view?

After reading through the article, I believe a "does not represent a worldwide view" tag is needed. This page, in many respects, seems very POV and agenda-driven. 98.221.131.77 (talk) 06:50, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

This is not an article, it is a WikiProject. Warofdreams talk 20:30, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

My mistake. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.221.131.77 (talk) 05:55, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Template deletion

Currently there is a process occurring in the systemic replace of localised templets in favour of globalised templates using terminology and spelling that isnt consistant with the region. Please see Template talk:Infobox settlement for detail information of the process, and note that many templates have already been deleted and additional templats are at WP:TFD. Gnan garra 06:22, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

You appear to be canvassing, based on a false premise around the terminology and spelling used in the generic template, {{Infobox settlement}}. If you have specific concerns, you should raise them on that template's talk page; but I think you will find that local terminology and spelling is accounted for, and any omissions in that regard will be quickly addressed. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 13:55, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

Accusations of canvassing are preposterous. Gnangarra has a concern (as do I) that this process of migrating all "settlement"-type infoboxes to IS has not been adequately thought through and is bringing on particular issue to the appropriate venue. I would have thought that the parties involved in the infobox migration would welcome wider community participation in their program. -- Mattinbgn\^talk 21:44, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

Wider community participation is a good thing, and welcome, Canvassing, such as the above appears to be, is a bad thing, and not. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 22:04, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

Digit grouping style (notice of discussion)

Given that regional preferences regarding digit grouping styles are part of an issue being discussed at Village Pump (policy), I thought I might advise you to comment if interested. The discussion is related to this question:

On Wikipedia, should the selection of digit grouping styles depend upon regional and topical conventions used in the English language?

Please refer to that page for details and discussion. TheFeds 04:23, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

Do each of the non-English language wikipedias all have their own "WikiProject Countering systemic bias"?

It's worth asking. I bet they don't. :)

What is being said, and posted as 'fact', in a major way, on other language pages? Most of us don't know.

I would imagine an audit of what is being stated (without much debate) on some non-English speaking wikipedias would be an eye-opener. And, potentially scandalous.

It also begs the question: If non-English language wikipedias are not required to "counter systemic bias", why does the English speaking wikipedia have to "counter" our so-called "bias" (which is simply the English speaking world's individual cultural outlook & cultural interests)?

Either all language group wikipedias should have objective versions of "WikiProject Countering systemic bias", or it should not exist *here* - Allowing EN wikipedia do it's own thing... As all the other wikipedias apparently can...

JatterDisc (talk) 06:34, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

en.wikipedia has CSB because we're a damn fine wikipedia, and we do it the way it should be done. As far as the need for CSB, I participated in the movement of content into a new article, the content was written by two Australian authors, with an Australian source. An ignorant editor using en-US localisms attempted to inflict their orthography on it. Sometimes its the little things that matter, at other times, its stuff like the fact that our history section is riven by competing nationalisms and people fail to refer to major works of scholarship for Version 1.0 vital articles that we need CSB. Fifelfoo (talk) 07:03, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

I guess that answers it: No - Other language group wikipedias do not have a "WikiProject Countering systemic bias"....

Hmmm. I do wonder what is being written at Arabic wikipedia. I'm quite sure it would be objective, well referenced, and balanced.

JatterDisc (talk) 07:52, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Actually yes, many other language groups do have similar projects --- though not identical in purpose. See the sidebar links.

bg:Уикипедия:Българоограничена статия
cs:Wikipedie:Čechocentrismus ("Czech-centrism")
de:Wikipedia:WikiProjekt Diskriminierungsfreie Wikipedia ("WikiProject Discrimination-Free Wikipedia")
eo:Vikipedio:Evitendaj Eŭropcentrismoj ("Avoid Eurocentrism")
fr:Wikipédia:Guide d'internationalisation ("Internationalisation guide")
nl:Wikipedia:Wikiproject Systematische bias ("WikiProject Systematic Bias")
ja:Wikipedia:日本中心にならないように ("Avoid Japan-centrism")
no:Wikipedia:Systematisk bias ("Systematic bias")
ru:Википедия:Системные отклонения (
sr:Википедија:ВикиПројекат Борба против систематске пристрасности
sv:Wikipedia:Globalt perspektiv ("Global perspective")
th:วิกิพีเดีย:มุมมองสากล
zh:Wikipedia:避免地域中心 ("Avoiding regional-centrism")

Cheers, cab (talk) 08:34, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Help with reviewing an article

Hello all, an anonymous editor has repetedly stated that the Volkswagen Jetta article is very USA centric. Looking through I'm trying to figure out where in the prose it focuses too much on the USA but I can't really find much. I've tried to engage the anon in a discussion as to what specifically needs addressed and the only things I got out of it was "well it's OBVIOUSLY biased" and "it only has a few non-North American references". I'm not sure about the former point but as for the latter I wonder if it matters because besides some minor trim differences, the car is pretty much the same the world over. Although the Jettas largest market is in the USA, there are currently 36 references from non-USA sources. Could I get some help identifying bias problems and some suggestions? Thanks.--Analogue Kid (talk) 14:26, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

Systemic bias in law articles

I've noticed that a lot of law articles have serious systemic bias problems. In particular, many general topics like Criminal Law or Torts are presented (almost) exclusively from the point of view of common-law jurisdictions. Even the common law is perspective is almost exclusively focused on American (and, to a lesser extent, UK) common law. There is virtually nothing from other English-speaking jurisdictions and even less from non-Anglosphere common law nations like India or Pakistan. This is contrary to the idea that Wikipedia articles should have a global perspective.

Obviously countering these systemic biases is a major project and requires expertise that most people on this project don't have, but at the very least there needs to be more about civil law and other non-common-law legal systems.

I've cross-posted this same comment to the Law Wikiproject discussion page. Elliotreed (talk) 20:26, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Centralized discussion/Bilateral international relations

Are bilateral relations of small countries less notable then those of the larger ones? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 00:28, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

I think that's a loaded question. The real issue of notability has to do with sources confirming that. For instance, no one would dispute that Armenia–Azerbaijan relations or Belgium–Netherlands relations are important, even though taken together, those four countries have just ⅛ of the US population. Now, when one gets to random pairings of far-flung small countries where no sources indicate notability (say Bulgaria–Paraguay relations or Croatian–Danish relations), then yes, deletion is probably the answer. (And incidentally, not all great-power relationships are notable either: I'd certainly argue for deletion of Andorra – United States relations or Kenya–Russia relations.)- Biruitorul ^Talk 03:08, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

The size of the country doesn't matter. Its how much news coverage there is between them. That's how the current system works. Dream Focus 03:17, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Size doesn't matter - we're all in agreement on that. As for "news coverage" - depends on the type of news, but if articles are to be about relationships, then the news (preferably books/journal articles) will be precisely about the relationships, and not about what editors infer to be salient features of those relationships. - Biruitorul ^Talk 04:38, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

RfC notice regarding WT:FL?

The issue of bias has been raised in this RfC. All comments welcome. Doctor Sunshine (talk) 05:07, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

Indian vs Western astrology

This is about this edit to the main project page. I'm not so sure that the specific example is a common type of bias that we ought to be watchful for. The assertion on the Talk:Astrology page seems to be that since western scientists who say that astrology is a pseudoscience mostly focus on Western astrology, the main Astrology page should not say that Eastern astrology is necessarily a pseudoscience. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Astrology#Bias_against_astrology I don't think that's either accurate, or common, or in the realm of this project. --GRuban (talk) 18:35, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Your comment is an excellent case of how scientific vs non-scientific systemic bias influences judgement on Western vs Eastern systemic bias. Bravo, people.Odin 85th gen (talk) 18:39, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

I'm all for the encyclopedic coverage of non-scientific fields - I've written half a dozen articles on creationist museums. But the fact that we should write about them is not the same as that we should be affirming their truth. We should write what people say about them, both for and against. --GRuban (talk) 18:46, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

(ec) OK, what's your argument? That eastern astrology is a protoscience? Note that we say this for all of astrology, currently. Or do you think it is a science? Can you point me to scientific publications in that area that employ methods comparable to double-blind placebo-controlled medical studies? --Hans Adler (talk) 18:49, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

He's trying to argue that Jyotisha occupies the intersection of things that are like astrology and things are aren't pseudoscience for the sole reason that scientists haven't specifically singled out Jyotisha as nonsense. CapitalElll (talk) 19:26, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Please, this person who added the "goat testicle" vandalism to my comments should not be viewed as a fair interpreter of my words or thoughts.

It is a fact that Western scientists have spoken out against Western astrology. However, Western astrology is very different from Eastern astrology. To project this judgement of the Western scientists on Western astrology onto Eastern astrology is only prejudice and a bias by the Western editors, who are so convinced that astrology as a whole is none-sense that they have no shame in making this prejudice. If that is not a systemic bias, I don´t know what is. In any event, there is so much prejudice against astrology, it is likely impossible to get a fair oppinion on this problem even in this fora.Odin 85th gen (talk) 20:10, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

We try to be descriptive rather than prescriptive in our articles. We don't say "astrology is nonsense", rather we say "such and such a person" or "such and such an organization has said that ... ". That way, our personal opinions carry less weight than our ability to cite prominent experts. Where prominent experts disagree, we say who says what, and leave it there. For example, we can cite this BBC article: http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/sci_tech/highlights/010531_vedic.shtml which seems to describe the controversy. Something like: "The Indian University Grants Commission, led by physicist Murli Manohar Joshi, has offered funding for university departments of Vedic Astrology, which has been criticised in letters by 100 scientists and 300 social scientists, including physicist Jayant Narlikar, as taking India “backwards towards medieval times”." --GRuban (talk) 21:00, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

And I must say I am not too surprised they fund even Vedic Astrology, given the pseudomathematical books on "Vedic mathematics" that I have seen. They present elementary calculation techniques as if they were really advanced mathematics like that of Srinivasa Ramanujan. There seems to be a market for "Vedic" pseudoscience and trivial science. --Hans Adler (talk) 22:55, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

There is a problem for an unregulated or non-canonincal field like astrology that it has more than its fair share of charlatans and lesser lights that pollute it with dubious works. There are other practitioners who demonstrate the worth of the field, by enumerating the salient causal laws and the meaning of this "symbolic language". It is a special problem that Western scientists have created a bias against astrology as a whole based on their exposure to Western astrology that results literally in the "baby being thrown out with the bathwater". It is the responsibility of science to find the truth behind this ancient human knwoledge rather than suppress it based on the modern form of Western astrology, which is off course in terms of the calculated zodiac, its use of planetary bodies no matter how small or distant and by ignoring the horoscopic logic of its antecedents, Romana and Greek astrology, of which Indian astrology is the closest living relative.Odin 85th gen (talk) 07:42, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Odin, please refrain from personal attacks. It does not help make your case. I'm glad to hear science has rejected Indian astrology as well, I'll add it the article. CapitalElll (talk) 23:55, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

CapitalElll, your edits speak for themselves [3] and only serve to exacerbate biases.Odin 85th gen (talk) 07:43, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

You are mistaking my hilarious commentary for a scientific publication, as you argue your point. CapitalElll (talk) 17:53, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

There's also Chinese astrology
You can get a university degree in astrology in India.

Peter jackson (talk) 11:42, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

WikiProject Countering systemic bias template

I have created the template {{tl:WikiProject Countering systemic bias}} as seen at the top of this page. It is for linking all the WP maintenance pages relating to this WikiProject. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 10:27, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Talk:List of religious organizations#What is an "organization"?

Any bright ideas, anyone? Peter jackson (talk) 11:45, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

While "organization" enjoys a wide variation of levels of meaning, in a religious context an organization can, in my opinion, mean anything from the huge "church of _______" to a single person in prayer for their friends, family, others. An organization is, in effect, whatever may generate a gestalt, i.e., a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts.

— ^.`^) Paine Ellsworth ^diss`cuss (^^`. 11:58, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

How about an additional List of religious denominations? Hans Adler 12:34, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

Aren't the various denominations already covered by existing lists? Religious orgs include the denominations, and also so much more, such as schools at various levels, publishers of religious periodicals, international interdenominational orgs, ecclesial movements, NRMs, relief orgs, and on and on. A religious org. is basically any gathering of people devoted to learning, practicing, publicizing and/or teaching the religious ideal(s) of their choice. And perhaps even to helping the needious people of their world.

While I myself see that organizations would include "a meeting of friends, family, others" it woult NOT include a "single person in prayer for their friends, family, others" -- be it Christian prayer or an eastern sort.

We already have List of religions and spiritual traditions. If there any -isms missing there, just an them. Most "-isms," however are not organizations. While a few "-isms" are organizations, it is not systemic bias to also make a list of religious organizations. It is only systemic bias to fail to not make those articles of notible eastern religious organizations that there are. ^{Carlaude:Talk} 09:25, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

Hans, look at the text I quoted:

"It should be noted that the formation of distinct religious organizations known as religious bodies (denominations) is very characteristic of the Western world and of Christianity. Many eastern religionists and many non-Christian religions do not necessarily follow this pattern. Classification into various "schools" or branches and formal affiliation with a single temple or mosque is more appropriate for most Muslims, Buddhists and Hindus. Furthermore, many religionists may have no formal organizational membership or denominational identity other than as a resident of the culture, tribe or country into which they were born. The majority of Hindus and Buddhists are adherents of those religions individually (or by birth into a culture) and are do not have formal affiliation with a membership organization representing their religion. Thus, while most Hindus and Buddhists are counted by national censuses and are included in statistics for major religions and major branches of religions, most do not show up in this listing of the world's largest religious bodies." ([4])

In other words, the concept of denomination also involves systemic bias. Peter jackson (talk) 11:43, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

The concept of denominations does not involves systemic bias. This is just saying that the western religions typicaly involve denominations (in the sense of an organization)-- where as other religions more typicaly do not. This is also not saying that it makes one religion any better or worse than another. I am sure there are likewise other features of religion that are more typicaly found in the eastern religions. We just have a list of all religious organizations that there are, so that people can find the articles on these organizations.

Would it be systemic bias to create lists of stockmarkets, skyscapers, highways, or rainforests?-- even thou each of these things are more common in some counties than others? ^{Carlaude:Talk} 14:09, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

It might be. It depends what else is done. Systemic bias is about overall results, not particular acts. Peter jackson (talk) 11:47, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Systemic bias also seems to be about perceptions. One person's objectivity is another person's subjectivity. To me it appears an impossible task to completely rid Wikipedia of systemic bias. Happy mediums, however, ought to be attainable. Then when someone comes along who isn't happy with the "medium" and challenges it, an even closer approximation to zero systemic bias may be found. It's always a work-in-progress.

— ^.`^) Paine Ellsworth ^diss`cuss (^^`. 04:10, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

unreadable (unrecognisable, incomprehensible) letters in article titles

Generally, this project concentrates upon remedying omissions (entire topics, or particular sub-topics in extant articles) rather than on either (1) protesting inappropriate inclusions, or (2) trying to remedy issues of how material is presented. (from Wikipedia:WikiProject Countering systemic bias)

Despite (2), this project would seem to be the right place to try to deal with the very serious problem of lemmas with letters that are incomprehensible (unreadable) to all except a very small minority of highly educated Wikipedia readers. (What is meant are completely unrecognisable individual non-English letters such as ß, Þ, and ð that do not even remotely resemble English letters, not combinations of normal letters that are hard to read or whose pronunciation is difficult or impossible to know or letters like à or ä that resemble English letters.) This is not a minor point that can be dismissed by adding an explanation at the beginning because the unreadable lemma is then used throughout the article and thousands of words with unreadable spellings spread throughout Wikipedia due to links in other articles. We need to have a policy or guideline (such as used by all printed works, especially reference works) that strives to ensure that the letters in each article's title and its first mention in the article are readable (in the sense of recognisable) at least by an average adult native English speaker. (We could later try to adapt to the needs of children native speakers and later to the needs of an average adult non-native English speaker, but that would be demanding too much at first, and it would be hard to determine what "average" means in this case.)

Right now, we have many article titles like Gießen and Þingeyri with letters that are simply unreadable for the vast majority of adult English speakers, both native and non-native. The objections to moving these and similar lemmas to ones with recognisable letters Giessen and Thingeyri (such as done in many English publications) are caused by a form of systemic bias that is even more extreme than Wikipedia's normal one and that is not yet mentioned on Wikipedia:Systemic_bias. Articles with such unreadable titles and beginnings are mainly edited by a very small subset of WP editors who are familiar with the non-English languages relevant to these lemmas.

Most of these editors have trouble understanding the very serious problem confronted by most Wikipedia users when they see a letter that does not look like any letter in the English alphabet (or the alphabet of the users' own language): these users cannot read that title at all or they misread it as something else (e.g. Gießen as Gieben and Þingeyri as Pingeyri or Dingeyri. It's not enough to have an explanation following in the text. The readable version (as used in reliable sources for this or similar names or words) should be in the title and come first in the text.

Many of these editors also have nationalist or elitist or pedagogical or other reasons violating WP:NOT for their usually very vocal opposition to attempts to take into consideration one of the most basic needs of the vast majority of Wikipedia readers. Even when many or at least a few reliable sources can be found using an anglicised spelling for a specific lemma, these editors adamantly oppose moving the lemma to that spelling and oppose changing the beginning of the article such that the readable version of the lemma comes (right) before the native one. They are aided in their efforts to make sure articles continue using letters unreadable by almost all readers by WP's badly designed relevant guideline, which requires a majority of sources in spelling issues (which is a bad idea if the result is lack of readability). When such a change exceptionally succeeds despite opposition, as in the case of Wilhelmstrasse, the result can be seen to not offend local usage and culture: "The Wilhelmstrasse (German Wilhelmstraße)". The terms could also be both boldfaced: "The Wilhelmstrasse or Wilhelmstraße".

These editors fight tooth and nail in the case of each article, taking advantage of the badly thought-out WP guideline on modified_letters:

Wikipedia does not decide what characters are to be used in the name of an article's subject; English usage does. Wikipedia has no rule that titles must be written in certain characters, or that certain characters may not be used. Versions of a name which differ only in the use or non-use of modified letters should be treated like any other versions: Follow the general usage in English reliable sources in each case, whatever characters may or may not be used in them.

This badly designed WP guideline inadvertently disregards the needs of most Wikipedia users by trying to blindly apply the general WP policy on reliable sources without taking into account that non-specialised, general English sources for some topics are rare or hard to find and that the specialised sources are not meant for a general audience and may use letters comprehensible only to scholars and enthusiasts. If many (or even just some) English dictionaries, encyclopedias, and other reference works use ss and th and dh for topics like major towns with ß or Þ or ð in their German or Icelandic spelling, that should be enough reason to do the same for all other topics in Wikipedia even if these are not in dictionaries or encyclopedias:

Giessen in Britannica

several towns with fjördhur instead of fjörður in Britannica

In addition, many English travel guidebooks and even the official websites of many towns anglicise spellings (in English texts)that would otherwise be unreadable. The only reason many smaller towns have not done this is because they haven't yet realised that their native spelling is incomprehensible to most foreigners.

official website of Giessen

official website of Weissenfels

official website of Thingeyri

official website of Isafjordur, (original spelling Ísafjörður), which doesn't need to be anglicised more than in Britannica: Ísafjördhur.

We do not need to rid lemmas of letters that have diacritics and accents etc. (ä, ö, ü, å, á, â, ã, etc.) or that otherwise look at least remotely similar to normal English letters (even if they are pronounced completely differently by educated native English speakers or by speakers of the relevant foreign language). We only need to replace letters that do not resemble English letters in any way (ß, Þ, ð, etc.) with the English letters normally used instead of them by reliable sources. --Espoo (talk) 02:44, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure that I agree. For example, what would you then do with some completely English lettered titles that still aren't going to be correctly read by most readers? For example, Brett Favre, Llanfairpwllgwyngyll, Nacogdoches, Texas, Arkansas, ... ? We've got a whole list of them, List of names in English with counterintuitive pronunciations (though Llanfairpwllgwyngyll isn't in it - what an oversight! :-) ) it isn't short. Most of those articles seem to get along fine with

putting a note on the correct pronunciation early in the lede, usually right next to the first, bolded, mention of the name, and
making the phonetic spelling a redirect to the correct spelling.

I wouldn't like to be the one who has to tell the editors of Brett Favre that we're moving their article to Farv just because that's the way the name is pronounced, and only highly educated native English speakers will know otherwise. They may get violent. :-) --GRuban (talk) 03:26, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

Espoo says: general English sources for some topics are rare or hard to find and that the specialised sources are not meant for a general audience and may use letters comprehensible only to scholars and enthusiasts But I'm talking about four different recent guidebooks in English (none of them written by Icelanders) that spell the name Þingeyri. What could be more plebeian than a guidebook? :-) And it looks like Ísafjörður is even more universal in the guidebooks. The Britannica version Ísafjördhur is eccentric and used almost no-where else. We certainly shouldn't use it. Haukur (talk) 14:36, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

No, no, you misunderstood me, which means i'll have to try to express myself even more clearly despite having spent a lot of time trying to do that. Can you suggest what i should change to make it clear that i mean unreadable, unrecognisable, not difficult to read or difficult to pronounce? Please let me know if the changes i'll make now help to get the point across better. --Espoo (talk) 06:39, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

Except of the three letters you indicate, two are also English letters, and one is a common borrowing. Its not like Modern Chinese's fire, which is still widely recognisable in English in specialised useages such as youth tattooing or boardgaming. Fifelfoo (talk) 07:12, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

No, those two are not English letters, for it's obvious that the word "English" in my proposal and in "English Wikipedia" mean Modern English even though the word "modern" is not added. They stopped being English letters a very long time ago. But let's not argue about definitions, more relevant and important is that they and ß are completely unreadable and completely incomprehensible to all except a very small minority of highly educated Wikipedia readers, which is the whole point of this proposal to get rid of this severe systemic bias. The average adult throughout the world has never seen any of these three letters and has no clue what to do with them. Words with ß are not borrowed that way in newspapers for example. If it's a special interest story, there may be a blurb about it, but it's incorrect to claim that more than a very small proportion of WP readers has ever seen a borrowing with ß, and even less have seen one without an explanation. --Espoo (talk) 12:03, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

I'll try to be more clear too. I like our current standard, which is using the term the clear majority of sources do when they write in English, and where there isn't a clear majority, the way the town itself does. I'll support you in those cases where that means using the English transliteration, but not in those cases where that means using the original letters. Assuming they "haven't yet realised that their native spelling is incomprehensible to most foreigners" is patronizing; I think a far better assumption is that they know what they're about. In cases that turns out to be using a non-English letter, I think putting an early pronunciation and alternate spelling guide and redirect, such as in our article for "Weißenfels (IPA /ˈvaisnˌfels/; sometimes written in English as Weissenfels", is sufficient. That's the first sentence in the article, and after reading it the reader will be quite clear on how to read Weißenfels, pronounce it (even if they don't understand IPA) and how to write it with an English keyboard. --GRuban (talk) 08:44, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

Believe me, assuming small towns haven't yet realised that their native spelling is incomprehensible to most foreigners is not patronising. I have enough experience with small German towns to assure you that's simply a factual statement. Sometimes they may have tested the ability of tourists to read the name, but usually they are completely naive and unaware that they are losing customers who never get there and others who do later than planned because they're asking around for Weibenfels. And these are people that have probably read something about Germany and German before going there. Most WP readers have no prior help of that kind. Most Germans are incapable of understanding that ß is read as a b by almost all people everywhere in the world unless they've been warned several times (and even then). It's no coincidence that the towns with ß names that are smaller than Giessen and Weissenfels have less use of ss in English. They are not better informed and don't have more expertise and money to spend on this issue, on the contrary. So their uses of ß are not informed decisions that should convince us to write articles full of repetitions of the article's unreadable title. Worse still, these lemmas spread like diseases into many other articles as links and make them unreadable too.

Exceptions are small and even very small towns like Thingeyri that are heavily dependent on tourism, who have of course understood the need to change at least the letters that are completely incomprehensible to English ones.

The biggest problem with the current standard is that it wastes huge amounts of time in repeated discussions of the same thing on hundreds of pages. It's a senseless waste of time to restart the same discussions each time WP editors happen to find one more source and try to move the articles back and forth again after new senseless discussions. The current standard encourages this senseless back and forth and these discussions. All other encyclopedias ever written except Wikipedia have spelling policies that are applied to all instances and are not debated anew for each case separately. In making these decisions on house style, professional encyclopedia editors very definitely try to decide whether the original spelling is too difficult to read for the readers, and they do not just look at use in reliable sources, which is their main criterion for content of course.

According to what you're saying, you'll probably agree the article should be at Weissenfels, for it's not going to be easy to find English sources talking about such a small town, and it wouldn't be reasonable to base the decision on only a small selection of sources since the town itself has decided to use ss in English. I don't understand what you mean with I'll support you in those cases where that means using the English transliteration, but not in those cases where that means using the original letters.

Yes, the Weissenfels article's lede has been improved since i proposed the move, and that kind of a solution is almost as good for ledes as my Wilhelmstrasse examples above. The difference is so small that we could hopefully agree to making that kind of a solution a guideline or policy to reduce this very serious systemic bias affecting the vast majority of WP readers. Unfortunately it only reduces it marginally because it doesn't prevent the use and spread of thousands of unreadable lemmas as wikilinks throughout Wikipedia. --Espoo (talk) 12:03, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

Counterargument

The problem with Espoo's argument is that he assumes that people who want to read about an obscure German town like Weißenfels are no more likely to have knowledge of the German alphabet than other users. But that's not true. People who are interested in reading about that town are much more likely to know the German alphabet or to be interested in learning it than other users. Same goes for Þingeyri. And there isn't some vast unbridgeable gulf of knowledge people need to cross here. It takes five seconds to explain to someone that ß can be transliterated as 'ss' and this is knowledge they will gain immediately upon opening an article with ß in the name.

To go deeper into a specific example, I used three recent English-language books written by English-speakers as sources when I wrote the Þingeyri article. All of them spell the name Þingeyri so it seems natural that our article should too. The information page here, which Espoo uses as his main argument, uses ASCII only, so of course it transliterates Þingeyri as Thingeyri. It also transliterates Arnarnúpur as Arnarnupur and Dýrafjörður as Dyrafjordur but no-one is proposing that we go for ASCII-only spellings of Icelandic names.

Finally, it's worthwhile to give a broader selection of articles with interesting characters in their lemmas. Let me introduce you to Pekw'Xe:yles, Stó:lō, Sḵwx̱wú7mesh, X̲á:ytem, Kwagu'ł and St'a7mes. Haukur (talk) 14:24, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

No, we are definitely not only talking about articles about obscure towns like Weissenfels, as you very well know. Please don't try to derail the discussion. We are talking about much more famous towns such as Giessen and hundreds of potentially even more important lemmas with letters that are unreadable by almost all Wikipedia users except people who happen to be familiar with that language or happen to be enthusiasts of the article's topic. We are also talking about the thousands of unreadable wikilinks in other articles caused by these hundreds of unreadable lemmas. Perhaps you simply misunderstood my proposal; please reread the first few lines more carefully.

None of the examples you provided in an attempt to apparently scare people away from the kind of major change i'm proposing would be affected by my proposal. The letters (and symbols used as letters) in Pekw'Xe:yles, Stó:lō, Sḵwx̱wú7mesh, X̲á:ytem, Kwagu'ł, and St'a7mes are all perfectly readable by both native and non-native adult English speakers. It's enough that they're recognisable, that they resemble letters etc. used in normal English texts. --Espoo (talk) 14:43, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

You're worried that people will read ß as bee but not worried that they will read 7 as seven? And you're worried that people won't see that ð is a d with a stroke but you're not at all worried that people won't see that ł is an l with a stroke? It looks more like a t than an l to me.

You're still not responding to the point that people who are enthusiastic about topic X are far, far more likely than other people to read about topic X. So you can't assume that X-enthusiasts are in the minority when it comes to reading articles about X. And I'm not attempting to derail the discussion by talking about Þingeyri and Weißenfels - those are two of your hand-picked examples. You're proposing a Wikipedia-wide ban on ß and I'm proposing that we leave the ß vs 'ss' decision up to the editors of each individual article. If I can present a case for retaining ß on some particular article then that's a sufficient argument against your general ban right there. Haukur (talk) 14:51, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

I'm not worried by people reading something incorrectly, that's what the IPA is for. What i'm worried about is making readers feel illiterate and stop reading WP due to unnecessary elitist use of unreadable letters. Þ and ð are much worse than ß, for sure, because some people may not even notice ß is not a b in certain browser settings. But it's still disconcerting and confusing enough that there is no reason we shouldn't follow widespread usage in English publications (including the most prestigious printed English encyclopedia) and in some German-speaking countries in replacing it with ss (but of course prominently displaying the original German spelling right at the beginning).

I hope you're not seriously suggesting WP articles should disregard the needs of most of its readers for those of enthusiasts?! The whole idea of WP is to provide information to the general reader. What you're proposing and what many of the Norse mythology articles look like are a specialist or enthusiast wiki. That's violating core WP policy. Please see my compromise solution below.

Sometime in the near future there will no doubt be a software solution that will make this whole discussion and many others look like something from the Stone Age. A simple click will automagically convert all your wonderful original spellings on the Norse mythology pages into letters the normal adult can read, and that version will hopefully be the default, to not scare most people off. There will even be a choice between traditional transliteration and the more helpful and phonetic one exemplified by Britannica's dh (which will no doubt soon predominate; Britannica is more modern than Wikipedia in this). There will also be another button that will convert everything to IPA and another to pronunciation respelling.--Espoo (talk) 15:26, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

I'm "seriously suggesting" that article X should cater to the readers of article X.

I wish you luck in making 'dh' the standard transliteration of 'ð' but I would be willing to bet a significant amount of money that it will not "soon predominate". In fact, I think that in 20 years it will be as marginal as it is now and as marginal as it was 20 years ago. Actually, it might be more marginal in 20 years since it is likely that Britannica will have folded by then. Haukur (talk) 15:36, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

You each have a good point. There is a lot to be said for satisfying both the casual readers and the knowledgeable ones. Let's see. Espoo, if I read your response correctly, you are reasonably happy with putting the English transliteration next to the original name in the lede: "that kind of a solution is almost as good for ledes as my Wilhelmstrasse examples above". Looking at the articles in your examples, Haukurth, they say "Pekw'Xe:yles, also spelled Peckquaylis", and "St'a7mes (Stawamus)", and so forth. So it looks like we should all be happy, right? --GRuban (talk) 16:25, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

I'm happy with "St'a7mes (Stawamus)" and I'm happy with current Wikipedia policy. I'm also happy with writers of article Y linking to article X making their own decision on whether to go through the main lemma or through a redirect, i.e. people linking to Þingeyri via Thingeyri in an article about something else doesn't bother me at all. Haukur (talk) 16:35, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

There's a venue for this

A similar argument is part of a wide-ranging discussion at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions.

My general observation is that redirects are wondrous things, allowing a user to enter a familiar word and end up at an article that, for a variety of reasons, might have a different name.--Curtis Clark (talk) 14:38, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

Unfortunately redirects don't convert the unreadable words in articles. Even having only a few unreadable words in the lede of an article is enough to make many adults and most children feel like illiterates or at least like this is above their head. The idea of Wikipedia is to provide access to knowledge to all people with basic reading skills, not to make them feel completely helpless, stupid, and uneducated. Almost nobody wants that, i'm sure, but some of us are blinded by our background to seeing the needs of others. When this includes the vast majority of Wikipedia readers, that's pretty frightening and one of the worst cases of systemic bias found on Wikipedia and a good reason for having the discussion here too. But thanks for the link.

Perhaps a simple compromise solution would be to ban unreadable letters in titles and ledes only. --Espoo (talk) 15:01, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

but some of us are blinded by our background to seeing the needs of others Or maybe, just maybe, there's a case to be made either way and well-informed people can disagree in good faith about this? Is that possible?[5] Haukur (talk) 15:07, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

This isn't the place to go into detail on the rights and wrongs of this - as Curtis Clark points out, there is an ongoing discussion at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions, and that is where, if a consensus emerges, an agreement could arise. Warofdreams talk 15:33, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

Wake up, Haukur, there's a compromise solution right above your comment. According many very good reasons, some of them in WP policies and guidelines, it'd be a good idea to react to any compromise instead of ignoring it.

And read a bit about systemic bias; it doesn't mean there's anything wrong with you as an editor or a person. It means you can't imagine what most people living in the US or UK feel when they see the unreadable letters mentioned in my proposal and others like them. Can you? Honestly. Have you ever lived in an English-speaking country long enough to be able to grasp how they react to a text with such symbols.

You're from Iceland and taking this as a personal attack on your culture, which it's not. On the contrary, many more people will know much more about your wonderful country and culture if they're not scared off and even repulsed by what looks to you like a completely normal letter. --Espoo (talk) 15:41, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

I lived and worked in the UK for a couple of years. Nice country. Warm. But we're already way off topic for this page so I suggest that if you want more details about my life we can take up a discussion on my talkpage. I'll be happy to reminisce.

You started this little campaign with the goal of removing þ, ð and some other characters from all article titles. Your current "compromise" is that... those characters be removed from all article titles. In an actual compromise you have to give something in return. From my point of view, your proposal offers no improvement anywhere over the status quo so I don't understand why you'd think it would be of any interest to me. Why would I agree to something that, from my point of view, would make Wikipedia worse in some respects and better in none? Anyway, I suggest we take this whole discussion elsewhere. Haukur (talk) 15:57, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

As i wrote above, the compromise suggestion is to remove unreadable letters from titles and ledes only. Isn't it clear this means that the implication is to leave them untouched in the main body of the article? That's a major win for you because the bulk of articles will then be written as you wish.

It will also be a major win for both casual readers and knowledgeable ones. The casual readers will usually only read the lede and will therefore not be frightened away by incomprehensible letters, and the knowledgeable ones will be happy to find the original spellings in the body of the article. In fact, by writing good ledes with easy to read text, we may even entice casual readers into becoming enthusiasts and starting to enjoy the strange letters, at least if they're explained and introduced at the beginning of the main article after the anglicised spellings the reader got to know in the lede.

Your ironic reaction of talking about the weather and reminiscing instead of answering my question about whether you know how people in English-speaking countries react to text with letters like Þ and ð seems to indicate you don't take the problem of systemic bias seriously. Did you look at the link to systemic bias?

So you lived in England long enough to probably realise that only a very small percentage of the population would not be scared away by Þ, ð, and other letters that are not recognisable as English letters with "squiggles" since almost no one has ever even seen them. I believe you are also able to understand the fundamental difference between the minor difficulty of letters like ö and à that look a bit strange but are recognisable as "modified versions" of English letters and the insurmountable difficulty of letters like Þ and ð that mean absolutely nothing and look like Chinese to even most educated British people. If you want to get more people interested in Iceland and Norse mythology and get more people to get to know Icelandic letters :-), you should be trying to promote my compromise suggestion because it'll get people to read instead of be turned off by articles about these topics. --Espoo (talk) 22:08, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

We've overstayed our welcome at this page, Espoo, so I'll just make this minimal reply: If you want to hear about my experiences living in England with a thorn in my patronymic, I invite you to take it up at my talk page (I can certainly tell you stories). That would also be a good place to discuss my understanding of systemic bias. The rest probably belongs at a naming convention page, I'll be happy to reply to it there. Haukur (talk) 09:56, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

I agree: this discussion belongs at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (or a sub-article of that). It has been discussed many times before. --Boson (talk) 22:21, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

English

I just recently joined this project, and I've been reading the back 'n forth above with intense interest. It occurs to me that this is about article titles in the English Wikipedia. Is what editor Espoo espouses is that there are non-English letters used in the titles of English Wikipedia articles? If they are indeed non-English (and there are many forms of English) then, of course, they ought to be changed, but if they are English letters, then their usage on the English Wikipedia is then justified. And rather than writing ledes and articles that might make someone from, say, Alabama or Nebraska or anywhere in the United States or the entire globe feel uneducated and perhaps even impotent, it is imperative that they be written in a way that will lift the general reader to a higher level, a higher consciousness level of knowledge and wisdom.

Some readers might see it as "haughty" or "elitist" or even "patronizing". That's one eye of looking at it. However as long as the other eye makes the attempt to make readers feel an increased self-esteem, to educate them, so that they walk away with a feeling of, "You learn something new everyday!", then we've done our job, yes? Systemic bias will never be completely eliminated. That is an impossible task in a world of six-and-a-half billion people, each with their own choice of tinted glasses over their perceptions. However, when a consensus is reached, then progress has been made. And the next time an editor comes along with an idea that challenges the consensus, even more can be learned and more progress may ensue. If we focus upon the needs of the general English reader of the English Wikipedia, then we should be able to keep systemic bias to a bare minimum, yes?
— Paine's Climax 18:19, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

Non-English Latin letters

Personally, it strikes me as somewhat racist, the way that Wikipedia seems to allow characters that non-European or monoglot anglophones will not recognize. It presumes the audience is European. We allow lettering used in non-English localities but disallow lettering used in English-speaking localities. Sanskrit and Hindi are used in India, which is the largest officially English speaking jurisdiction in the world, but we don't allow titles in those alphabets. And most anglophones who have had maths schooling will recognize greek lettering, but those are not allowed either. If we were fair about things, we would NOT allow non-English lettering in article titles, since it clearly favours non-English *EUROPEAN* languages using some sort of extended latin character set. 76.66.197.2 (talk) 04:48, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

I wasn't going to comment any more on this but this "racist" accusation is so off-the-wall that I had to say something. So, yes, we do have some North-European article titles with interesting letters:

Fuglafjørður (Faroese)
Þingeyri (Icelandic)

But, hey, we also have South-European article titles:

Tal-Ħandaq (Maltese)
Engin Arık (Turkish)

And we have non-European article titles:

Trần Đức Lương (Vietnamese)
Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (an indigenous people in Canada)

If articles on some non-European issues tend to have less orthographic precision than Faroese or German articles then that's what we should try to fix. But even this has little to do with this project, which "concentrates upon remedying omissions ... rather than on ... trying to remedy issues of how material is presented".

And, honestly, I think that this was a very odd choice of venue for this whole discussion to begin with. Is there some Icelandic hegemony that has to be countered on Wikipedia? I would have thought that we could be happy that out of my small nation of 300.000 people there is a small handful of active enwiki contributors. Haukur (talk) 23:01, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

You've made some thought-provoking points above, Haukurth. I especially like the Vietnamese lettering, since I spent a year there awhile back. You think this is an odd choice of venue? It is a discussion about systemic bias, or at least someone's perception of it...

“

Generally, this project concentrates upon remedying omissions (entire topics, or particular sub-topics in extant articles) rather than on either (1) protesting inappropriate inclusions, or (2) trying to remedy issues of how material is presented.

”

This does not eliminate the need for 1 and 2 above, it merely places less emphasis on them. Frankly, I don't see how one can effectively battle systemic bias without focusing on both omissions and inappropriate inclusions/presentation issues. I don't really understand this. Is there another venue where the inappropriate inclusions/presentation issues are dealt with? Are we supposed to ignore the existing mudpiles and just focus upon filling the holes with gold?

— Paine's Climax 12:30, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

I'll let the regulars here address that question. I just wanted to say that I thought your comment above was nicely inspirational. I especially liked this part: However as long as the other eye makes the attempt to make readers feel an increased self-esteem, to educate them, so that they walk away with a feeling of, "You learn something new everyday!", then we've done our job, yes? Yes :-) Haukur (talk) 12:59, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Thank you, Haukur, that's probably the nicest thing anyone's ever written about me! If Wikipedia were about voting, and I understand that it's not, but if it were, I believe that I would vote for article titles with only English letters, such as "Tran Duc Luong" or "Tal-Handaq", and place the spellings Trần Đức Lương or Tal-Ħandaq early in the article's lede complete with a lifting explanation. This way we may conquer the slanted "omission" of not using completely English characters in article titles? (Perhaps it's all in how you spin it?)

— Paine's Climax 16:59, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

WP:Use English —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.41.110.200 (talk) 15:10, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

Is this place just for people to rant?

I find it rather pathetic the amount of ranting that has taken place on this page. I am sorry that many of the editors to the English language wikipedia come from countries where English is the first language or from Europe. If there was a single language wikipedia then i could understand the need for a place like this and peoples concerns. But wikipedia has allowed the creation of dozens of different language wikipedias, in most cases taking advantage of the good reputation of the English language wikipedia. There will always be a bias on every different language wikipedia. Get over it. Thanks BritishWatcher (talk) 13:11, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Oh there is a bias with the article title Côte d'Ivoire. The English speaking world knows that country as the Ivory Coast, why on earth on the English language wikipedia is it given that title? BritishWatcher (talk) 13:14, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Lol! So, BW, did you come here to do your part to counter systemic bias? or just to do what you seem to be angriest about and "rant about ranting". Wikipedia is written, edited, biased, improved and criticized by people... imperfect human beings. In the last several years, perhaps the most lasting advancements have been made by people pooling their knowledge and skills to come to consensus, agreement about the smallest edit, the largest project and everything in-between. Sometimes this begins with a good rant! <grin>

— Paine's Climax 17:14, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

I wanted to join in and have a rant too :). I get tired of seeing people moan about an American or western bias when the overwhelming majority of the contributions to the English language wikipedia will be from those same countries and the readers will be too. I am sure there is exactly the same bias on every single language wikipedia, its just commonsense.

I also just wanted to highlight a case where the English speaking world knows something as the Ivory Coast and yet the article is at a location most people have never even heard of. One of the big problems is theres sometimes a "counter bias" vote. Something is seen as nasty western POV or American POV and people vote for the "countering systemic bias" cause. We recently have seen that in the motorway wars between British and Irish editors. BritishWatcher (talk) 17:25, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Between British and Irish editors... this must be a particularly hairy situation. I believe that this is why the lede's quote I made above exists. I'll quote it again:

“

Generally, this project concentrates upon remedying omissions (entire topics, or particular sub-topics in extant articles) rather than on either (1) protesting inappropriate inclusions, or (2) trying to remedy issues of how material is presented.

”

Perhaps there are basically two kinds of systemic bias? The mudpiles of inappropriate inclusions and presentation issues are avoided maybe because they represent the hairier, more deeply controversial form of SB. These are conditions where the inclusion or presentation may have been made purposefully biased just to push buttons, to find someone's "last nerve", to be machiavellian. The other form of SB, where the slant is unintentional, may be mostly represented by those omissions of entire topics or sub-topics. And the creators of this project, rather than wish upon us to become embroiled in heated mud fights, prefer we simply fight the evil indirectly by going around filling holes with gold. It might be way off the mark, but this is how I'm beginning to perceive the worth and stature of this project.

— Paine's Climax 17:42, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

I think some do enjoy the feeling of moral superiority they get when they moan about systemic bias, and I get easily tired of it myself. BritishWatcher is right when he says that most contributors are from Anglo countries and people tend to write about what they know (which is why we have so many blasted featured articles on video games!) and the bias does not come from some kind of feeling of superiority of Western/Anglo cultures vis-a-vis others. On the other hand, systemic bias does exist and the most important problem is the lack of information. A lot of this is because a)few people from non-English speaking parts of the world contribute to English WP and 2) a LOT of information about these places are in their native languages (natch) and you have to be bilingual to be able to write about them here. This is one reason I write mostly Mexican geography and some culture articles. I live in Mexico and I speak Spanish (English is my native language), so I can write articles many others cannot as I have access to the information AND the ability to express that information in English. How many contributors to English WP are bilingual enough to do this? Id be willing to bet that many, if not most, bilingual contributors to WP work translating English articles to their native languages. Nothing wrong with that, to be sure, but it just means that we lack the kind of volunteers necessary to really put a dent in the lack of information in English WP about the non-English-speaking world.Thelmadatter (talk) 00:44, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

I can share this displeasure on language, and I'm under the impression that this is a losing battle. I'm a Malaysian who once contributed heavily to articles pertaining to Malaysia, and my engagement with Wikipedia stemmed primary from the abysmal coverage of local topics, as well as being one of a very small minority in this country to possess a good command of English, as preference towards native mother tongues (Chinese, Tamil language, and Malay especially, due largely to the ridiculously nationalistic tendencies of the ruling government) seems to be hampering anyone from engaging this particular wiki without sounding like they are butchering the language and embarrassing themselves. After years of editing, it always seemed like I was the only one who cared, and that hasn't motivated me to press on.

The wiki concept is good, but to have proper coverage of topics on lesser known countries, its citizens have to be the primary contributor because that's what they know best, not tourists or PRs, and must be well-educated enough to get about it. Take topics on Singapore, Hong Kong and India for example. The primary reasons articles on these countries are much better is that many of its citizens 1) are well-versed in the English language, 2) have a solid middle-to-high income society, and 3) are disciplined enough to commit to sustained editing, resulting in a fraction of them doing well in Wikipedia; Malaysians in general do not fulfill any of these criteria, and the results have been disappointing. Having seen repeated coverage of these three countries, as well as those on the US and the UK, I gave up and moved on, and there are no others to take my place. As far as Malaysia is concerned, you can forget about it. - Two hundred percent (talk) 20:44, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

Sorry to hear you so down, Two hundred percent. I recently added Harimau Malaya to the Malaysia section of the National personifications template. Someone else had entered Ibu Pertiwi as a national personification of Malaysia, but I couldn't find a reliable source to back that up. So I'm still wondering if I did the right thing by removing Ibu Pertiwi and replacing it with Harimau Malaya. Anyway, thank you for what sounds like a great effort over the years, and best of everything to you and yours!

— Paine's Climax 15:06, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

I,too, can empathize with you 200% Writing on lesser known topics is a lonely endeavor. I write articles about Mexico and despite its proximity to the U.S., WP:Mexico is not a busy place. But I do it as much for my adopted country as I do it for WP, probably more. Not to mention its great for my Spanish reading skills and cultural learning. One thing that helps me is writing articles that meet DYK criteria... at least I get attagirls for that.Thelmadatter (talk) 02:28, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

I'm only fluent in English, and in that sense maybe I'm contributing to systemic bias. But surely the best way to start countering it is to carry on your good work here? I'm guilty of concentrating on obscure things in my local area, but I do so because these things are important to me. Indeed, I think any obscure article on an English subject gives licence for a similar place/football club/political article in Malaysia, provided that sources are there to at least show that it exists (in Chinese, Tamil or Malay if necessary). Countering systemic bias is a very strong argument at AfD, where you can show that a British or American equivalent in a similar condition would have been kept.

As an aside, 70% of the world's internet content is in English. If you look at wikipedia as a whole, less than 25% of it is in English. Granted, that has nothing to do with systemic bias on the English wikipedia, but it does show that as a community we are doing something right. It's going to take a long time, but we'll get there, and the more people we have on board, the quicker we can make it happen. WFCforLife (talk) 17:40, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

"70% of the world's Internet content is in English"? Do you have a reliable source to back that up? Or is that a belief arising from, and exacerbating, systemic bias? --J.L.W.S. The Special One (talk) 16:21, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but I have other priorities in life. I'm sure plenty of long-running editors do the same thing because they could no longer invest time on this wiki. It's also apparent that editing on Wikipedia has become more of a tedious chore entangled in bureaucracy and restrictions than a hobby. I couldn't take this kind of shit anymore. - Two hundred percent (talk) 15:56, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Call for action

I do more than just rant - I have written five Singapore-related GAs (I Not Stupid, I Not Stupid Too, Homerun (film), Denise Phua and Yip Pin Xiu), with more to come. I hope and believe that members of this WikiProject also do more than just ranting, despite this discussion page suggesting otherwise. Perhaps we could start a page showcasing some of our successes and also start a CSB Collaboration of the Month (or even collaborations with other WikiProjects)? Of course, these are just suggestions until we discuss them and actually carry them out. --J.L.W.S. The Special One (talk) 16:21, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Systemic bias of reliable sources

The project page seems to be about WP's own systemic bias, but what about the above? I'm thinking particularly of religion. Should space on Wikipedia be allocated among different religious groups according to

their numbers of followers
or the space devoted to them in RSs?

The latter would imply most of the space being allocated to Christianity.

(This question has arisen in Talk:Buddhism#Pure Land, but is of more general application.) Peter jackson (talk) 11:14, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

There is no space problem on wikipedia. WEIGHT via the highest quality reliable sources if in doubt, peer reviewed academic journals which meet the esteem of the broad academic community, monographs published by academic presses, and conference publications peer reviewed in full prior to publication published by conferences or associations which meet the esteem of the broad academic community. Fifelfoo (talk) 11:20, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you mean by that. The vast majority of such publications are produced in the "advanced" world, most of which has a Christian cultural background. There is therefore far more such material on Christianity than all others put together. Peter jackson (talk) 15:58, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

None of the above, really. Sure, there has been more written about Christianity than about Buddhism, but that doesn't mean the page for Christianity needs to be proportionally longer than the page for Buddhism. (And in fact, it looks like Buddhism is currently about half again as long.) In each case, our article needs to be enough to cover the topic at a high level, and direct the user to appropriate subtopics at the lower level.

I also agree with Fifelfoo that there is no space problem. There is always room for another article on a subtopic, as long as you can show that reliable sources have covered it in some depth. If that means there are more subtopic articles for Christianity than Buddhism, that's all right; but it's not at the cost of Buddhism.

In Talk:Buddhism#Pure Land, you're talking about the space given to one kind of Buddhism in the article about Buddhism in general, that doesn't seem to be a Christianity related issue. I'm afraid that there using the way other reliable sources write about a topic as a rough guide to weight does seem like a good idea; if number of followers were the main factor, than historical religions wouldn't get any coverage, which hardly seems right. --GRuban (talk) 16:29, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

A related issue would be how much coverage each religion should be given in "religious views" sections of certain articles. --J.L.W.S. The Special One (talk) 16:41, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Why split "the origins of bias" and "the bias" into a separate page?

Editors reading the WikiProject page must understand the origins and nature of systemic bias, before they are willing and able to counter sustemic bias. If the sections were split because they were too long, how about providing a summary of said sections on the WikiProject page? --J.L.W.S. The Special One (talk) 16:01, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Interesting article

The following article:

http://zerogeography.blogspot.com/2009/10/neogeography-and-palimpsests-of-place.html

could be of interest to CSB Wikiproject members. PhilKnight (talk) 23:04, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Translation project

User:Proteins and I are in contact with a technology company that wishes to use some software it has developed that is a kind of graphic interface for translators to increase the amount of health-related information in developing-world language Wikipedias. Since this is quite a large company, this project might eventually cover many languages, but we are thinking about starting off small at around five (eg transferring content from the English to the Swahili Wikipedia is one leading option). The real work will be in developing a community of translators and bilingual experts in each destination language, and the company is willing to help with this as well, but at our end we will need to provide a list of articles on "essential health information", internationalize these as much as possible, and polish them a bit. This proposal is still in its initial stage, but could people who would be interested in participating sign up here. Thank you Tim Vickers (talk) 17:08, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Currency conversion

I think the expression of monetary values (such as example prices or values of certain objects) contributes to systemic bias. Usually these are in USD, or sometimes EUR, but never in the reader's own currency - after all, why would anyone want to enter the value in hundreds of currencies? This could be solved through some kind of plugin that collects exchange rates and displays the values in the user's currency (either by detecting the user's location or by allowing this to be set in preferences). This way, the editor would only have to write something like {{money|50|USD}} and get something like this: $50^[conv] depending on the chosen country. Some browsers have plugins for this purpose, but they might have trouble detecting what to convert and what not to, or interfere with webpages in other ways.

Gyorokpeter (talk) 19:04, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

Systemic bias dispute/cleanup tag

Template:Systemic bias. Just created, based on Template:POV. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 16:17, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Royalty naming conventions

I don't know if this is the best place to bring it up, but there is a flagrant attempt to introduce systemic bias currently taking place at WP:NCROY, Naming conventions for royals, i.e. that all British and UK monarchs, or possibly monarchs of the Commonwealth realms should automatically be treated as the primary meaning of their name + regnal number. PatGallacher (talk) 20:37, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

alleged origins of bias

(1) a man, (2) technically inclined, (3) formally educated, (4) an English speaker (native or non-native), (5) white, (6) aged 15–49, (7) from a majority-Christian country, (8) from a developed nation, (9) from the Northern Hemisphere, and (10) likely employed as a white-collar worker rather than as a labourer.

now what would you look for in an encyclopedist? I.e., somebody you want to hire to write encyclopedia articles in English? That's right, you'd require (3), (4), (10), and probably favour (6). That is to say, these points aren't in any way going to result in "bias", they are actual, positive qualifications. Now (1), (5), (7) and (9) are not going to matter one bit as long as (3) assures the editor is aware what he[sic] is doing, namely writing an encyclopedic article, not a personal blog.

The implication that we need more "minorities" to "balance" (1), (5), (6) or (9) is preposterous. We do not demand that we need more planets editing articles to get a fair account of the solar system, do we? The implication that we do can be seen as a silly exercise in PC, or alternatively as a preposterous insinuation against the integrity of our editors. Anyone (anyone) with a good education and capable of writing good English is a qualified editor. Race, gender, nation and what not do not matter if the editor is any good. They matter with problem editors, because these are going to push the pov closest to their heart, but the implication that we have more white power pov pushers because most of our editors are white, or more macho pov pushers because most of our editors are male is utterly mistaken. As mistaken as the idea that assuming we do have "too many" pov pushers of one ilk, we need to balance that out by acquiring more pov pushers of the opposite camp. It doesn't work like that at all. What we need to counter bias is good editors capable of dealing with bias, not more bias of the opposite sort.

Thank you for reading this. My point is that this page may mean well, but rests on a number of flawed tacit assumptions. --dab (𒁳) 16:37, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps you don't understand what systemic bias is. Just remember the fact that everyone here is a volunteer and has complete control over what they wish to edit. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 17:11, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

You're also misunderstanding the project. Its primary goal isn't to change who the editors are, just to encourage them to focus on subjects they may not have thought of otherwise. Recruiting more minority editors is the 16th of 16 points "what to do about it" (and recruiting more POV pushers isn't on the list at all!). The first 15 is to get the existing editors to write more about topics the encyclopedia doesn't cover as much. --GRuban (talk) 22:23, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Most people do not fall into racial stereotypes. They do not let their race influence their behavior at all. Do you believe all blacks listen to rap music, so they won't edit articles for any other type of music? There are differences between genders, so mentioning most wikipedia editors are male is relevant. Mentioning race however, is not. To indicate that your race determines how you post, is to imply you believe that all people must fall into racial stereotypes, and all whites must be secretly racists. Dream Focus 03:05, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

There's a big gulf between your first two sentences. Most people do not fall into racial stereotypes. - true. They do not let their race influence their behavior at all. - false. It is absolutely not true that if you are black you only listen to rap music. It is, however, true that if you are black (and in the US), the chance that you supported Obama in the last election is rather high. More specifically as to how this influences Wikipedia? Well, one of the current ArbCom cases, Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Macedonia 2 is specifically about systemic bias, to what extent the nationalities and ethnicities of editors influenced their actions on a naming dispute. The point of this group isn't that people are controlled by their inherent biases, merely that they need to be aware that they have biases in order to effectively act to counter them. --GRuban (talk) 20:38, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

"We do not demand that we need more planets editing articles to get a fair account of the solar system, do we?"

Does this question rest on the "flawed tacit assumption" that there are potential editors on other planets? If not, then I suggest dab reflect on the fact that "ought" implies "can." To the extent that it is possible to combat systemic bias, it should be done. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.105.246.237 (talk) 15:36, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

Whether or not any of these biases are good or bad does not change the fact that they are selection biases. Probably two questions dab should think about are what is knowledge? and do we agree with Jimbo's POV that wikipedia should aim to make knowledge freely available for everyone on this planet? The first question implies that although biases (3) and (4) are essentially good biases regarding knowledge about quantum physics or fifteenth century English history, and (3), (4) and (10) are probably good biases for an article about a government ministry in an English-speaking country, these are only a small subset of all of what is "knowledge". (3), (4) and (10) will tend to bias against knowledge about human rights violations (e.g. political prisoners) in English-speaking countries, because they statistically happen more often to people who are disfavoured by these demographic selection criteria. Jimbo's question relates back to the question of what is knowledge. If we wanted to claim that sociopolitical knowledge about English-speaking countries were more important than that for other parts of the world, then you would have to ask if we really expect people in other places to take "us" (the dominant demographic en.wikipedians) seriously. The British Empire collapsed half a century ago, and even if the USA still has over 800 military bases around the world, the world does seem to be shifting back to multipolarity. That includes "knowledge", not just sociopolitical power, though the two are of course linked. Boud (talk) 17:49, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

If Martians existed, I wouldn't expect them to represent my views fairly. I would expect that if I want my views represented fairly, I would have to express them myself. Similarly, if Botswanans had invented the idea of Wikipedia, and North Americans were playing catch-up, I would consider it the primary responsibility of North Americans to build their version of Wikipedia. I'm not sure what Jimbo's original goals for Wikipedia were - I thought he had some doubts about whether Wikipedia was going to work at all. Anything that happened after that should be gravy from Jimbo's POV. He's got a great big online volunteer community building the world's fifth-largest Web property now. For various reasons touched on by the essay, it turns out that Wikipedia happens to appeal to a certain rather narrow demographic segment. If this is a "problem" that needs a "solution," I think the only people who can solve it are those who are outside that narrow demographic segment. So what's stopping them? Sure, billions of people are not yet on the Internet, but plenty of non-white, non-male, non-white collar, etc. types are online now. If they don't feel especially inclined to plow through Wikipedia's thousands of pages of dense instructions (which are very well-written, yet still laborious to master) and donate thousands of hours of their leisure time to Jimbo's project, isn't that choice up to them? The whole point of Wikipedia being voluntary is that nobody should feel under any obligation to contribute any more than they feel like contributing. If whole demographic subsets seem disproportionately unconcerned about having their views properly represented on Wikipedia, maybe it's a reflection of our bias that we think they should be troubled. Who are we to say that some other group of people ought to be spending their time here? We think Wikipedia is vitally important - otherwise we wouldn't be editing on it - but if other people do not think Wikipedia is very important, then they are expressing their view here by omission. --Teratornis (talk) 02:41, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

And another point: doesn't WP:COI argue against people writing about topics they are personally associated with? And doesn't WP:NOR argue against drawing heavily from one's personal experiences? Wikipedia is just supposed to be an aggregation of information from reliable, published sources put together by people who don't have a strong interest in what they are writing about. And even within a supposedly "narrow" demographic segment such as privileged white college-educated males we find such scope for disagreement about almost every conceivable subject that one wonders how much wider the range of viewpoints could become with more demographic segments, or even extraterrestrial aliens, thrown into the mix. --Teratornis (talk) 02:41, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

ROFLMAO. Um, I'm told that the Inuit People have ten different words for, something that, in English, we have only one word for: Snow. I have no doubt that they employ objective criteria for the distinctions that would pass the most rigid NPOV test here at Wikipedia.

Thing is, even a Wikipedia article in their language, I fear, would be unable to educate anyone on the differences described by the words. To learn, I imagine you'd have to accompany them in the real world where there are snows to study first-hand. Say, on a hunting expedition to to whack a few baby seals on the head with hammers.

Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge. That's what we're doing. --Jimmy Wales

Can you spell H-U-B-R-I-S ??? --ô¿ô 21:30, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

I didn't understand a word of what you just said. Any chance of you rephrasing for the benefit of those readers not already in your head? --Gimme danger (talk) 21:43, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

No problemo! The "Short Version" is:

Wake up and smell the coffee, people. The "sum of all human knowledge" cannot be totaled in a mere encyclopedia. No way José!

To which, at the risk of being bombastic and/or rude to my Wikipedia friends -- not to mention to this wonderful site's founder (I come here almost every day) -- I would add:

"Duh..." ô¿ô 15:48, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Point taken, as it is, I think, obvious. I'm still unsure of what it has to do with countering systemic bias. The attitude that if we can't be perfect, if we can't truly represent the sum total of human knowledge, that we ought not even bother trying to be better, is counterproductive in any endeavor. Making fun of idealism may be in vogue, but it's not particularly helpful. --Gimme danger (talk) 22:16, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

I do not take Wikipedia lightly. It's a great project and a wonderful resource. One that has paid me back more than any contributions I've made. Nevertheless, I find the premise underlying the alleged problem of "systemic bias" to be absurd. The premise behind statements such as the one in the current "Letter from Michael Snow and Jimmy Wales":

Less than a fifth of the world's population has access to the Internet. While hundreds of thousands of volunteers have contributed to Wikimedia projects today, they are not fully representative of the diversity of the world.

As if the existence of the Internet, and of the fractional subset of people with access to it who contribute here, were not themselves a manifestation of the diversity of our world. As if the existence of people interested in availing themselves of and contributing to encyclopedic knowledge were not, themselves, representative of a particular "systemic bias" TOWARD encyclopedic knowledge. A "systemic bias," without which, there would be no encyclopedic knowledge.

The educated Western attitude of yore, to bring "civilization" and "advancement" to the "unwashed masses" of the world -- by doing things like working out written forms for languages that never developed them on their own -- may have been paternalistic. But in my book the current attitude -- that only the reason that four-fifths of the world isn't involved in a project, which it just so happens was developed in the West by Westerners, has to be due to some subtle flaw in the very "systemic bias" that produced the project in the first place -- is no less self-centered. Except that, in the latter case, the Western Ouroboros seems intent on eating itself up. ô¿ô 02:07, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

You seem to acknowledge that the people who contribute to Wikipedia are a specific subset of humanity. The idea of systemic bias is just that: a specific subset of humanity, when writing, is going to reflect the viewpoints and interests (i.e. bias) and that this is a natural result of how the writing process in Wikipedia works (i.e. systemic), not the result of anyone trying to exclude anything or anyone.

So, if I understand you correctly, what you're saying is that this is not anything we should attempt to counter. Should we should allow the encyclopedic knowledge outside the general scope of the majority our writers to be neglected? That's really the whole point of this project. To say, well, if 87% of our writers are men, maybe we should make sure that some of our women's history articles are getting love along with the standard warfare fare. Or maybe we should make sure that we have solid information about agricultural science, even though most of our contributors are white-collar workers, who, like me, could identify a cow reliably but get no further on a farm. This project isn't about any flaw in the system; the bias that's here was predictable from the start and there's probably not much that can be done to eradicate it. What it is about is countering that bias, so that we have a better encyclopedia. --Danger (talk) 04:11, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Sorry it takes me so dang long to reply. I'm not around nearly as much as I'd like to be.

What I'm saying is that the primary systemic bias of the project does not exist by virtue of the demographic that contributes. I mostly fit the majority demographic, but I agree wholeheartedly that all bias in the project, including demographic, should be recognized and countered. Except for one particular bias, that is.

It is important to recognize, I believe, that the kind of thinking that tries to eliminate bias ITSELF represents a bias. A bias against bias, that is the primary systemic bias of the project -- but not only that -- it is also a bias that is INHERENT in the project. One that is rooted in a belief in the objective nature of reality -- a belief that has not only been a major premise of Western culture, it is specified as a major premise of the project via NPOV.

Not all the world shares that particular bias, including a lot of Western philosophers who beg to differ with the dominant culture. Nevertheless, especially in terms of the project, it is a good bias.

I know that characterizing any "bias" whatsoever as "good" would be considered well-nigh heresy in many quarters here. But what people fail to realize, too often IMHCO, is that if you get rid of this one the whole thing goes down the tubes.

The article on Denialism, in my book, is a case in point. As the article stands now, it displays gross violations of NPOV. Violations that the editors of the article, for whatever reasons, remain steadfastly blinkered to. You can read my contribution to a recent discussion for its deletion on my talk page. People ought not be able to seize articles for a soapbox. But they do.

Which returns me to what I called, above, the "hubris" of the statement, Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge. Replace the words "the sum of" with the words "an encyclopedic catalog of," and I'd have no problem with it.

In that, the project will never be able to teach anybody what a Native American hunter knows about how to track a panther across a bare granite outcrop. But in telling his story, armed with our particular systemic bias, we will be able to do our best to describe in words how he does it.

In fact, one day, the project may be able to objectively tell the stories of individuals and groups who do not believe that the Holocaust occurred, or that HIV causes AIDS, or that climate change is anthropogenic, or whatever the heresies of the future might be, without calling them names. --ô¿ô 02:55, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

Systemic bias and Anime/Manga articles

I'm concerned about systemic bios in articles about Anime and Manga, specifically about one thing - the fact that writing about non-English adaptations thereof is strongly discouraged, claiming it would give them undue weight. I'm interested in knowing, whethere there's a way of countring such bias, or is there none? I'm asking because I'currently involved in such a dispute about the Tokyo Mew Mew article, with some users contering my proposals by claiming anything beyond a mere bare mention of the non-English adaptations, would be giving them undue weight. Thanks in advance for your help, and understanding. - OBrasilo (talk) 17:24, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

OBrasilo is blatantly forum shopping, after continuing to claim he is going to drop the issue because consensus continues to disagree with him. There is no systemic bias in anime/manga articles. They are JAPANESE works. The articles emphasis the original versions and all English releases (English encyclopedia), including those in Singapore. Other foreign language translations are mentioned appropriately with sources. This is the same as with novel articles, film articles, and most Television articles (except for two series AKA the Simpsons and Family Guy - the former of which did at least have sources) but OBrasilo seems to improperly think it is systemic bias that we do not give each and every translation a list of character names, voice actors, and what changes were made - despite not producing so much as ONE source giving any of these versions any actual coverage either. The anime/manga project follows the same coverage the reliable sources give, and in reality the bulk of such coverage is for the Japanese and English versions. Period. He has restarted this argument on this article at least three times now, been to ANI twice, and every time consensus supports the current FA article, he says he's done arguing and is going to stop. The same thing this time. As soon as others supported the current article, he disrupts the discussion by removing all of his original posts[6].

Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive586#User:OutOfTimer and bad faith and Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive586#Eik Corell, Rehevkor, Collectonian, and judgement based on no knowledge on the subject... - makes multiple attacks against other editors who disagree with him, attempts collusion with friend to get way, admins agree both wrong forum and Obraislo has no valid position, Obraislo "formerly apologizes" for his behavior, and claims "I promise I'll stop harassing her with my crap, and to stay back from the Tokyo Mew Mew articles. Rather, I'll create my personal website about Tokyo Mew Mew, and copy onto it the now-deleted informations from those articles about the various non-English adaptations". "Promise" didn't even last a month.
Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive590#Users Collectonian, and SchmuckyTheCat...- Obraislo attacks multiple editors again, basically any one who disagrees with him; admins find no merit in his remarks, but with regard to TMM, agree his claimed "letter" is unbelievable and unreliable and that there is strong evidence of meat puppetry.

And here is his original post to the TMM talk page which was removed for being an attack on other editors[7]. -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 18:37, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

Actually, let's truly drop it this time. Someone please delete this section from here. - OBrasilo (talk) 20:52, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

Climate Change articles template

The Climate Change articles are under General Sanction probation. [8]. A frequent contentious and disruptive issue is that sources must come from a "scientist" to be deemed reliable for included. Sometimes even limited to a "natural scientist", while sources indicate that all fields are involved. Scientific opinion is a vitae and important part of Climate Change content, the article issues are global and solutions require input from all views to be effective. I would like to create a template in this project to help resolve the systemic bias created by excluding "non-scientific" opinions. An obvious solution to the issue would be to apply Wikipedia:ATTRIBUTEPOV#Attributing_and_specifying_biased_statements for balance. Comments here on how to proceed would be appreciated. Zulu Papa 5 ☆ (talk) 21:11, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Mathematosis... again

I am posting here because of the recreation of the deleted essay in your project space here. I have started a thread at WikiProject Mathematics. Comments are welcome. Sławomir Biały (talk) 13:24, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Old encyclopedia bias?

From WP:BIAS:

Wikipedia contains material from the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica, the Catholic Encyclopedia, The Nuttall Encyclopædia, the Jewish Encyclopedia, and other older, public-domain encyclopedias that have been text-dumped en masse throughout thousands of articles. This material contains many ingrained biases, inaccuracies, and other problems reflecting the sources' age and nature. It often takes a significant amount of work to repair these outdated articles, and while they are in the process of being fixed, the inaccurate information and other problems remain in the Wikipedia articles. The modernised material usually still reflects the original article's underlying method and approach, resulting in a similar bias.

Looking through some of the articles with {{1911}}, I wonder how accurate this is. Most of that material has long since been overwritten, with new material coming in largely in new sections. In any case it seems (rightly or wrongly) to me that this is no longer a major source of bias, compared to the almost omnipresent US or at least Western bias. How do members of this project see this? Any objections to its removal?

Obviously there are cases where it might apply, which is why we have {{1911 POV}}. But there's no reason to call out every possible source of bias. (E.g., WP:COI has potential for bias, but it's minor and so not mentioned.)

CRGreathouse (t | c) 21:22, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

That's a very good point, Wikipedia is well past the stage where a significant portion (percentage-wise, at least) of our articles are copied from or based on those old public domain encyclopedias. This is very unlikely to be major systemic problem anymore. Sadly this failure to keep up is probably just one more sign that this project no longer offers any actionable way to work towards the goal of improving encyclopedic coverage in areas where we're deficient. It seems that the primary use of this talk page has been soapboxing.--Cúchullain ^t/c 03:01, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

I'm sorry to hear that. Can I help?

CRGreathouse (t | c) 05:02, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

You are more than welcome to join the project, if you haven't yet, and offer any suggestions you may have. Personally I think Wikipedia is at the stage where we're less focused on just growth, and more focused on improving the articles we do have, and so now is the perfect time for a project like this to be active. But it needs actual, concrete objectives and effective means for working towards them, and currently we just don't have that. Instead, it's just sort of devolved into a forum for people to gripe about some unspecific bias they've supposedly encountered in some article, or else to deride the entire idea of "systemic bias" as overstated, etc. The chief effect this project has had, from what I can tell, is to encourage people to slap Scarlet Letter-like POV tags on articles. It's disappointing, really, but perhaps it just goes to show that there are other, more effective means of improving the encyclopedia.--Cúchullain ^t/c 18:39, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

I'm interested in fixing the problems you pointed out. Are there enough active members to discuss this? CRGreathouse (t | c) 03:29, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

I don't know. I'd be interested in participating.--Cúchullain ^t/c 18:56, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Overhaul of {{histinfo}}

Hey folks,

{{tl|Histinfo}] was in a pretty bad way, and was linked to WP:HISTINFO, a project which has been inactive for most of the last three years. I've therefore overhauled it and made it link to a new page, WP:adding historical information, which links to WP:systemic bias. Any help with the new page is appreciated. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 08:20, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Systemic bias in navigation

Members of this project might be interested in the ongoing discussion at Talk:Ebert#Requested move concerning whether the title Ebert should redirect to Roger Ebert, an American film critic, based solely on hit-counts, notwithstanding that a minority of users are likely to be searching for Friedrich Ebert, a former Chancellor and President of Germany. Also, editors may wish to comment on the underlying primary topic guideline, which is purported to justify this redirect, and which has been a recurring topic of discussion on the Disambiguation talk page. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 19:22, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

Now closed, with Ebert as a disambiguation page. Rd232 ^talk 21:24, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

CSB-related wikiprojects

New way of categorising these:

Category:WikiProjects relevant for countering systemic bias
{{Infobox WikiProject}} now has a |csb=yes parameter putting projects in that category

Rd232 ^talk 21:25, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

African museum curators interested in editing Wikipedia

At MW2010, I got in touch with a representative of the International Council for Africa Museums. He told me that he represents several museum curators who are interested in participating on Wikipedia. I'd like to put them in touch editors who edit those topics (African art, history, etc). I'm not sure if this Wikiproject is active, but if there are editors here who are interested, please let me know so we can work out some kind of system for collaboration. Raul654 (talk) 01:56, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

Anyone? Raul654 (talk) 15:18, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

There isn't a 1-1 mapping between people interested in countering systemic bias and people interested in African art, history, etc. We at WP:CSB have more breadth, less depth, than what seems called for. I've written articles about Yoruba literature, a set of ruins, a historic town, and a rebel group for this wikiproject, but I wouldn't say I'm an Africa expert. Have you tried Wikipedia:WikiProject Africa? --GRuban (talk) 16:12, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I cross-posted to WikiProject Africa. But more to the point - I'm not looking for experts on African topics. The curators will presumably be the experts. I'm looking for editors on those topics, who can assist the experts in editing Wikipedia, which is a non-trivial task for newcomers. Raul654 (talk) 16:22, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

What sort of "system" is needed? There are a number of places newcomers can go for help, including more specific wikiprojects. I'd suggest just making a section on the CSB page where the curators can list themselves, and then people can look out for them and help out as necessary, particularly on broader and more complex issues; rapid responses on basic tech and procedure will be better had elsewhere. Rd232 ^talk 16:45, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

I can try to help a little. I like Rd232's idea of a list or a section to ask for help. Fortunately (!) since these topics are insufficiently edited, they will be less likely to get into edit wars. How are their English language skills? (I.e., are they curators of museums dedicated to Africa in English language countries, or are they curators of museums in African countries?) That may be the biggest issue, since presumably their topics won't be subject to the potential landmines points of WP:BLP. --GRuban (talk) 17:12, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

It sounds interesting, but I guess the problem is that there are so few active editors in that area in the first place that you would have to be happy to find even one in a place like this. On the other hand, quite a few people watching this page are probably willing to get a bit more active about African topics if the area gets a bit more busy. I am one of them, and I am going to watch WikiProject Africa for that purpose. Hans Adler 09:55, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

Have you pointed them at WP:GLAM? There's nothing 'special' about African museums that would keep them from participating in the normal museum program.

Also, you might talk to User:Tim Vickers, who has some experience with training "expert newbies". WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:03, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

Proposed move

Hirohito has been proposed to be retitled to Emperor Shōwa. If you have any comment on this matter, please discuss it at Talk:Hirohito#Requested move, keeping in mind Wikipedia:Article titles and similar guidelines. Thanks,--Andres rojas22 (talk) 17:05, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

Invitation to improve medical articles related to developing countries

Google's private foundation has offered to provide support to several non-English Wikipedias. (See this announcement.) Forty medicine- or health-related articles, some of particular interest to developing countries, have been identified as targets. The English-language articles will be translated, and we'd like to give the translators some good articles.

I think that it would be particularly helpful if some of these articles were expanded to make them more global/more obviously applicable to non-English-speaking countries. For example, recreational drug use contains prevalence information for Ireland and the US, but no other countries.

If you are interested in helping with this, please consider adding Wikipedia:WikiProject Medicine/Google Project to your watchlist, improving these articles, and/or contributing advice at the talk page. Thanks, WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:03, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

Birth Control, HIV and other STI prevention, and women's issues should be high on the list. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.181.70.30 (talk) 02:28, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Serbian sources for articles on Serbian topics

In the articles Oralno doba and Marko Živić Show, authored Serbian media sources are being used for citations. For Oralno doba:

Press Magazin: "Oralno Doba Uz Anu I Cecu" - Google translation: "Oral and Age with Anu Cecu"
Blic: "„Oralno doba“ kao kabare" - Google translation: "Oral period as a cabaret"
Press Magazin: "Lane skinut sa Foksa!" - Google translation: "LANE removed from the FOX!"
Politika: "Lane i prijatelji" - Google translation: "Lane & Friends"

For Marko Živić Show:

Blic: "Ukinut „Marko Živić šou“" - Google translation: "Terminated Marko Zivic show"
Kurir: "UĆUTKAN!: Televizija Foks bez logičnog objašnjenja ukinula šou Marka Živića" - Google translation: "Keep quiet!: Fox Television without logical explanation Marko Zivic show canceled"

While yes, the limitations of Google Translate are to be acknowledged, the content of the citations and the wide use of them in Serbia suggests to me that they are suitable, however I request that a determination be made as to whether or not the Serbian language sources Press Magazin, Blic, Kurir, and Politik might be considered reliable enough for citing these articles on Serbian television shows, as English language sources are unavailable. Thank you, --Schmidt, ^{MICHAEL Q.} 19:19, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

From reading our articles about two of them, Politika, and Blic, I'd support them for this purpose. They each seem to have political issues, but that shouldn't affect their coverage of television talk shows. --GRuban (talk) 12:43, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Help requested with Wikipedia naming convention policy discussion

The only voices being heard from so far are the same white, privileged, European-descended, English-speaking males responsible for the systemic bias on Wikipedia to begin with, for whom the bias has been normalized. It would be nice if we could get additional voices involved here. SmashTheState (talk) 15:26, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

how charming. BritishWatcher (talk) 15:29, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

You have proven that this page is yet again just somewhere for people to rant about the fact this is the English language wikipedia. The idea we use the common English language name for things is so evil isnt it? This is simply a place to bash British people, Americans and others who speak the English language. It is pathetic and it is ashame the English language wikipedia even gives a place for such disgusting hateful rants against the English speaking world.

The "problems" found on the English language wikipedia claimed to be "systemic bias" exist on all of the different language wikipedias. Heaven forbid if the English language wikipedia uses the common English language name. :\ BritishWatcher (talk) 15:51, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

Smash, I read that, and am afraid I don't agree with you. What something is named is not an issue of systemic bias, it's an issue of using the most common term for something in the English language. As the people in that discussion observed, this affects European terms just as much: our articles are called Germany, not Deutschland, Sweden, not Sverige, Moscow, not Moskva, etc. Systemic bias would be if there wasn't an article on the waterfall at all, or if its native name wasn't mentioned at all; the fact that it's mentioned second rather than first is not nearly as big a deal. From our front page: "this project concentrates upon remedying omissions (entire topics, or particular sub-topics in extant articles) rather than ... trying to remedy issues of how material is presented." --GRuban (talk) 06:56, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Systemic bias from the FL Director

...and it is not simply one or two little things. The bias is so dreadfully blatant that it almost craps all over the purpose of having feature status on certain pages. I need some serious help on this. I will give further details. Jamen Somasu (talk) 02:16, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Words mean nothing. Give some diffs (examples) of this purported bias and then someone might take this accusation seriously. Rambo's Revenge (talk) 10:03, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

This feels like a shopping trip to me, this is the third venue for this kind of talk. However, in good faith, perhaps we can now focus the issue here and get some serious diffs to help uncover the conspiracy. The Rambling Man (talk) 10:11, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

This just feels like a place people come to bash a few certain nationalities and to rant about the English speaking world for being so evil it wants English usage to have primacy on the English wikipedia.

It is a shame such a location exists, as if these exact same claims of "bias" dont exist on every single other language wikipedia. BritishWatcher (talk) 23:30, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

Project task section

One of the points in the task section of the project page says..

"Change the demographic of Wikipedia. Encourage friends and acquaintances that you know have interests that are not well-represented on Wikipedia to edit. If you are at a university, contact a professor in minority, women's, or critical studies, explain the problem, and ask if they would be willing to encourage students to write for Wikipedia. Contact minority or immigrant groups in your area to see if they would be interested in encouraging their members to contribute. The worst they could say is, "No". But keep in mind that immigrant groups may well have a different point of view than the majority of people in the countries they emigrated from (they may, for example, be members of a minority group themselves or may have emigrated because of a disagreement with the government not shared by the majority of the population), which introduces its own systemic bias."

How is that not a gross violation of Wikipedia:Meatpuppet#Meatpuppetry? This project really is shocking and offensive. How do i go about reporting this project for encouraging a violation of wikipedia rules? BritishWatcher (talk) 18:06, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

WP:AN, probably. But hopefully they'll tell you there is nothing wrong with encouraging people to edit Wikipedia. Meatpuppetry is encouraging people to join specifically to hold up your end in a dispute, but there isn't any dispute involved here. --GRuban (talk) 19:38, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict)The goal isn't to add support to a particular viewpoint, stack votes, or sway consensus in any particular direction. It's to encourage people to come here to help improve our coverage in areas where it's currently deficient. Not how that could be "shocking and offensive".--Cúchullain ^t/c 19:41, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

I'm shocked and offended at the thought that someone might want to improve our coverage of Africa or Asia. --GRuban (talk) 20:05, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

This is encouraging people to get certain groups to edit wikipedia in order to further a point of view which at present some people here seem to think there is a "bias against". Sounds like stacking to me even if it does not apply to a specific article / debate. BritishWatcher (talk) 08:58, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

"The goal isn't to add support to a particular viewpoint, stack votes, or sway consensus in any particular direction." I am sorry but that is exactly what that paragraph does. It encourages people to change the demographics of wikipedia by recruiting people whos "interests" are not well represented. I find attempts to actively encourage a demographic change on wikipedia shocking and offensive. This paragraph does not suggest, if you know experts in matters relating to Africa and Asia ask them to contribute and improve to articles on the subject. It says go out of your way to recruit editors based on skin colour or religion. BritishWatcher (talk) 08:58, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

Nonsense. The goal here is to improve Wikipedia's coverage in areas that are currently not well covered. One good way to do that is to encourage people who have the requisite knowledge and interest in those areas to edit. Encouraging people to edit Wikipedia productively is always a good thing, no matter who they are, so long as they follow our policies and guidelines such as V and NPOV. I really don't understand your anger.--Cúchullain ^t/c 23:34, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

The paragraph in question tells people to change the demographics of wikipedia by actively recruiting more people from minority groups, you do not think that is slightly controversial? This is not about recruiting experts in a certain area who could contribute to article areas like Africa and Asia, it talks about recruiting members whos "interests" are under represented, which sounds like trying to stack certain debates. BritishWatcher (talk) 08:33, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

One doesn't have to be an expert to contribute productively to the encyclopedia, even if it does help. And of course any new user would be expected to follow our other policies and guidelines. There is absolutely no mention of "certain debates" that these new users would try to "stack". You're assuming that "minorities" would speak with one voice and would do nothing but undermine consensus, which is the very worst assumption to make.--Cúchullain ^t/c 13:58, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

There are two parts here. Recruiting users whos "interests" are under represented, sounds to me like a way of attempting to stack and influence debate, not on a specific article, but across wikipedia. like for example: "Lets recruit more Irish editors because certain editors believe that there is a bias against Irish interests on wikipedia" By taking such steps it is introducing bias not combating bias.

The part about recruiting minorities is the bit that offends me, its quite clearly positive discrimination. Go out of your way to recruit minorities, and yes whilst minorities will have many different views, its not exactly hard to imagine such serious alterations to the demographics of wikipedia will have an impact in certain areas, isnt that the whole point? All part of the quest to combat what people here consider "systemic bias". If it makes no difference, why bother encouraging more minority recruitment? BritishWatcher (talk) 14:08, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

As I said, "to encourage people to come here to help improve our coverage in areas where it's currently deficient". You don't seem to grasp that people who are "minorities" where you're from (presumably Great Britain) are not necessarily minorities in the wider world. Encouraging people to edit Wikipedia productively is always a good thing; if they help improve our coverage in deficient areas, so much the better.--Cúchullain ^t/c 15:02, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

But it is not just encouraging more people to edit wikipedia, it is encouraging people to recruit minorities so that the demographics of wikipedia are altered. Its true minorities are different groups in different nations, however considering this is the English language wikipedia which will have most editors from certain countries, its not hard to see that by minority you mean non white non christian people. i am sorry you do not seem to think actively trying to "change the demographics" of wikipedia is offensive, such a policy would clearly introduce its own bias. BritishWatcher (talk) 16:16, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but that's just ridiculous. The English Wikipedia is intended to cover a worldwide range of topics in the English language; it is not supposed to focus primarily on English-language topics or matters of interest of chiefly English-speaking populations. The goals of this project are entirely in line with those of Wikipedia.--Cúchullain ^t/c 17:04, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

I never said that was the case. All i am saying is it is wrong to actively encourage people to recruit editors based on being a minority in an attempt to "change the demographics" of wikipedia. Ofcourse it would be more helpful if more editors with knowledge of africa / asia edited the English language wikipedia, but that is not what it asks for in the task section. So something like "if you know people with knowledge of areas that may lack coverage on the English wikipedia (like towns in Asia) then encourage them to contribute)", i do not see a problem with that. But to clearly say recruit minorities to change the demographics of wikipedia is very different and it is deeply offensive. BritishWatcher (talk) 17:14, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

If you read the quotation that you're deeply offended by a bit more carefully, you may see that you misunderstood. (Or not, if you are determined to be offended, we can't stop you.) The paragraph encourages we encourage groups of people by their interests, not by their race. It specifically mentions 3 groups of people.

"friends and acquaintances that you know have interests that are not well-represented" - presumably this isn't offensive to you, since it doesn't say "minority" anywhere?
"[students of] minority, women's, or critical studies" - again? Though often minority studies skews minority and women's studies skews female, we can't do anything about that; we want experts in the field.
"minority or immigrant groups" - I'm guessing this is the part you're offended by. Correct me if I'm wrong. If so, I think you're reading that phrase wrong. Especially if you look at it in the context of the previous two groups, you'll see we are trying to recruit people interested in minority issues, not necessarily people who are minorities. That is what members of "minority or immigrant groups" are. "Groups", in the sense of social organizations, rather than racial classification. Of course, there will be a tendency for members of those groups to also be members of the ethnic classification, but that's not at all the same thing. As a prime example, the NAACP is probably the definitive minority group in the US. At its founding "the leadership was predominantly white and heavily Jewish American ... [it] had only one African American on its executive board."

We want more editors who are interested in and knowledgeable about minority issues. If they happen to be minorities themselves, that's nice, and it will tend to skew that way. But that is not our primary goal. Better? --GRuban (talk) 17:58, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

I have read the paragraph several times, i accept some people can interpret things in different ways but it sounds very problematic to me, and if it is possible based on the current wording to cause confusion it should be changed. The paragraph in question says two things very clearly "Change the demographic of Wikipedia" and "Contact minority or immigrant groups in your area to see if they would be interested in encouraging their members to contribute. " Now you say that whole paragraph is simply about getting more editors to contribute to certain articles currently lacking coverage, but the first sentence sets out the agenda clearly. The aim is to change the demographics of the English wikipedia and recruiting minority or immgrant groups is the method. BritishWatcher (talk) 18:12, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

(unindent) I changed the ambiguous word "group" to "organization", to clear up the issue. Better now? --GRuban (talk) 20:54, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

No sorry that does not resolve the problem, infact by saying organisations and asking for them to get their members to join up makes it sound even more political and wrong. Use of the word "group" was not the problem, the fact remains this project is for political reasons in an attempt to "change the demographics of wikipedia" encouraging specific recruitment of editors based on their skin colour or religion. Such a policy is clearly going to lead to bias. BritishWatcher (talk) 21:13, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Oh well. Looks like you're going to be shocked and offended by Sue Gardner too. You know, the Wikimedia Executive Director. In the current Signpost, it seems she says to achieve the vision of Wikipedia as "the sum of all the world's knowledge ... I want more women, more older people, more people from Africa!". --GRuban (talk) 00:05, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

"Gardner is described as "both old-fashioned and radical, a mega-voltage do-gooder, rebellious in her idealism and provocative in her optimism." Some of those terms certainly seem fitting. Although even her comments are simply limited to saying "she wants" more older people, women and people from africa. That is still different to actively encouraging recruitment from minority groups in an attempt to change the demographics of wikipedia. BritishWatcher (talk) 00:20, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

Oh yeah? "Also challenging Wikipedia-as-democratic-paradise is the fact that 87 per cent of Wikipedians are male (the average is a 25-year-old engineering student). Most come from affluent countries that afford them the technology and leisure time to sit computer-side, without pay.Ms. Gardner’s goal is to correct that imbalance."[9]. If that's not exactly what you're objecting to, what is? --GRuban (talk) 01:52, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

If you can point me to an official wikipedia page that encourages people to change the demographics of wikipedia by recruiting minority groups then i will happily dispute that issue there as well, what Wikimedia Foundations Executive Director claims her goal is, is a matter for her. If she spends wikipedias money on some form of positive discrimination perhaps that is something which would concern those who donate to the project. Most wikipedians being male and coming from affluent countries does not make any difference to the issue of contacting minority groups (within affluent countries), many of whom will be male.

Men in western countries have time to make edits to this website. Is that a bad thing? If Ms Gardner wants to balance things out i suggest she brings an end to global poverty and ensures English is taught in every nation on this planet. I will happily support her trying to do those two things, which once accomplished will lead to a "balanced" wikipedia. Although with a billion people in India and a billion people in China, its not hard to see how Europeans and Americans would very very quickly face serious bias problems if those 2 billion all edited wikipedia. BritishWatcher (talk) 17:27, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

I would also be more supportive of this quest to "balance wikipedia" if this was the single language wikipedia which has a reputation world wide and is used by all. Sadly that is not the case, there are dozens of different language wikipedias, all of which have their own systemic bias. I doubt all of them have these sorts of crusades to end "systemic bias". I was informed of an example of this the other day. The Spanish wikipedia has a Spanish city at the primary spot es:Granada and puts the country at es:Granada (país). That is clear "systemic bias" on the Spanish wikipedia, i bet if we went through every language we would find the same flaws. I would also bet most of them have no wikiproject to counter systemic bias. At the end of the day wikipedia should reflect the usage of the language in question. That is why there are dozens of different language wikipedias.BritishWatcher (talk) 17:37, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

I can't even tell what exactly you're complaining about anymore. No one (no one!) has ever said we shouldn't follow English usage. However, we are trying to cover the whole world's worth of knowledge. The issue is that there are obviously areas we don't cover well, and that ought to be changed. Yes, other Wikipedias have systemic bias too, but that's their problem to fix, not ours, and many of them do have projects similar to this one.--Cúchullain ^t/c 18:08, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

I agree there are areas the English wikipedia doesnt cover as well as it should. I can see the need for getting more editors to contribute to things like african and asian topics. But how does that fit in with encouraging people to change the demographics of wikipedia by recruiting more people from "minority groups"? BritishWatcher (talk) 18:32, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

At this point, I think you're merely flogging a dead horse. If you think there's a problem here, bring it to the attention of the community at WP:AN or WP:VP. — Malik Shabazz ^Talk/_Stalk 18:37, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict)You're [BritishWatcher] the one who keeps going on about "minorities". The project mentions minority groups (as in a group that may be in the minority in English-speaking countries) as one of various groups of people who might have interests in things that aren't appropriately covered in Wikipedia. We've said this several times, I don't know how that's hard to fathom.--Cúchullain ^t/c 18:46, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

But that is not clear from the wording. The task starts by stating change the demographics of wikipedia. Recruiting members from minority groups, is part of the process of accomplishing this task. This wikiproject should not be seeking to "transform the demographics of wikipedia", such a change will clearly introduce its own bias. Why is the new bias you will create better than what people here presently define as "systemic bias"? BritishWatcher (talk) 18:51, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

Let me give you an example, say i think there is a bias on wikipedia against British unionism (which there certainly is by the way!). Am i allowed to form a wikiproject which encourages its members to recruit members from the unionist community to change the demographics of wikipedia and counter what we see as systemic bias? That would not be allowed, i do not see how this is really any different in an attempt to counter what you guys see as bias. Recruit editors who can assist in areas that are under represented on the English wikipedia, that makes perfect sense and is something i agree with, but why the attempt to actively recruit certain communities (minority groups) to change the demographics of wikipedia? BritishWatcher (talk) 18:58, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

There is always systemic bias in any system, no matter what you do. As this project's main page clearly states, the goal is to alleviate or compensate for the dearth of coverage that is the result of our (current) systemic bias. One way to do this is by changing the system of Wikipedia, however slightly, by recruiting new editors who have an interest in areas we don't cover well. There is no attempt to sway consensus in arguments or to back particular viewpoints. The difference between that and what you're proposing regarding British unionism is that you'd be recruiting people specifically to support a particular point of view and change consensus.--Cúchullain ^t/c 19:19, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

There is the Wikipedia:WikiProject Unionism in Ireland, which although currently rather inactive has, in the past, worked to improve articles relating to Irish and Ulster Unionism. It, quite correctly, sought to encourage people with expertise and knowledge in the area to contribute to such articles, regardless of their community background or political beliefs. Unsurprisingly, many of the people with such interests are from the unionist community; others are not. Regardless, the focus is on contributing material which is well-sourced and unbiased. As Cuchullain says, this is the key difference - were the project to have encouraged political unionists to contribute to promote their point of view, that would have been unacceptable. Warofdreams talk 10:29, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Both of the above things are different to what the present wording states, which is still actively encouraging people to recruit members to wikipedia based on their ethnicity in an attempt to change the demographics of wikipedia and there for alter the balance, clearly introducing a new bias. BritishWatcher (talk) 23:11, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

Yes, you've asserted that repeatedly, and no one has been swayed. Well past time to move on.--Cúchullain ^t/c 23:15, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

It is a shame that such a task is allowed to remain. BritishWatcher (talk) 23:33, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

Several editors have tried to explain to you that you're interpreting it wrong, you just refuse to accept it. Let it go.--Cúchullain ^t/c 12:16, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

"Conspiracy Theory"

I had originally posted this on the "conspiracy theory" talk page, but decided to post it here as well to see if anyone with this project had been addressing this issue.

Is is possible to have a globally neutral definition of the term "conspiracy theory" in its pejorative sense?

If the US government, or one of its allies, alleges machinations by a foreign government, this isn't usually labeled "conspiracy theory" by the Western media. For example, if Obama alleges that Iran is covertly working to make nuclear weapons, or Uribe alleges that Venezuela is conspiring with Colombian rebels, the Western media won't label this as "conspiracy theory." But if the government of a country like Venezuela or Iran alleges covert machinations within the US government, or the government of one of its allies, this will often be labeled as "conspiracy theory" by the Western press.

So I would like to know how Wikipedia, in its effort to have a more inclusive global worldview ( WP:WORLDVIEW ) plans to handle this issue in articles which deal with "conspiracy theories." Vetube (talk) 13:26, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

Do you have specific examples? In my experience Western media don't typically refer to allegations of this kind as a "conspiracy theory". They may say that they are unfounded (or, more commonly, simply not give them any credence whatsoever). And at any rate, it is not Wikipedia's prerogative to change the definitions of articles, we go by usage in the reliable sources.--Cúchullain ^t/c 14:22, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

Libertarianism

Hello, we've got some folks arguing for a "English-speaking countries only" view on this article. Is there anybody from this project who could assist educating these editors about our intent to cover topics from a global perspective? Yworo (talk) 17:25, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

I'd be happy to try, but I'm not sure that's what's going on there. Are you referring to this: Talk:Libertarianism#Remove redundant WP:Undue WP:Synth in "Overview" section? If so, I might be reading that argument wrong, but just from a quick glance it looks like someone merely want to devote a paragraph to the views of the US Libertarian party, due to it being the largest party calling itself such. I don't see any effort to remove coverage of non English-speaking countries there; am I missing it? --GRuban (talk) 21:41, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

Oh, sorry. Try here. Yworo (talk) 22:12, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

Ah, yes, I looked in the wrong place. That's just wrong. Weighed in. Looks like the proposal will be shot down in flames. --GRuban (talk) 22:28, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

The crazy thing is, it's been rejected repeatedly, yet a small set of editors won't accept that and keeps bringing the same topic up in different ways. It's getting tedious. Yworo (talk) 23:45, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

List of Philippine restaurant chains

There is currently a dispute at List of Philippine restaurant chains. Could editors take a look and give an opinion on the talk page? Thanks. Lambanog (talk) 04:50, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Bias towards humans in biology - request for template

Hi, I've noticed that many biology articles are currently written from a strongly human POV when they should be about the topic in general. Examples I've come across and can remember are bone marrow, sperm and penis; but there are many more. Could someone make a template similar to {{globalise}} that could be added to such articles to encourage people to add more about other animals rather than just ourselves? Not sure on the name - maybe {{animalise}} or {{dehumanise}}. Smartse (talk) 22:01, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

lmao these awful human beings and their POVs! The animal world will be rioting i am sure. {{Dehumanise}} is certainly the title to go for if such a template is needed though. BritishWatcher (talk)

Not really a bias issue. I'm pretty sure all readers of all our articles for the foreseeable future will be humans. --GRuban (talk) 18:57, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

No, really?! Perhaps I didn't expain it well enough - my point is that an article about bone marrow (or whatever) should be about bone marrow in general, not just about human bone marrow. Some articles are written correctly in this respect - we have skin about skin in general and human skin about human skin. This seems exactly the same to me as the problem with an article that only covers a subject from the viewpoint of one country. Can you elaborate on why this isn't a bias in our coverage of these topics? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Smartse (talk • contribs)

As I understand it, systemic bias is about people reading the encyclopedia and feeling that it is not really written for them but for the members of a group that they don't belong to. The problem you are describing is not systemic bias but simply the standard problem that many articles are written with a narrower focus than their titles suggest. There is probably a template for that in general, and a template for the specific problem in biology could perhaps make some sense. But in spite of some superficial similarities this is not related to problem of systemic bias as it is usually understood. Hans Adler 22:35, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

FWIW, Smartse, you're totally right, whether or not this project is the one to address it. — ¾-10 22:08, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

This fits pretty well with WP:Systemic Bias, and could use a template that looks just like . So template geeks, go to it. That said, I suspect that Wikipedia:WikiProject Biology could be a good place to set guidelines about just how much of the content should be human-specific. Also, I'd prefer not to set a standard where every common name requires human limitations. Hunger in Ireland should not have to indicate that it's hunger on the part of humans.--Carwil (talk) 23:19, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

I wasn't really sure where the best place to bring this up was, but as I saw the templates associated with this project it seemed like a reasonable place to start. Obviously whether such a template is appropriate to the article would be decided on a case by case basis. In some ways this is similat to this projects aim anyway, as I hope that a template may encourage new editors, who aren't doctors (they often seem to have written these articles) to join in and edit the articles. I hadn't noticed the template wikiproject before either, I'll see if someone there can help out. Smartse (talk) 00:24, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

Is this a parody? 100% of Wikipedia readers are human. A "bias" towards humans is entirely justified. --Trovatore (talk) 00:09, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

It's no parody, he just maybe didn't use the right word ("bias") to describe it. All he's saying is that the encyclopedia article on, say, lungs should logically be about lungs in general, across many different animals (including comparative anatomy, taxonomic logic, etc). Then there is a separate article for human lungs. It's not about "bias" in the sense of "social injustice", just in the sense of logical distortion. Another example would be having the article "star" being all about our sun specifically, or the article "planet" being all about Earth. It would be logically warped with reference to reality in general. The comment is not meant to be referring to any "unfairness to the other stars", it's just trying to view reality etically. — ¾-10 01:09, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Well, if that's what he means, I absolutely disagree with him. It is completely appropriate for lung to be first and foremost about human lungs. --Trovatore (talk) 08:36, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Why? I would expect an article about lungs to discuss all types of lungs. I remember this same topic was raised a few years ago; the discussion then concluded that, while this might be a valid thing to address, it lies outside the scope of this project. Warofdreams talk 19:44, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

Because this project is for humans, and humans are most interested in human lungs. I have now looked at the lung article, and I see that it does discuss all sorts of lungs, but puts more emphasis on mammalian lungs, and within that, human (at least in the illustrations).

I think that's an appropriate balance. Wikipedia absolutely should be anthropocentric. --Trovatore (talk) 19:50, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

— ¾-10 was using lung as a hypothetical example, my links at the top are examples of where a template such as this would be required. I'm not sure why you think "humans are most interested in human lungs" either, but that's not worth arguing over. Smartse (talk) 20:12, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments, I think it's clear that this is an issue, but this doesn't seem to be the place to get a template made to suggest changes, and I guess I see now that it isn't really an issue of systematic bias. Smartse (talk) 20:12, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

Had a look through the archives and found the old dicussion. Smartse (talk) 18:01, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

Fascinating how essentially the same discussion was had already by different people. Actually, on second thought, it's probably not fascinating (since it's predictable/inevitable), but it's still interesting, to me, at the moment, for some reason. — ¾-10 23:19, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

Dealing with POV extravaganza articles about religions, ethnicities, nationalities, groups

I've started a discussion on this topic here and thought that some members of this wikiproject might have thoughts on this issue. Thanks, CordeliaNaismith (talk) 21:44, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

Green Berets being redirected to American special forces

http://wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Berets_%28disambiguation%29?action=historysubmit&diff=394458781&oldid=394419016

I don't know where else is best to report this to so please pass it on, I found this via the WP:BIAS project link. I thought about the admin board but I am guessing that is for more serious stuff than just disputed articles? But yeah, I came back and this guy just keeps doing it like he expects to sneak it in then hope no one notices it's been changed... --12:12, 4 November 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.194.14.248 (talk)

The best place to bring this up is where it was brought up, and where 87.194.14.248 was directed earlier in one of the reversions' edit summary: Talk:Green Berets (disambiguation), rather than assuming bad faith and beginning a potential canvas campaign (at least, I don't see 87.194.14.248's corresponding alert to a U.S. group to Wikipedia talk:UK Wikipedians' notice board#Green Berets being redirected to American special forces, where I've posted a similar reply). Other stats:

"green berets" american OR "US Army" -british -french -austalian 157,000
"green berets" -american -"US Army" british -french -australian 43,000
"green berets" -american -"US Army" -british french -australian 28,000
"green berets" -american -"US Army" -british -french australian 11,100

--JHunterJ (talk) 13:11, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

I agree that the discussion should go in one place, so I'll continue the discussion at Talk:Green Berets (disambiguation), but would like to comment that making an argument while at the same time asking that discussion go elsewhere seems to send a mixed message. --GRuban (talk) 15:48, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Current move proposal where systemic bias is at issue

In discussion at Talk:Sephiroth (Final Fantasy)#Requested move, systemic bias is acknowledged by proponents and opponents of the move alike as highly relevant to the discussion. (Unfortunately, this is necessarily a partisan audience on the subject, but I'm not aware of any pro-systemic-bias community on Wikipedia to notify for balance.) —chaos5023 (talk) 20:14, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

It's recentism, but hardly systemic bias, IMO. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 23:09, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

I guess our understanding of systemic bias must be very different. I don't really know what to ask but, in what way is it not? —chaos5023 (talk) 15:49, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

Annual CSB Improvement Drive

Please see Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)#Annual_CSB_Improvement_Drive. Rd232 ^talk 11:43, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

Non-American nationality is mentioned, but American is not

An article about a non-American company, product or technology usually starts like this: "X is a Russian/Chinese/German/French company/product/technology..." Here, the nationality is almost always immediately mentioned. However, when the subject is American, it usually is not. Compare, for example Boeing 737 and Tupolev-204

The reason for this I believe is the following: for some reason, being American is regarded by Wikipedia editors as being "normal", and thus does not need to be mentioned, while being non-American is regarded as "exotic" or "special". I think this represents an obvious Anglophone bias (which, of course, is not at all rare in Wikipedia), which should be fixed. The English Wikipedia is global, and should have a global point-of-view, not an American or Anglophone one.

We should solve the problem by replacing the nationality with location or company link. Changing, for example, "Tupolev-204 is a Russian mid-range aircraft" to "Tupolev-204 is a mid-range aircraft designed by Tupolev." Here, the company link will give the reader info about where the plane's designer is located, in the same way as is done in Boeing 737. Offliner (talk) 14:10, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

In general it probably makes more sense to add info than take it away. The lead of Boeing 737 isn't very good; if it were less plane-spottery, it would certainly find space to mention that it's American-made. Rd232 ^talk 16:10, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

One slight wrinkle on the topic of nationalities of corporations is that they're pretty fuzzy today (as opposed to before the last 40 years). In some cases it almost doesn't make sense to inject the country that they started in, or are headquartered in. For example, Toyota (the brand and the family of corporations) is more or less as American as it is Japanese by some measures (although there's probably an entity with some name like "Toyota America Inc" that is legally distinct from the one with some name like "Toyota Japan Ltd"). Some "American" corporations are headquartered in other (tax haven) countries. Nationality is often merely a flag of convenience for large corporations today. That would be my biggest reason for leaning toward Offliner's version e.g. "Tupolev-204 is a mid-range aircraft designed by Tupolev." Then you don't need to dig into whether Brand X is historically from Country Y but today is HQ'd in Liechtenstein and subs out its mfg to suppliers around the globe who source 73% of the parts or materials from countries B, C, D, E, and F. However, in specific instances, Rd232's point would be well taken ("In general it probably makes more sense to add info than take it away"). I guess maybe it depends on the instance and to what degree the nationality is "real". — ¾-10 04:39, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

Systemic bias - majority world BLPs

Hi, I wonder if anyone from this project would be tempted to help out in the referencing of our backlog of unreferenced BLPs? We've got them conveniently broken down by Wikiproject at Wikipedia:WikiProject_Unreferenced_Biographies_of_Living_Persons/WikiProjects, and though Africa has been active recently there are over a hundred at Wikipedia:WikiProject Caribbean/Unreferenced BLPs and quite a few at Wikipedia:WikiProject Fiji/Unreferenced BLPs - in fact just about everywhere has some, and if they aren't easily sourced via google or if they don't seem worth saving to people who might just have a bias too the English speaking world then they are liable to go. So if anyone fancies referencing and thereby rescuing some notable people from a country in the third world, here is your opportunity:) Ϣere SpielChequers 23:36, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Ganges, British Empire, Famine in India

Just wanted to check here if the results related to the preceding discussions about renaming the Ganges article to Ganga constitute a bias. If so what can be done to rectify the problem?

I've come to a similar conclusion at the FAR/C at British Empire and the ongoing discussion there about the effects on the economy of the colonies of the Empire.

I've begun to form an opinion that discussions on the various talk pages of articles where the West meets the rest of the world may be futile since it may never be possible to achieve consensus. Any suggestions on how to solve this problem, if it is one at all? Zuggernaut (talk) 07:48, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

English Wikipedia acknowleges an Anglo-American bias. I suggest that consensus should be based not on number but on merit. That will make it unbiased. I have been involved in both the examples given above. Yogesh Khandke (talk) 09:05, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

I'm mostly uninvolved on this topic (intra-Commonwealth-of-Nations politics and nomenclature) except to say that "where the West meets the rest of the world" is increasingly going to be everywhere, whether anyone likes it or not, so every Wikipedia should continue gradually evolving toward an etic description of things that also succinctly tutors the readers in their own language about how their emic worldview fits into the larger etic reality. This is true not only for English-speakers but also for speakers of French, German, Hindi, Mandarin, Arabic, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, and any others. Nonetheless, the other side of this same coin is that it can't happen overnight, because if it did, most readers will simply interpret it as an attack on their culture by people with COIs (which is not an unreasonable interpretation, given the human nature that permeates all of our lives—we have to be wary of others' proposed changes). Thus it has to be gradual. So the principle (pointed out above) that the English-language Wikipedia acknowledges an Anglo-American bias will continue to be a necessary fact of life for years to come. However, I hope that 40 years from now, it will have been ameliorated from a raging eye infection that substantially obscures vision to a minor chronic inflammation that no longer impedes our ADLs very much. From here to there is a matter of patient incrementalism. (The two sides of that coin are [1] being patient and gradual but also [2] not merely abandoning the furthering of etic understanding.) — ¾-10 16:56, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

Are you saying that we do things the etic way for proper nouns/nomenclature as well? An example pointed out by Yogesh at Ganges, is that it is an exonym and thus inherently etic. Also the doing things by consensus means achieving consensus on anything that is etic is almost impossible when it comes to criticism, a perfect example is the British Empire. I had the same problem at Upanishads where criticism of the Upanishads wasn't allowed in the lead. Zuggernaut (talk) 17:51, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

You're completely and entirely correct, which is where the 40-year time horizon comes in on this particular .mpp file that we call "learnin' them humans some wisdom". Here's my contribution to a history of humans written a century from now: "What humans found out shortly after they invented Wikipedia is that it would take a generation or two, at least, to reduce the barriers between emic and etic views from mountains to mole hills, the latter being a state in which they comfortably remain to this day." In the short term, the criticism that you mentioned mostly carries the day. In the long term, ignorance is DOOMED—doomed, I tells ya—unless, of course, the human monkey mind blows up EVERYONE with NBCs before that gets a chance to happen (in which case the species is doomed), or blows up some sizable fraction of everyone with NBCs (in which case non-Mad-Max society is doomed). Interestingly, no matter which path is implemented, something is doomed. — ¾-10 02:09, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

I'll take the former doom but I would prefer that it happens sooner than later because it's a practical, real-time problem I face on a regular basis on Wikipedia. In addition to the articles mentioned above, I'm seeing it again at Famine in India and the Bengal famine of 1943. Any ideas on how we can fix this in present day? All of my edits are well sourced but when Britons see an Indian name as the source of the author, they call it POV. Even the Nobel prize winner Amartya Sen's works are implied to be POV or called OR or SYNTH and the edits undone despite the communities rejection of such allegations. For the rejection of the allegations, take a look at relevant noticeboard such as the NPOV/N. Currently I'm trying to include content based on sources similar to this New York Times source:

(Winston Churchill) ..."I hate Indians. They are a beastly people with a beastly religion.” This hatred killed. In 1943, to give just one example, a famine broke out in Bengal, caused, as the Nobel Prize-winning economist Amartya Sen has proven, by British mismanagement. To the horror of many of his colleagues, Churchill raged that it was their own fault for “breeding like rabbits” and refused to offer any aid for months while hundreds of thousands died.

Of course Britons resist such content and scramble for finding a policy to exclude it.Zuggernaut (talk) 04:29, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

The issue is balance Zuggeraut, you simply want to present sources from one perspective and/or include material which is peripheral to the article concerned. When you don't get your own way you make various specific or general accusations and go forum shopping. We have established on both of the articles you mention that British policies were at least in part responsible, and have included specific material related to Churchill. Your statement above that "When Britons see an Indian name as the source of the author, they call it POV" represents an appalling failure to follow WP:AGF and its a calumny that you should withdraw as there is no evidence to support it. Sen's authority is accepted, its your use of his work which creates the problem. If you really think that your statements are accurate then you should raise an RfC on the editors concerned, your own conduct would of course then come under consideration at the same time. If you are not prepared to do that then you should stop making false statements on various forums. --Snowded ^TALK 06:33, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

I disagree with your allegations of forum shopping and of making accusations. This thread has been open for a while and I will continue to update it as I encounter what I see as a pro-British bias on English Wikipedia. These updates have been made and will continue to be made simultaneously as I continue editing articles. The statement should have been "When Britons see an Indian name as the author of a reliable source, they call it POV". That is not a violation of AGF but it's an observation of multiple editors and it is based on evidence that spans several years. See the long history of the talk page of Famine in India. Here are only a few diffs only from one:

Also worth noting is the fact that this is not an observation made on Wikipedia alone. I have seen it brought on another WMF platforms with a specific reference to Famine in India. Zuggernaut (talk) 07:23, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

I think you links above illustrate the problem you are in part creating here. The first diff is a balanced set of comments by another editor. I might have some minor differences but overall I and most other editors would agree with him, British or not. You make very generic accusations against British editors, but in practice your only near legitimate complains are against one (your second, third & fourth diffs), British Watcher (Your British patriot) who has not edited the article for months. He calls your editing policy crap, not Sen's work and he is entitled to a view that Sen is biased. His comment also relates to your canvassing and POV edits on the British Empire along with your attempts to bring the Irish famine into play (something opposed by Irish editors at the time). So you are seriously mistaken and/or seriously misrepresenting his position above. I don't agree with him on Sen by the way, but I do agree that the way you select sources and present them is POV in nature; BW makes the very legitimate point that you are were devoting a whole paragraph to Sen's perspective without any balancing material. I have had many a run in with BW over the years in respect of his British nationalist views, but even I think you are being unfair to him. Your attack on James (the fifth diff) was not supported or sustained when you went to ANI and you made another nonsensical attack on this experience editor here. So when it comes down to it you have issues with two editors and you are using those to make generic and insulting statements about a whole class of editors based on their nationality. Ironic to say the least. You are forum shopping, this discussion is taking place in three places at the moment and in no case are you doing what you should, namely raise an RfC or ANI case so that the community as a whole can look at the issue. This is poor behaviour and indicates that you are probably aware that your allegations would not survive a proper review. Put up or shut up, either make a formal complaint with evidence or stop whinging in multiple places and get on with editing the articles in collaboration with other editors. You should apologise for the general attack on British editors above, its yet another AGF violation on your part. --Snowded ^TALK 07:48, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

I should have been clearer - by Britons, I obviously meant the handful of Britons I have come across while editing the articles mentioned here. I did not mean the whole class of British editors. The problem is that ones that "hang-out" at articles like British Empire (and follow me to Famine in India) are probably the nationalist type and possibly an exception amongst British editors. When you beat the balancing drum what you are asking is that we re-write and balance an unbalanced history. Take your balance arguments to British Empire and Winston Churchill and improve those articles to include Churchill's racist attitudes towards 330 million Indians. Zuggernaut (talk) 02:30, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

What on earth does Churchill's attitude to Indians have to do with the British Empire?!? Chipmunkdavis (talk) 02:42, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

Not sure I understand the question. Dude was prime minister of the UK. Are you pointing out the limits of the influence of his personal opinions on government policy? Fair enough, but I doubt that the latter was completely unaffected by the former. (BTW, I don't follow the articles discussed above, and I don't have any experience regarding these editors' edit histories; but I watch this page since my prefs currently automatically watch every page I've edited.) — ¾-10 02:55, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

Ah sorry, I suppose I should clarify. Yes, churchill was an important figure in British history, and presided over Britain and the Empire during WWII, before presiding over the Suez Crisis. Both important events in the British Empires history no doubt. However, the British Empire article can only be so big, and it's a question of WP:DUE. Churchill's attitude towards indians has little in my opinion, to do with the British Empire at all, and the little it has is definitely not anywhere close to being important enough for the article. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 03:13, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

Churchill had some pretty strong views about the Empire. According to author Madhushree Mukherjee (Churchill's Secret War: The British Empire and the Ravaging of India During World War II, 2010), he would rather destroy the Empire than let it go. Zuggernaut (talk) 03:19, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

Churchill had very strong views on the empire, and was an ardent supporter of it. In one of his WWII speeches he mentioned how Britain and the Empire would last a thousand years or something. However, that doesn't mean it should go on the British Empire article at all. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 03:24, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

I invite you to read my essays

which are germaine to this project: Tilt, how to get bias into a Wikipedia article; and The Politicization of Wikipedia.

Fascinating, with many insights. Maybe none of them are novel to the universe (there's nothing new under the sun), but certainly you bring them together in elucidating ways. I'm not surprised that articles around the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are the dirtiest examples (with the dirt flying from both sides of the spectrum, and the extremes seeking to dominate the middle, which is generally the same thing as the incomplete seeking to dominate the complete). In fact, chalk up clandestine attempts to pump stealth bias into Wikipedia as just another variant of modern information warfare / psychological warfare / cyberwarfare / asymmetric warfare / [ * warfare] (clearly, humans tend to get off on warfare). I found your comments on avoiding calling people "left-wing" or "right-wing" (or not avoiding it, or making a point of it) to be interesting, because I recently waded into the controversy on whether it makes sense to pigeon-hole Nazism as "right-wing". It's hard to effectively fight or prevent something if you misunderstand what it even truly is, and I think you can't truly understand Nazism without understanding its aspects that disliked laissez-faire capitalism—the disparagement of which is conventionally labeled leftist. Certainly one thing that resonates with me a lot is your point that "many issues are complicated and have many facets." And your point that bias-peddlers "[keep] this a secret" and "[always] treat issues as though there is only one thing involved, and everything else is irrelevant." Boy, you said it. The annoying thing about humans is how they blend the speciousness that results from mere mental incompetence (which [unintentionally] cannot see the connections between nodes of reality sufficiently clearly or completely) with the speciousness that results from malicious motivations or conflict of interest (which latches onto that same muddy vision just mentioned and [intentionally] smears it around to obscure the truth). And how often one individual human will swim fluidly through a pond full of both mixed together with complete miscibility. That part really bugs me. It always reminds me in a metaphorical way of how ethanol and methanol are distinct alcohols, but if you mix them together, they're so hard to re-differentiate that the mixture "cannot be made nonpoisonous", as the label warnings on industrial alcohols say. Human nature contains some great aspects and some shitty ones, but the mixture cannot be made nonpoisonous. And I feel that the answer to the question "is it complexity or conspiracy?" is that "it's a little of both, in ways that cannot be reliably or consistently differentiated." Oh well, after a long day of pondering such things, all you can do to relieve the stress (given that the treadmill is obviously going to keep running longer than your own lifespan, unless humans manage to bungle things enough to wipe themselves out entirely) is to take a break from it and go eat some pie. My wife baked a nice one today! — ¾-10 21:04, 29 December 2010 (UTC)