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I have frequently encountered a related problem, which has several variations: often disambiguation would help; but is absent. Sometimes, it's there; but, not linked from the article. Sometimes, it's linked; but, w/ various "bugs".
Then, there are there are those that are inaccurate. There are those that are accurate in an extremely narrowly specific sense; though w/ typos, &/or incomplete.
Then, some may be accurate & complete, w/ very few typos, or even, no specific mistakes; but, so crowded & confusingly headed, that they are difficult to wade through.
Then, there are the disambig. pages where the above issues are corrected; but, the linked pages are deleted.
Then, something different than disambig. are the searches. There are searches that bring-up references for exactly the page that I'm looking for, where the excerpt is perfect, or nearly perfect; but, the actual page is deleted.
Conversely, there are pages that I know exist; but, do not arise in the search.
There are searches that have results based on incorrect excerpts, incorrect summaries; therefore correct quotes result in not getting that page.
There are, as well, redirects that lead to "page deleted".
Oy vey.
Hopiakuta 04:32, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
&, I do prefer Adam's option:
"...I think that we should make only one assumption - someone is coming to Wikipedia to find information on a topic they know little or nothing about, so why not give them all the options? That would be the best systemic bias. Adam 1212 04:16, 25 July 2006 (UTC)"
When there is any dispute, send everyone to disambiguation.
&, as well, encourage all users to submit
--spelling-variations-- , as well.
Thank You.
Hopiakuta 04:42, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
And by the way, could you consider writing a little more compactly, with fewer paragraph breaks? It makes your posts kind of hard to read. — Simetrical ( talk • contribs) 17:56, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
I don't think there should be any doubt about Philadelphia, Boston, or London; or Moscow (Russia, not Idaho), or Lima (Peru, not Ohio); I would say that Syracuse should be a disambig; Toledo probably should be Spain but I don't think it is so bad to have it be a disambig, since the Ohio city is not small; Parma probably Italy; Miami certainly Florida, not Ohio. Sorry, Ohio. Berlin certainly Germany, not Connecticut. Rome certainly Italy, not New York. - Jmabel | Talk 19:34, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
Mr Wales will be interviewing Asha Haji Elmi tomorrow. Part of the interview's goals is to produce source material which may be cited for expanding the Wikipedia article about Ms Elmi. We need help developing questions whose answers can be useful for the article. The questions are being developed at Wikinews as the interview will be published (and permanently archived) there. - Amgine 00:14, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
This is a form of systematic bias that is quite widespread in Wikipedia, as is to be expected. Many articles assume a human perspective without need or justification. For example, sleep and arthritis, rather than explaining what sleep and arthritis are in the most open terms, start from the human perspective and the articles limit themselves to human sleep and human arthritis. I would say this is the wrong way around (and I suggest Wikipedia:Summary style would agree here). The articles should describe what sleep and arthritis are, common to most animals, with major sections describing the differing characteristics of mammals, reptiles (including or excluding birds), etc. The mammal section could then have a subsection detailing the characteristics of human arthritis/sleep with a link to human sleep and human arthritis respectively. We don't assume to write the article galaxy completely about the Milky Way because the only people who will ever read Wikipedia will be in the Milky Way. We don't write the article planet entirely about Earth for the same reason. Would anyone be interested in working on a Wikipedia namespace page about this problem? If you oppose this position, could you tell me what's wrong with it? -- Oldak Quill 02:24, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
A lot of examples of comparative important uses the amount of deaths to say that it should receive more attention then a comparative article with a lot fewer deaths thats a lot longer...
I know this is not a politically correct thing to say, but while sentimentally it might be nice to think, the amount of death an event causes is not the main barometer for its importance. While undeniably as a death toll rises its importance also rises, its hardly been a reliable way to gauge how it affects the world. The September 11 attacks really only had a moderate amount of casualities, but ultimately has resulted in current Iraq war, (no I'm not saying that Iraq was involved in 9/11, rather that because of the events of 9/11 set forth a series of events that have resulted/majorly influenced the war in Iraq) Along with a myriad amount of other things. This is true for a lot of events that happen in the "Western World," and its important to seperate true systemic bias from trying deny the reality that certain events (and hence certain people, and yes certain countries) are more important in sense of an encyclopedia. In short Wikipedia should reflect the world as it is - not as we'd like to see it.
Thats not to say that there shouldn't be more information on signicant events for countries that do not receive much attention. ( Madrone 04:27, 2 August 2006 (UTC))
Systematic bias also results from people who are paid to edit wikipedia. Please see Wikipedia:Conflicts of interest created by User:Eloquence 10 August 2006 in this regard. WAS 4.250 21:30, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
I believe fans of Discworld cause systematic bias on Wikipedia. I have been reading Wikipedia for years, and have been continually annoyed to reach the bottom of an article and see "also, [so-and-so] is mentioned in Terry Pratchett's wondrous Discworld!" I am tired of seeing Discworld mentioned on every other disambiguation page. There is nothing that can possibly be so important about Discworld as to justify its mention on 1238 pages (according to search). I used to consider myself an inclusionist, but along the way, somewhere, something must have gone terribly wrong. I know you are all worried about things like the leaders of countries and widespread torture across Africa being less well-covered than television show contestants, but this epidemic must be stopped. — vivacissamamente 00:22, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
We are having an interesting discussion at Talk:Valencia (city)#Survey. Feel free to join in or we could start a parallel discussion here. I nominated the page move myself but realised that User:Bolivian Unicyclist has made an important point there. Nonetheless, this does not only refers to Valencia but there are many other cases too. Regards, E Asterion u talking to me? 07:23, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
References to people's weight are routinely removed from Wikipedia on the basis that they are unencylopaedic or irrelevant. Attempts to set up categories and list of obese people are denied. Meanwhile, there are categories and lists of short and tall men and women. Category:Human height exists yet Category:Human weight does not. Napoleon's height may be discussed but the obesity of a government official in charge of a country's obesity policy is taboo. I believe this is due to systemic bias of Wikipedia editors who have been brought up not to comment on people's weight. I'd imagine that many editors here have characteristsics that correlate with obesity (sedentary, American, etc). The level of detail in the articles about obscure fast food chains is indicative. Fatipedia. Curtains99 13:12, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
Interesting point. I think the Human height example does cut off any objection.-- BMF81 13:39, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
I would like to draw people's attention towards the discussion currently at Talk:Popsicle.
There is a form of systematic bias which I have not seen discussed here before: that of preference of choice towards the North American names for things, above other countries in the English-speaking world.
This is en.wikipedia.org. It is not usa.wikipedia.org. That means it's an international website, for the English-speaking world.
I'm not dwelling on minor points like spelling differences here. Okay, so colour/color is spelled differently across the Atlantic. Not a big deal.. and WP:MOS says that these spelling differences should be respected, and not be the cause for edit wars - a policy with which I wholeheartedly agree.
However, when it comes to some naming issues, there is a real problem. It does seem like the rest of the English-speaking world is being forced to bow down to the USA, just because there are more Americans with internet access than there are any other single nationality of native English speakers. In the above example, "Popsicle" is a brand name sold in North America. It is not sold in Europe (at least, I have never seen it here). Indeed, the word is not recognised outside North America, unless someone has happened to remember it from a film. But... lo and behold, the title of the article about iced lollipops remains "Popsicle"... simply because of the Americans who think that the number of Google hits gives them the right to steam-roller their own opinions over the rest of the English-speaking world.
This is systematic bias at its very worst, and is the kind of thing which - seriously - makes me want to quit Wikipedia, because I feel that it is so USA-centric, with little room for international compromise.
Opinions, anyone? EuroSong talk 19:26, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
I'd like to see some kind of policy or guideline that encourages all editors to seek out information on the topic at hand in order to, to the best extent possible, reflect some sort of world wide view, instead of their own view, so that attention is brought to this issue. Now, as you might guess since I'm not registered, I'm not a frequent editor, and thus, I don't know a lot about how all this stuff about policies works. Does anyone else think that some policy/guideline along this line would be a good thing, and would it be possible to implement (or does it contradict some other policy already in place)? 85.224.198.251 23:56, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
I would like to draw people's attention towards the article Candy.
There is a form of systematic bias which I have not seen discussed here before: that of preference of choice towards the UK names for things, above other countries in the English-speaking world.
This is en.wikipedia.org. It is not UK.wikipedia.org. That means it's an international website, for the English-speaking world.
I'm not dwelling on minor points like spelling differences here. Okay, so colour/color is spelled differently across the Atlantic. Not a big deal.. and WP:MOS says that these spelling differences should be respected, and not be the cause for edit wars - a policy with which I wholeheartedly agree.
However, when it comes to some naming issues, there is a real problem. It does seem like the rest of the English-speaking world is being forced to bow down to the UK, just because there are more people with UK heritage with internet access than there are any other single nationality of English speakers.
This is systematic bias at its very worst. WAS 4.250 04:30, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
Johnbod 18:56, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
Has anyone studied this phenomenon - people voting to keep unreferenced articles about non-notable people because they want to avoid being "biased" ? Tintin ( talk) 04:45, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
I would like to request help to the users at this project to resolve recent series of conflicts in the article Hideyoshi's invasions of Korea.
Originally called Seven Year War, the war was changed to Imjin War on the basis that Seven Year War was less common & that the title was confused with the French and Indian War.
As it turned out, one of the users had used sock puppets to promote Imjin War.
Following this, the JPOV editors pushed along the tide and flipped the table over, changing the article's name to the current one.
That is not only it. Please read the introduction.
"Hideyoshi's Invasions of Korea refers to the 1592–1598 Japanese-Korean war masterminded by Toyotomi Hideyoshi, which originally had the professed aim of conquering China."
I think this issue is relevant to the project because the JPOV editors claim that "Hideyoshi's invasions of Korea" is more prevalent (which was proven false under my Google searches) and that high school text books use such phrases.
But I think this is systemic bias because more Americans are likely to study Japanese history than Korean history, and, thus, share viewpoints with Japanese.
Thereby, even if I conceded that "Hideyoshi's invasions of Korea" was more common, we should still vote on Imjin War on basis of the sytemic bias of the American public.
Thanks. ( Wikimachine 22:39, 7 September 2006 (UTC))
P.S. I have suspicion that user:Komdori is a strawman for another user. ( Wikimachine 22:41, 7 September 2006 (UTC))
I just noticed that Wikiproject:Morocco and Wikiproject:Western Sahara have been placed under the category Wikiproject:Middle East, using the G8 expanded definition for Greater Middle East. I do not think this is appropriate at all. Your thoughts? -- E Asterion u talking to me? 10:06, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
I think it would be helpful to have a template for Anglocentrism. This would be useful in articles concerning the British Isles, or the UK, where there is a bias towards England. -- MacRusgail 11:02, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
Can someone please check this deletion nom and comment? - Ganeshk ( talk) 01:50, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
I would like to call your attention to WikiProject Historical information, which aims to better the quantity and quality of historical information in articles not about history. (E.g., to have "invention of the wheel" and "wheel through the centuries" sections in wheel.) Anyone who is interested is invited to join!— msh210℠ 16:44, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
http://www.iabolish.com/slavery_today/index.html
I know it's a partisan website, but then again, I can't imagine a pro-slavery website, and it does link to other sources.
It talks about slave raids in the Darfur conflict, which interests me because our article currently only talks about the killing.
— Armedblowfish ( talk| mail| contribs) 16:19, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
I don't know if this has been discussed extensivelly before, but I think one of the most pressing forms of bias is in the images in articles. Far too many articles are dominated by pictures of white folks, usually young and attractive; for example, fairly important articles like human leg, arm, vagina, pregnancy, human back, hand, face, and others. I think we should start trying to change this; perhaps we could get a list of affected articles going to get an idea of what needs improvement, and try to look through pictures we have available to get better representation among the pictures.-- Cúchullain t/ c 05:52, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
One that has always bothered me is Woman, where there has been an ongoing debate over which picture to use in the intro, a nude photograph of a European woman, or the line drawing from the Pioneer spacecraft, which was designed to be as ethnically indistinguishable as possible. Discussion on this particular topic usually devolves into a censorship debate; apparently some think the article "needs" a picture of a real naked woman more than it needs to be internationally relevant. (I don't mean for that to be as harsh as it sounds, but human starts with the Pioneer picture as well, and the images there are much better balanced.)-- Cúchullain t/ c 05:56, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
The DYK section featured on the main page is always looking for interesting new and recently expanded stubs from different parts of the world. Please make a suggestion.-- Peta 02:17, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
I get the impression there is a number of editors in wikipedia with a systemic aversion towards the use of diacritics in personal and geographical names, generally arguing that those characters are not part of the English alphabet. Has anyone else experienced and/or noticed this? Regards, -- Asterion talk 10:42, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
I encounterd a technical bias against diacritics. I added links back to project gutenberg for many authors. Authors whose article titles include diacritics were harder to link correctly, and were noticably disproportionately represented in the "missing links." I worked around it and got them all linked. The problem here is purely technical: when confronted with a huge list of improvements, it's easy to pick the low-hanging fruit and rationalize that other editors with more expertise can deal with the hard ones. In my case, I essentially never need diacritics in normal life, so I must re-learn how to type them when I need them. - Arch dude 21:27, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
Most of the articles on ' Christian metal' and its constituent bands are extremely biased in the following ways:
Any suggestions, feedback etc. would be helpful. The Crying Orc 15:19, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
Hello. The WikiProject Council has recently updated the Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory. This new directory includes a variety of categories and subcategories which will, with luck, potentially draw new members to the projects who are interested in those specific subjects. Please review the directory and make any changes to the entries for your project that you see fit. There is also a directory of portals, at User:B2T2/Portal, listing all the existing portals. Feel free to add any of them to the portals or comments section of your entries in the directory. The three columns regarding assessment, peer review, and collaboration are included in the directory for both the use of the projects themselves and for that of others. Having such departments will allow a project to more quickly and easily identify its most important articles and its articles in greatest need of improvement. If you have not already done so, please consider whether your project would benefit from having departments which deal in these matters. It is my hope that all the changes to the directory can be finished by the first of next month. Please feel free to make any changes you see fit to the entries for your project before then. If you should have any questions regarding this matter, please do not hesitate to contact me. Thank you. B2T2 13:34, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
This pending vote to move the article that discusses the practice of "passing" -- for white or for some other ethnicity to avoid race-based social or psychological consequences -- plans to re-locate that article to a less visible or downright obscure name. Moving Passing to Passing (sociology) is intended to make way for a DAM page that makes it easier to find the article on "overtaking" (i.e. "passing") other vehicles on the road, and other uses of the verb "pass". The concept of passing is being treated as obscure and outdated -- if not downright phoney (there are suggestions to delete it altogether). In fact, there is a huge debate going on now among people of color and within multiculturalism about racial classification, and whether people like Homer Plessy, W.E.B. Du Bois, Walter Francis White, Oona King, Michael Manley, and Barack Obama should be re-classified ethnically. This article provides crucial background on the stigma associated with some racial heritages, how it has been coped with, and how it is still being coped with by some individuals. Historically, talking about "passing" has been taboo, since it threatened to expose minority-group "passers" to hostile or disdainful treatment on the one hand, and it stigmatized individuals and families belonging to the dominant group on the other. Today, the concept and its history are part of a growing, painful but important debate about ethnic solidarity vs individual identity. Regardless of how you feel about that issue, passing is integral to that cultural discussion and needs to be highlighted, not hidden away. Please, go to the talk page and vote. And add to the article too, if you can. Lethiere 06:50, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
An interesting and now frequently repeated suggestion to move the article on Java in Indonesia with a population of 120 million, a history over 1500 years old (last 500 with European influences) an the most populas Island in the world as it isn't sufficiently notiable compared to the Java programing language that was originally developed between 1991 - 1995 as Oak and released under the name Java in 1995. The suggestion is that Java should be moved to Java (Island) not even identifing that its part of Indonesia. Then the page Java be redirected to the disambiguation page. The reasons being argued is notibility, that Americans associate Java with the programming language or the coffee (incidentally from Java) rather then the place. Gnangarra 07:26, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
From "The Origins of Bias":
This description is missing something very obvious. The average English-language Wikipedian also resides in the Northern Hemisphere. This is most obvious when reading various articles on military history, where such ambiguous phrases as "winter of 1944" appear fairly often as a way of expressing the time. Seasons are not a clear way of stating the time! It's not correct to state that just because a particular battle or war occured in the Northern Hemisphere, that it is okay to use Northern Hemisphere seasons in such cases. It simply does not work in a global context.
One example is this quotation from the Pacific War article: "By 1943 the Silent Service had learned how to use its 150 subs to maximum effect. The faulty torpedoes were fixed that fall." Considering the Pacific War included battles in the Southern Hemisphere (the Darwin bombing being one example), there is no sound reason why this can't be reworded to remove the seasonal reference. Is "fall" here intending to mean March, April, May, June, September, October, November, December, a less specific time in the second quarter of the year, a less specific time in the last quarter of the year or none of the above? This time reference is so confusing. -- B.d.mills 02:11, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
Since scientism, economism and militarism are well known sources of bias, these three definitions should be considered. Views of energy are particularly subject to all three, so a project just about that should be considered. If anything what's there isn't anthropocentric enough.
Many articles on scientific topics use language that suggests that the current scientific thinking is "true" or unchallengeable; Some even smack of scientism - claiming to find objective moral truth in empirical facts. In climate change and evolution and even particle physics there is some challenge to this, but in other subject areas bald statements that claim much more than scientific method would advise, continue to exist in otherwise good articles. This is probably because there are so many students who write for Wikipedia, and perhaps more young people, who forget (or never knew) that theories change. Realize that in 1904, before general relativity, it was believed that "F=MA" was simply "true" without any need to qualify this at all. This is bad science, and it's a bad Wikipedia article. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 142.177.97.236 ( talk • contribs) 6 November 2006.
Probably the worst example of overclaiming what the status quo of experts really says about things is in economics. Many articles use definitions straight from neoclassical economics with not enough challenge from other theories, though there has been work on this, it never seems to end. The article capitalism is not bad at balancing major theories and what they have to say but less-argued articles tend to be far less balanced and not give all major economic theories enough space. Where possible the claims of the economists who invent terms and metrics should be used, not the claims of those who promote them as silver bullets. Since every political party has its own theory of economics, and promotes its own policies as if they were such silver bullets, the dominant theories in rich countries have far too much space - see also Developed World bias above —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 142.177.97.236 ( talk • contribs) 6 November 2006.
Likewise, a lot of definitions straight from military texts are used too. Often for terms that are used mostly or only in the military like command and control warfare, but also often for terms that are much more general like just command and control. This bias may be due to the fact that many U.S. military documents are in the public domain and easily turned into long boring articles that don't challenge the view of the US military at all. Heavily scrutinized articles like collateral damage or terrorism tend to be all right, but some like weapons of mass destruction must be watched constantly to make sure they remain complete and contain all the various possible definitions used by various kinds of institutions, not just militaries and governments. A related issue is that wars might well be always documented from the point of view of the winners. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 142.177.97.236 ( talk • contribs) 6 November 2006.
I see that neither the main page nor this page addresses the pervasive liberal/leftist/socialist bias throughout wikipedia. Rather a large blindspot for people who claim they're trying to correct blindspots...
All of which simply goes to show that almost everyone thinks Wikipedia's political bias runs counter to their own, whatever it might be. That's probably because most people usually read primarily media that agrees with their own politics, so when they encounter something broader, they notice the points of disagreement more than those of agreement. - Jmabel | Talk 04:33, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
I tagged "The average Wikipedian..." passage with {{ Verify source}}. It is presented as fact, but may not be. I tend to agree with some of the points presented, and I cannot imagine many would disagree. But common knowledge is not fact. Verification is the threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia, not fact [or common knowledge]. Yes, I know that this is not the article namespace, and so it does not necessarily have to follow the Verification policies. Because it does, however, organize people to work direclty with the article namespace, and it presents this information as fact, I think that verification is necessary. Please consider this before deleting the tag. -- Iamunknown 00:54, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
Of course, actual verification of these statements would be welcome. The passage is basically a manifesto, not an attempt at encyclopedic neutrality; in this case, I think that is perfectly acceptable. - Jmabel | Talk 22:21, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
One source of our bias is motivational: that we bother to write mostly on subjects about which we're excited. So we tend to describe them enthusiastically, unless the subject is widely known (or we're extremist 'flamers'). I perceived that bias in reading about Paolo Soleri; the article was quite a glowing description of him, leaving possible criticisms unmentioned. Well, who takes the time to contribute here, about a more obscure subject, like Paolo Soleri? Probably mostly people who are enthusiastic about him.
I recently added the following to the description of the average Wikipedian: "is from the Northern Hemisphere". I would like to expand on this by providing a more detailed explanation, but I am reluctant to do this without prior discussion.
There can be no doubt that the bias exists. Many general Wikipedia articles are written by residents of the Northern Hemisphere for residents of the Northern Hemisphere, and in many cases this leads to wording that is confusing and potentially misleading to residents of the Southern Hemisphere. My user page has some examples of this bias, including a few from Wikipedia.
Here is a choice example from a Wikipedia article on Comet Hale-Bopp (which I have since corrected) that shows how misleading such a bias can be:
The above is misleading because it described the comet's visibility from the Southern Hemisphere using Northern Hemisphere seasons.
The bias occurs in other places as well. For example, articles on battles and other historical events are full of such wording. Not all such use is inappropriate, such as referring to a campaign as a "winter campaign" if that is the historically-correct name. However, such expressions as "the faulty torpedoes were fixed by autumn" is imprecise and misleading.
The usual manifestation of the bias is the user of northern hemisphere seasons as general time descriptors to indicate a period of time that is shorter than a year and longer than a month. In many such cases, more accurate descriptions can be substituted such as month names, ranges of months and so forth. The substitution of more precise dates from primary references also has the side benefit of improving the accuracy of Wikipedia as a whole.
Not all use of seasonal references is inappropriate. These are all OK because they cannot cause confusion:
These are not because they are ambiguous:
I hope I have made the difference fairly clear - the inappropriate examples are time references that can be made more precise by substituting nonseasonal time descriptors.
Northern Hemisphere bias also manifests itself as a selection effect on Northern Hemisphere topics, but these are not as common.
What we need is a more concise description of Northern Hemisphere bias so the Systemic Bias article can include it.
The archives have a previous discussion on this topic that I started previously. -- B.d.mills 01:45, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
Hi in Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Indian Standard Time, I've accidentally noted similarity in names of different users participating in the vote & so I guessed that they might be from the same nationality -India. And 6/7 at the time were Indians.
I think that this is an "internal" systemic bias, since Indian articles are written mostly and only by Indian users & they're mostly likely to be the only voters on featured article nominations on India-related articles & in result, making Indian articles attaining featured article status inevitable.
(I want to note that Indians are a special exception from other nationalities in Wikipedia because most of them can speak and write fluent English & thus can participate more in English Wikipedia while other foreigners can't & thus limit their participation in fields related to their nationality/culture & making participation of other third parties more likely.)
And I would like members of this project to come participate in the vote & read what I've written & what they've replied with & see the article & voice your opinions. Thanks a lot! ( Wikimachine 17:00, 23 November 2006 (UTC))
I think one way to fight systemic bias would be to have a policy on articles that look at regional developments ignoring other regions. It seems there are quite a few articles that are named XXX (say woodcut) but you open them and they say something like "This is the story of XXX as it is in YYY (say Europe). For the story of worldwide XXX see ..."
I recently initiated a round of discussion on this issue: Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Archive#Because it is in English, is Wikipedia supposed to be Euro-centric?. The focal article in that debate, History of Western Typography came around, but now I see it again in woodcut vs woodblock printing; the former article has recently been tagged saying it is only about Europe.
I would like to know if we can move a WP:policy that any article with a title XXX has to cover all relevant global knowledge on XXX. The policy might say:
The policy may also suggest that preferably such a page (XXX in YYY) should be done only after there already is an article on just XXX - but this of course can be just a suggestion.
I think this may apply to many articles we are tackling here.
I have no idea how to go for WP policies etc, but I thought discussing it here may help. It would surely be easier having such a policy rather than fighting each case with a precedent. mukerjee ( talk) 16:04, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
( Wikimachine 16:40, 26 November 2006 (UTC))
I see no difference between woodblock and woodcutting printings. The two articles should merge, and there is no reason why European woodblock printing should be prioritized over the other. ( Wikimachine 22:34, 26 November 2006 (UTC)) Comment: China invented the world's first wooden movable type printing and Korea invented the world's first metal movable type printing. ( Wikimachine 22:35, 26 November 2006 (UTC))
Woodcut is a relief printing technique in printmaking in which an image is carved into the surface of a block of wood, with the printing parts remaining ....."
Johnbod 04:02, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
Anybody interested in legal issues re LSD? The section on "Legal status" in that article is currently about 80% USA-centric. Thanks. -- 201.51.221.66 12:23, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
The concept of God is showing a bias. Perhaps the article on bias should not be biased. Yeah, I know - General meaning. Maybe it should change to more of a world and gender neutral view of things.
Hello,
Just thought I'd drop by and mention that a DPRK working group has been created as part of WikiProject Korea. Might be of interest to members of this project, since our DPRK coverage has long been very weak outside of a few high-profile controversies. Please feel free to drop by and kibitz, or even join. Cheers, -- Visviva 03:47, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
Not only the lead article, law, itself, but also many of the sub-pages in this category take on a specific UK/US bias. This is often to the extent that the articles will quote legal cases and precedents without bothering to indicate which country they took place in. Several legal experts need to put concerted effort into CSB on these pages. It may even require a seperate WikiProject. Andeggs 09:24, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
As many of you might know, there is a Project Directory which tries to list all the WikiProjects in some sort of organizational framework. I am the person who generally takes on the duties of adding the projects to the directory. I am having some difficulty trying to figure out exactly how and where to list this project. Right now, it is listed under Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory/Wikipedia, because its scope is such that it doesn't fit comfortably into any of the other sections. I am personally less than convinced that this listing does justice to the project. Unfortunately, I honestly can't think of where else to add it. If any of your members can, or if you are thinking about creating subprojects which could comfortably fit into some of the other sections of the directory, please let me know. Thank you. Badbilltucker 20:57, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
These two articles of quite recent creation Asian (people) was created in June 25 2006 and African people in December 6 2006 seem to be in themselves very US-centric. The very concept of an Asian people (excluding West Asia!) is totally anomalous, as Asia is really big and diverse and Chinese has so much to do with Indians as Congolese with Nez Perces. African people could maybe make a little more sense from the viewpoint of Black people, but there's already an article with that name and another one on Sub-Saharan Africa.
The first one only makes sense form the POV of the racialist categorization of US census and the second one... I really have no idea but it also seems US-centric (in an Afroamerican sense probably).
I'm pondering to list both for deletion but I'd like more opinions. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Sugaar ( talk • contribs) 21:06, 9 December 2006 (UTC).
(unindent) It is the goal of this project that entries such as Asian people or African people have a global veiwepoint. It makes no sense to create an article of "Asian people" according to a minority viewpoint of a small fraction of World's population who precisely lives outside of Asia. It's not just a mad nonsense, it's specially unencyclopedic. It's like writing an article on American people from a Spanish or Basque viewpoint, what obviously would consider the USA only marginally and could even focus in the returning emmigrants to Latin America called often "Americans".
It is the objetive of this project to make sure (as much as possible) that articles have a gloval point of view and not narrow regional/ethnic ones.
That's why I'm very disappointed when even inside this project some people seem to defend the opposite views to its stated objectives. -- Sugaar 10:31, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
There is a dispute concerning the title of the article on this Basque town. Please comment in Talk:Guernica (city)#RfC. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Sugaar ( talk • contribs) -- Sugaar 17:14, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
Can we not all agree that those with the most time to edit are unemployed? This skews the content of the encyclopedia towards the opinions of those that come from unemployed people. For instance, it might skew POV toward the favoring of a welfare state. Or, since there are probably a lot of retirees editing who are living off of social security, it would skew POV toward favoring social programs like social security. Or, there are people who live at home who are taken care of by parents, and husbands or wives. These people may have sense of entitlement to be taken care of by others, which skews the POV on Wikipedia. I would thinks that Wikipedia is actually dominated by the unemployed. They sit around all day editing and guarding material, etc. The POV is going to be skewed toward those that have the most time to edit is it not? Who has more time to edit than the unemployed? On Wikipedia, the unemployed rule. Improper Bostonian 19:41, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
flatly ignored.
I've been contracting and consulting the last six years. Unsurprisingly, I put more time into Wikipedia when I'm between projects. Do you think my opinions move to the right when I'm busy with paid projects and to the left when I'm not? How about college students (of whom we clearly have many among our contributors): do you think their politics are appreciably different when school is in session, or depenging on their courseload in a particular semester? And do you think that the chronically unemployed typically have access to computers for large amounts of time? Do you think this last is true even in less affluent countries? And do you think that no one at, say, Microsoft (to name a big company where quite a few of my friends work) no one ever works on Wikipedia while they are ostensibly at their jobs? In short: I simply think you are wrong. - Jmabel | Talk 02:41, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
If there is a template
"This article or section deals primarily with Muslim world and does not represent a worldwide view of the subject."
shouldn't there be one regarding an imbalance toward the Western world, uniting countries that maintain a monopoly over media which is distributed worldwide, and creating names such as "World music" when talking about music by non-western countries? Perhaps the Wikiproject page is showing some systematic bias. Sfacets 11:24, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
I think too that a particular template on "Western world bias" would be broadly useful. The "Western bias" is also a well know issue in academy, I've just added references of this for History [5] and Family [6]. Maybe a good solution would be to expand {{ globalize}} to include a comment field.-- BMF81 22:04, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
I have observed the following pattern over and over again, and I can site literally hundreds of Wiki articles that follow this pattern:
Easily. The use of cited criticisms is the primary mechanism that wiki editors use to slant an article and claim it as "NPOV". Here is the format that a biased Wiki editor uses to slant an article and mask it as NPOV
1. Cite the topic
2. Criticize the topic immediately in the first paragraph, citing someone who criticized it.
3. Include a "Criticisms" section armed to the teeth with cited criticisms. Make sure that the criticisms section is lengthy and outweighs other material. For example, if the article is on a political candidate that the wiki editor doesn't like, the criticism section will be vast. When a user reads about the candidate, criticisms abound. Of course, all criticisms are cited, and this is how an "intellecutal" wiki editor gets away with slanting an article. He defends the slant by saying "NPOV" because all criticisms are cited, but the truth is that the sheer volume of criticisms and the manner in which they are presented makes the article completely slanted.
I saw this formula repeated countless times before the US mid term election regarding political candidates. I would look at 2 political candidates running against each other on Wiki, for example the senator Allen / Webb race. Here is how the articles looked on Wiki the day before the election.
CANDIDATE ONE FORMULA: Introduce Candidate. Cite merits. Cite positive contributions. Cite accomplishments. Cite charities. Cite stances. Cite achievements. Cite awards. No criticism section.
CANDIDATE TWO FORMULA: INtroduce candidate. Cite criticism immediately in the introduction. Cite allegations. (I.e. racism, fraud). Cite critiques of business dealings. Cite critiques of stances. Cite record. Cite history. Cite more criticisms. (the criticism section was over 50% of the entire article)
Because all criticisms are cited, the biased intellectual wiki author can get away with defending the article as NPOV. But an agenda is obvious
Wiki is plagued...corrupted to the core, with this methodology. Criticize in the introduction, and include massive amounts of criticisms (all cited) in the article. This gives it an overall slant.
THE FLAW IN THIS METHOD of course is that for any topic, if one looks, there will always be someone out there with a degree who criticizes it. I can find an "expert" criticism of anything and anyone! BUt the biased wiki author has the claim that simply citing an "expert criticism" is justification enough to include it in an article, even if the article is overwhelmed with them, as long as the criticism is cited.
The "criticism" section and use of overloading an article with cited critiques is the technique that wiki editors use to get away with bias.
This entire site is overrun by unemployed and/or internet addicted intellectuals that police wiki under the mask of "NPOV" when they are perpetrating an agenda to slant the site. People like me just don't have time to engage in a war with these hawks. Wiki has thus, a severe credibility problem —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.19.159.95 ( talk) 17:57, 19 December 2006 (UTC).
Please, have a look and make a follow-up of the white people article.
You will find at least 3 types of systematic bias.
1. US bias at the definition of white.
2. Anglo-Saxon bias at the definition of white.
3. Extreme White Nationalist related views and bias at the definition of white.
Articles like this should be a priority to fight bias. They compromise Wiki standards and credibility. Veritas et Severitas 22:16, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
I had a quick look at the article & frankly could not see what you mean. Perhaps you could be more specific, especially on the last point you mention? Johnbod 02:57, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
Project members please see Wikipedia:Article Creation and Improvement Drive for comments on the Rwandan Genocide article which looks like it needs input and improvements. -- Zleitzen 00:50, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
Featured prominently in "The Bias" list, at number three, is:
“ | Articles such as uses of torture in recent times tend to dwell on the relatively few (but well documented) cases of abuse in Israel, the United Kingdom, United States, conducted during their foreign wars and incursions, and to a lesser extent those by other western democracies, while ignoring the widespread and systematic abuses which take place in countries where information about torture is not widely available to English-speaking Wikipedians. | ” |
However, there is an easy explanation: Wikipedia policies require this to be the case! Whatever relatively few cases of abuse have been subjects of media frenzy and whatnot, and therefore are easily sourced. How exactly are we supposed to describe the "widespread and systematic abuses" if there is nothing that can be considered a "reliable source" that describes said abuses? If there are no reliable sources, but the situation still clearly exists, then what? We can't ignore Wikipedia:No original research, it's one of the very basic principles.
I also smell a vague English-centricism at Wikipedia:Verifiability in the section regarding preference for English sources. Can someone try and tone it done a little bit? It could use some wording changes if we want Wikipedia to truly reflect a world-wide view.
I thought that creating self-contradicting legislation and/or rules was something best left for the governments. -- 24.150.63.168 23:51, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
I would disagree about the preference for English-language sources. Apart from the difficulty the policy mentions in other editors understanding them, or trusting home-made translations, it is harder to assess their quality. I'm sure there are cases where the best sources are not in English, but in my experience extensive reference to non-English sources, ignoring ones in English, is usually a sign of POV editing. The wording of the policy mentions "assuming equal quality" (I think that's the wording) & seems fine to me. Relaxing it would greatly increase POV editing in my view. Johnbod 00:51, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
Johnbod 09:56, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
Recentism is listed as a problem, but none of the suggestions on What To Do seem to address it.
A few things that help in my own experience:
Goldfritha 03:43, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
Hello, all. It was initially my hope to try to have this done as part of Esperanza's proposal for an appreciation week to end on Wikipedia Day, January 15. However, several people have once again proposed the entirety of Esperanza for deletion, so that might not work. It was the intention of the Appreciation Week proposal to set aside a given time when the various individuals who have made significant, valuable contributions to the encyclopedia would be recognized and honored. I believe that, with some effort, this could still be done. My proposal is to, with luck, try to organize the various WikiProjects and other entities of wikipedia to take part in a larger celebrartion of its contributors to take place in January, probably beginning January 15, 2007. I have created yet another new subpage for myself (a weakness of mine, I'm afraid) at User talk:Badbilltucker/Appreciation Week where I would greatly appreciate any indications from the members of this project as to whether and how they might be willing and/or able to assist in recognizing the contributions of our editors. Thank you for your attention. Badbilltucker 18:40, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
There is an ongoing vote to delete a series of templates designed to incorporate the entire 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia into Wikipedia. Please see TfD Catholic Expand. Thank you. -- Stbalbach 02:14, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
Members please vote for St. George's, Grenada at the wikipedia creation and improvement drive. This article of a capital city is a substub in a sorry state. Vote here to help improve that article-- Zleitzen 15:31, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
An editor has transformed Signing statement so it solely refers to the US practice, replacing the neutral description of 'statement made by the governmental executive power on signing into law a bill from the legislature' with 'written pronouncement issued by the President of the United States upon the signing of a bill into law' and even notes that foreign use of the practice is not significant. I've tried to use an example from history of an executive making a 'signing statement' on a legislature provided law, from Robespierre's deist proclamation, and a more recent example from last year of the signing statement by French president Jacques Chirac over the implementation of labour laws. He seems to believe that these are not 'notable' occurrences, and because no 'notable use' of signing statements has been 'proven', that the article should say it only really happens in the US. -- Barberio 13:09, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
Wikipedia, regarding Islam, generally uses sources produced by Orientalists and Western Academic scholars. Most of the Islam related articles are heavily based on these sources. However the Orientalism itself has been criticized. Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy writes:
Orientalism is the branch of scholarship that uses traditional Western methods as a means of understanding and gathering knowledge pertaining to the Orient. The term was also used by Edward Said (1978) to elucidate his own challenge to the validity of such methods.
On the one hand, Orientalism has given us much of what we know about the Oriental world at large. Late nineteenth-century authors are especially worthy of consideration for their contributions to an understanding of foreign cultures and peoples. On the other hand, however, several problems arise from the attitudes and methods used in traditional Orientalist discourse, which in turn has had an impact – often negative – upon Western consciousness. This influences and distorts the framework through which the West approaches the Orient in general and Islam in particular.
The Orient encompasses a far greater area than simply that of the Arabs and the Muslim community; exotic images from India, China, Japan and Korea are conjured up in the minds of Western people when they think of the Orient. However, Orientalism has had a particular impact on the study and understanding of Islamic philosophy. Many scholars’ understanding of Islamic philosophy is, ‘that Islamic civilization as we know it would simply not have existed without the Greek heritage’ (Rosenthal 1975: 14).
. . .
Orientalism is the concept that
there is something very special and different about the thought of those living in the East, which can be discovered through the methods of scholarship current in the West. It is a reflection of the relationship of imperial and intellectual domination of a West which feels it is superior to an 'inferior' East. This often results in an understanding of Islamic philosophy which sees the latter as essentially unoriginal, derivative and of only historical interest. While orientalists have produced interesting and important work, most fail to appreciate the independent status of the material which they
analyse.
This is a systematic bias. -- Aminz 09:48, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
Prof. Edward Said writes:
I have not been able to discover any period in European or American history since the Middle Ages in which Islam was generally discussed or thought about outside a framework created by passion, prejudice and political interests.
-- Aminz 09:54, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
I think the first suggestion would be avoiding sources which date back to late 19th and early 20th century on Islam. That doesn't completely solve the source problem but makes it better, since any judgment about Muhammad and Islam is bound to writer's culture and system of values.
In Medieval times, Islam was studied by Christians in West only in order to be refuted. Please have a look at [7]. In The 19th and early 20th century scholarship of Islam was done by Christian translators and commentators such as the Christian missionary William Muir.
The next bias problem is actually with Wikipedians. My experience is that some wikipedians apply a different standard when it comes to Muhamamd and Islam. One can see the double standard problem when for example a well-sourced positive statement about Islam or Muhammad is accepted with more hesitancy and skeptism than the similar statement about Christianity or Jesus. Even then, it is later more subject to consistent vandalism or POV pushing. Watt, a key historian of islam in West, describes the historical image of Muhammad in West as follows:
Of all the world's great men none has been so much maligned as Muhammad. We saw above how this has come about. For centuries Islam was the great enemy of Christendom, since Christendom was in direct contact with no other organized states comparable in power to the Muslims. The Byzantine empire, after losing some of its best provinces to the Arabs, was being attacked in Asia Minor, while Western Europe was threatened through Spain and Sicily. Even before the Crusades focused attention on the expulsion of the Saracens from the Holy Land, medieval Europe was building up a conception of ' the great enemy '. At one point Muhammad was transformed into Mahound, the prince of darkness. By the twelfth century the ideas about Islam and Muslims current in the crusading armies were such travesties that they had a bad effect on morale. Practical considerations thus combined with scholarly zeal to foster the study and dissemination of more accurate information abo Muhammad and his religion.
Since that time much has been achieved, especially durin the last two centuries, but many of the old prejudices linge on. Yet in the modern world, where contacts between Christians and Muslims are closer than ever before, it is urgent that both should strive to reach an objective view of Muhammad's character. The denigration of him by European writers has too often been followed by a romantic idealization of his figure by other Europeans and by Muslim. Neither denigration nor idealization is an adequate basis for the mutual relations of nearly half the human race.
I think this bias problem can be acknowledged but has no remedy. -- Aminz 21:37, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
I've removed the recent addition:
I think I know what the editor is trying to say - that often, where a topic has different primary meanings in various parts of the world, or different fields, we assume that the one most familiar to the majority of Wikipedians is sufficiently well-known as to not require disambiguation.
The first line needs to be rephrased; where there is a clear primary topic, it is desirable to default to subject matter more familiar to the average [reader] of Wikipedia. The Manhattan example is poorly chosen, as it is the primary topic pretty much anywhere (its homonyms are all obscure U.S. entities). A better example might be our article on Dia. Warofdreams talk 03:05, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
I am from Scotland so presumably fit into this category - "is from a predominantly Christian country".
The only problem with this is it's BS when you look at the figures. 90% of people in Scotland do not attend church. The figure's similar in most of Europe, and no doubt Australia, Canada etc.
Most so called "Christian countries" are in fact post-Christian, not Christian. Apart from the USA, the Western world has largely abandoned Christianity. -- MacRusgail 15:08, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
Category discussion of Asian American scientists, African American scientists, LGBT scientists ... see Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2007 February 1#Category:Fooian scientists. -- lquilter 00:23, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
As a long-time contributor (though not one who maintains much of any community presence), my sense is that Wikipedia really does have a systemic bias. It also seems to me that this would be a good article within which references should be cited. I've just marked a few examples of where references would be particularly useful.
It seems to me that Wikipedia has a high enough profile (made most widely evident by its increasing press coverage and references in certain kinds of pop culture), that it should be possible to find references that corroborate items mentioned in the article that are not self-evident. I realize that most of the articles in the Wikipedia "namespace" are simply the sense (or consensus) of the community, but it would be useful for that community to have a more objective assessment of its biases. Citing legitimate references in this article would contribute to a more objective community self-assessment.
66.167.253.201 22:25, 3 February 2007 (UTC).
As a young Singaporean, I fight systemic bias by contributing to articles on Singaporean topics.
During the year I have spent editing Wikipedia, I have noticed that some policies may inadvertently lead to systemic bias. Examples include:
I need to sleep now. I'll continue participating in this discussion tomorrow.
-- J.L.W.S. The Special One 15:12, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
at Meta: m:Proposals for closing projects/Closure of Venda Wikipedia -- Grace E. Dougle 15:11, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
Even though the average Wikipedian is educated, the use of words such as "is more likely to be employed in intellectual pursuits than in practical skills" makes this page less acessible to newbees. Can't the page be written in plain old English? [Edit - forgot username] Arodfan 22:55, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
The Wikipedia policy to ban open proxies means that one fifth of the world's population, or an Internet community larger than in the United States, is banned from Wikipedia. Due to government censorship, for most users in China the only way to read and edit Wikipedia articles is through an open proxy. By banning open proxies, Wikipedia colludes with the blocking effort of the Chinese government and exacerbates the systemic bias of Wikipedia. That policy should change and users from China should be helped to use and participate in this wonderful project. — Babelfisch 06:00, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
Many artilces contain the following formal flaw: Suppose an article is about a class of things (e.g. "Harp". Inside the article, one instance or subclass is taking all the attention (e.g. "European Concert Harp"), while others are either completely ommitted or put in a rest-group "Other Harps arround the world". The genaral pattern is: An article with topic "Class X", wich has subclasses or instances A, B, C ... contains only or mostly Material on one instance (e.g. A) and ommits others or puts them on a lower level. So the structure might be like this:
or
To fix such an article, the elements in the others-section should be lifted one level. If the amount of material about A is very large, it shoulc be moved into another article (in the aforementioned example, an article about the European concert harp should be created and referenced from the main article. Is there an accepted name for this type of flaw in the Wikipedia community (something like "Category:Unbalanced Article"). Is there a category to mark such articles? Is there a policy about this already. I would like to create a Category to mark such articles (maybe with a template) if it does not exist already. In many instances, this problem occurs with eurocentric articles, but it is a formal mistake in the structure of the articles and might also occur in other areas. Traditional Encyclopedias all contain many instances of this flaw and Wikipedia could do much better here. Nannus 11:18, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
No, I agree this is within the scope of CSB, and the solution you suggest (lifting the others one level) is sensible. The biggest problem is probably enforcing this solution, and making other editors aware of this problem. You could establish a category for this, but note that this is bound to be ineffective unless you can find people who have a dedication to maintain it and to act upon the problem. — mark ✎ 11:36, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
In Pontic Greek Genocide the title is disputed because this event is not called so in Turkey (Turkey is a problemtic country on such matters), but it is commemorated as a national holiday in Greece. Naturally, a Turkish minority and a Greek majority clash over the title (and forget to write a real article). The problem is rather that the English sources discuss whether or not it was an organized genozide and do not give a very clear support for anyone's claim. The other issue is WWII, as far as I could find out in all other language FA's France is listed among the important allies in the infobox(if a list of important allies is available), however in the English wiki this is disputed by a predominantly US-American community (assessing the actual contribution) leading to the proposal of constructions such as linking to a separate site with a list of all allies.
The problem is that the Greeks/Turks as well as the Americans want a common opinion in their native society to be presented in an encyclopedia. It wouldn't be much of an issue if the discussion was about the article itself. The problem is the significance placed on such details and that any attempts to solve in discussion result in a unstopable flow of black letters that in effect repeatedly contain the same information (+personal attacks, accusing of POV and grouping in one corner as pro or contra my community/tribe). How do I proceed? Suggestions? Wandalstouring 17:43, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
I'd like to see more attention paid to systematic bias within a country. With regard to my own country, I've had to edit articles that had California-centric bias in that they implicitly equated California with the entire United States or otherwise treated non-California viewpoints as inconsequential. I suspect that the same problem exists with regard to other countries. Doctor Whom 15:54, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
I added a paragraph to the project to deal with bias in "pseudo-religious" articles. This kind of covert, cunning, and ugly bias is common in articles that deal with loaded, politically incorrect or other unpopular topics where interested institutions censor free speech to indoctrinate the faithful and to silence those they see as heretics. In especially subtle and subversive forms of this kind of bias, totalistic terms such as "terrorism", "gender" or other absurdly-defined terms are imposed throughout the articles with no distinctions to rape the language for political purposes. In other cases opposing points of view from so-called "enemy", so-called "patriarchal" or so-called "problematic" people are blatantly censored where they contradict the "party line" of the interest groups who control the articles. What happened to Bill Maher's Politically Incorrect show on ABC (post 911) is what happens here on wikipedia too. However, we all loose when one group is able to censor divergent points of view as Operation Iraqi Freedom is proving. To me this kind of bias is much harder to detect and counter than the all-too-common religious biases are. I ask that other editors glance at Orwell's Animal Farm, Patia's Professing Feminism: Education and Indoctrination in Women's Studies, and Griffith's Wild: An Elemental Journey to better understand the subtle and subversive biases that I am concerned about here. For really rigorous editors, I suggest Legalizing Misandry or Spreading Misandry by Nathonson and Young because they have whole chapters that deconstruct what they call "fascist" ('gender'-as-female) feminist constructions that are so gynocentrically biased that one wonders if those PARTICULAR feminists care at all about balance much less about genuine scholarship. (tired of countering blatant biases) 128.111.95.245 02:36, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
(my italics) "Don't overlook the official news outlets of a country. Certainly they will be used for propaganda, but they may provide a different way of thinking about an article. It may also help you to understand why that particular country has its opinion on a subject, for example, how Mainland China thinks about Tibet or Taiwan may allow you to understand better why they act the way they do, and perhaps to better convince people as to why someone should or should not agree with their policies toward these countries, without necessarily being biased, but perhaps by pointing out errors in logic or thinking, by any particular side of the question, either pro or con."
Perhaps I am failing to see the meaning of the above paragraph, but I think the italicized part encourages original research and spreading one's POV through Wikipedia. It is not our business to convince anybody of the acceptability or unacceptability of anything, including a country's policy, either in the article text or on the talk pages. And it is certainly not our business to do it by means of pointing out what we perceive as errors of logic or thinking. If this is merely intended as a general advice for our activities in "real life" outside of Wikipedia, then that should be stated clearly (though I don't think such advices belong here in the first place). -- Anonymous44 15:31, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
Here's a topic for debate: is it biased or not that in articles of almost every world leader - regardless of nationality, sex, whether they're current or past - there's a lovely photo op with said world leader posing with Dubya? Tony Blair, Hu Jintao, Jacques Chirac, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva... I could go on. I don't understand why this has come about, and it really should be remedied in the name of impartiality. Plus, Dubya isn't going to be in power much longer :P suggest the creation of a guideline entitled Wikipedia:Politicians posing with George W. Bush? — Jack · talk · 07:44, Friday, 23 March 2007
Part of the reason we have so many photos of world leaders posing with Dubya is that the U.S. government releases its official images into the public domain, and many other countries' governments do not. Therefore, world leaders' visits to the White House are one of Wikipedia's best sources for high-quality public domain images of those leaders.
I'm not sure what other countries release official photos to the public domain. We have the standardized templates {{ PD-USGov}} and related templates (listed here). There don't seem to be templates for public domain images from any other countries: Australia has {{ PD-AustraliaGov}}, but that covers only images more than 50 years old. There are some other governmental PD tags, but they seem mainly to apply only to seals and symbols, not to photographs. Sweden has {{ PD-SwedGov-attribution}}, which I'd think was free enough but you'd have to ask the image use experts. (Some attribution-required licenses are problematic, I think.)
Anyway, if there are countries besides the US which release official photographs into the public domain, the fact should be publicized, so that editors know to check that country's photographic archives — so as to have an alternative of the obligatory pose with Dubya. — Josiah Rowe ( talk • contribs) 07:01, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
Can it be solved by cropping the picture? // Liftarn
Hello,im from Venezuela,and i think this is the best and most importnt wikiproyect i've seen,im very happy i found it.I wass thinking it would be good if there wass a userbox agaisnt etnocentrism(cause its more explicit than systemic bias,and i dont know how to create them),and if there is a contest or an award for the best worlwide wiew article? -- Andres rojas22 12:26, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
I've posted a view about impact on systemic bias at Wikipedia talk:Attribution/Community discussion. Other thoughts welcome! -- VSerrata 08:37, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
I have noticed, being a conservative, huge amounts of anti-conservative bias on Wikipedia. For example, the article on Paul Wolfowitz is a disgrace. There was a HUGE list of anti-Wolfowitz books in the further reading section, many uncited defamatory claims about him, and only criticism of him and no praise, for example, of his role of stopping corruption in developing countries in his role as head of the World Bank.
Now, I am not sure, since I am new to this wikiproject, what should I do? Nominate this article for a review, or should I start a Systemic Anti-conservative Bias Wikiproject? Your thoughts would be very helpful! :) Judgesurreal777 20:23, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
I have a serious concern: a recent article I consulted had a bright blue box "An editor has expressed a concern that the subject of the article doesn't satisfy the notability guidelines...".
OK, fine. Someone with the label "editor" thinks that this article "doesn't matter". He (or she) is entitled to his (or her) opinion. But why do I have any reason to think the "editor" has any interest in this area? If I didn't care about math or physics, maybe I'd mark the article on the Lorentz transformation as "doesnt satisfy MY notability guidelines".
Back to my point: the "editor" is entitled to his/her opinion, but I question two facets of Wikipedia:
Proposals:
Thanks for your consideration.... Harasty 13:21, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
If Wikipedia/Mediawiki introduces point system (plus points for postive and lasting edits and negative ponts for reverts) and then give editors having ponts above a threshold value some powers to mediate/vote etc this way very active users from not so well represented regions can have a say and can conter/balance bias to a certain degree. As number of users from non OECD countries increases the bias start getting addressed. May be such users can vote out biased admins as well. Vjdchauhan 21:02, 30 March 2007 (UTC).
May be to start removing bias, rename the titles of these pages. If some kings can be great then what about founders of religions, why their page titles doesn't reflect the same. Vjdchauhan 21:08, 30 March 2007 (UTC).
This is one bias which can prevent many Muslims from trusting Wikipedia on its NPOV policy and may even prevent several of them coming to Wikipedia at all (these images were not there around a year ago). May be in future we will have several parallel Wikipedias to counter this bias and which will definately be biased again but by new set of Wikipedians coming from non-OECD regions.
If Wikipedian's are so particlaur about what's wrong there-in then may be a separate page can be created having all the images and a section on the main page that can point to this new page. Vjdchauhan 21:16, 30 March 2007 (UTC).
The above debate about a Hong Kong pop singer was closed as "Delete" on the grounds that the article lacked English sources; most article content was supported by reference to major Chinese newspapers (e.g. Ming Pao, Sing Tao Daily, Sina.com), and the subject of the article also met WP:MUSIC criteria #1 (nationally charted hit). Granted, the article itself is fancruft, but I feel it sets a dangerous precedent that "pop culture articles lacking English sources will be deleted"; this will merely serve to introduce a bias towards American/British/Indian popstars and against those from the rest of the world. Comments appreciated on the deletion review at Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2007 April 3#Kelvin Kwan. Thanks, cab 03:51, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
Post on 4/19/2007 The following paragraph is included in the Wikipedia discussion on potential bias in articles:
"The origins of bias The average Wikipedian on English Wikipedia (1) is male, (2) is technically-inclined, (3) is formally educated, (4) speaks English to an extent, (5) is White, (6) is aged 15–49, (7) is from a predominantly Christian country, (8) is from an industrialized nation, (9) is from the Northern Hemisphere, and (10) is more likely to be employed in intellectual pursuits than in practical skills or physical labor."
My response is, "Well, who do you think runs the world? Of course a disproportionate number of entries will reflect the attitudes and "bias" of the demographic group you describe. Get over it." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 167.181.12.201 ( talk • contribs) 11:38, April 19, 2007
Per User:Francis Tyers, I am submitting the following for inclusion into the main project page as the last sentence to the intro paragraph of the "The bias" section:
I don't think this is a controversial addition given the goals of the project and what JLWS originally posted above on this talk page (and the more recent Kelvin Kwan AfD, for that matter). Francis took it out and said to take it to talk, I'm putting it back unless people object. Wl219 10:07, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
I find myself contributing to a peculiar bias in favor of articles about authors: If an Author's works are available on the web, then I'm more likely to add an article about the author. In the narrowest case, this because of Project Gutenberg. This in turn contributes to a more general bias toward the era from about 1900 to 1923. A large amount of material is available for that era because the copyrights have expired. This is a generalization of the "1911 Britannica" bias. I speculate that this era is better covered than 1923-1960. - Arch dude 17:24, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
There's currently a systemic bias at
WP:CfD. When categories are nominated for deletion, the category page is tagged. But no one puts categories on their watch pages, because the result is watching every page in that category, not just the category itself. Hardly anyone, I believe, puts categories on their watch pages as there is no reason to unless there was any reason to believe it might be sent over to CfD. When a category is nominated for deletion that have a main article, the main article talk page isn't even notified. So no one with any interest in the category under discussion is likely to be aware of it until and unless the bot is sent off to delete it five days later. So CfD discussions are the
blind leading the blind with the sole guiding voice being that of the nominator who is the only person who
WP:CARES.
Another problem is rationales that apply quite well to WP:AfD are being applied to WP:CfD in ways that don't make sense -- particularly WP:USEFUL isn't credited as a Keep reason since that's the main reason for any category -- categories are useful for browsing a group of related articles.
But the first issue at least is clearly systemic. Is this just a place to rant, or can anyone here do anything to fix this? -- Kendrick7 talk 21:47, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
Hi, forgive me if this is discussed somewhere in the archive or if an extant WikiProject covers my proposal, but: I'm wondering if a task force specifically concerned with making sure global perspectives are represented in key articles would be an efficient way to counter the systemic Western, 1st world bias this WikiProject lists among its concerns. As has often been noted, many articles have sections (e.g. "media response") that only describe U.S. events/reactions. I would be happy to spearhead an effort to make sure global perspectives are included where relevant. Any thoughts or advice regarding such a task force would be much appreciated. Keep up the great work! Benzocane 03:41, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
It would be a good idea to add examples in other languages to each general linguistics article, just ask the translators and foreign contributors
There's a currently a large scale campaign to remove or at least severely curtail spoiler warnings on Wikipedia. See Wikipedia talk:Spoiler warning and Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Policies/Wikipedia:Spoiler warning. I'm concerned that some of the examples given as 'obvious' (and therefore unworthy of a spoiler) display Wikipedia's inherent bias. For example, it is asserted that the ending of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is common knowledge, even though to the vast majority of the world's population, it is not.-- Nydas (Talk) 23:16, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
There is discussion as to whether Central Standard Time should be a dedicated redirect to the North American Central Time Zone although there are also Australian and European Central time zones. See Talk:Central Standard Time (disambiguation). Dl2000 23:54, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
First, my sincerest apologies. In my zeal to modify your site's 'task template' for inclusion at Wikipedia:WikiProject Central banking, I inadvertently altered it. Because I'd copied the template's 'html' and incorporated it on the Central banking site, I didn't realize I was reformatting the original table. Can anyone advise me how to undo the mess I've made? I'm so sorry. -- gospelnous 03:24, 10 June 2007 (UTC)
On 8 June 2007, Can't sleep, clown will eat me speedy deleted Xiaxue. Six days later, Vague Rant undeleted the article per my request on IRC. The article was subsequently nominated for deletion.
Xiaxue is clearly notable; she has won several prestigious blogging awards and is often mentioned in the Singaporean press. In the interests of countering systemic bias, please participate in the deletion discussion.
-- J.L.W.S. The Special One 07:40, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
I've been perceiving what I consider a bias in categories created or put up for deletion and entered in articles. The specific issues that caught my eye concerns the Israel-Palestine dispute, but I suspect that this is an example of something broader and other conflicts where the Anglophone West favours one side will be similarly treated. So, please consider my example and discussion below as an illustration and not a demand to take a side in the specific debate.
In this case various categories such as East Jerusalem have been deleted and some Palestinian related cases are up for deletion. Because of the sytemic bias within the English language wikipedia, there is a preponderance towards a pro-Israeli perspective. Presumably the Arabic wikipedia has the opposite problem (but I don't speak Arabic so can't know for certain). Similarly Jerusalem is categorised as a capital (despite the UN not recognising it as such and the vast majority of embassies to Israel being in Tel Aviv and none in Jerusalem itself) and as an Israeli city but not as a West Bank or a disputed one. WP:NPOV focuses more on how the text of an article is presented and not on the subtext of the category system, but do others agree that the countering of systemic bias should extend to the category system? -- Peter cohen 15:56, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
Folks may want to check out Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Margita Bangová and weigh in. Murderbike 21:01, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
I've started writing this article in my sandbox, and wanted to open up to advice from folks here. I'm not Yavapai, and was raised by US public education, but am trying to be aware of slips in terminology that can make an article bad. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Murderbike 21:15, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
It is a systemic part of life to have a point of view. Fortunately, that point of view is usually relevant to the needs of the viewer. If you succeed in eliminating the systemic viewpoint biases of Wikipedia (english language or otherwise) you will also succeed in eliminating most relevance. Please back off and delete this "over the top" project and let the NPOV people resume business as usual. Also, please remove the tag that someone has put on the aviation "brown-out" article. Bob 17:19, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
Please note edits at Women's Aid, displaying clearly chauvinist pov of equating feminism with extremism, etc.. -- Soman 16:00, 29 June 2007 (UTC)
This article is seeing some serious hijacking by someone with an incredible bias towards Custer's racist accounts of the battle. The article goes so far as to refer to indian actions as "depredations" and the gov't actions as "military campaigns". If folks could lend a hand to rein in the POV pushing, it would be great. Murderbike 18:12, 29 June 2007 (UTC)
Yesterday, I added a point to the origins of bias, about the policy against open proxies. Other people keep removing it without trying to discuss or reword it. Some admin blocked me for violating the "three-revert rule" and told me to discuss here.So, can you read the point I added? Can we discuss it here, and reword it? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.189.59.29 ( talk • contribs) 01:01, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
So nobody is interested in discussing tbis anymore?
May I humbly suggest that this very WikiProject page displays systemic bias? I quote:
"Read websites of newspapers in English, from other countries than your own when examining a topical or recent event or editing an existing article related to a particular subject. There are excellent newspapers in South Africa, China, Hong Kong and India, who run websites in English. The Washington Post, CNN, and The New York Times are not the only major English newspapers or media covering a story. The Toronto Globe and Mail, The Times, and the BBC World Service may provide new and different insights on a story that an American media outlet might not have. And they will cover stories American media will not cover because it's considered of low interest to Americans."
It's demeaning. Better would be to give a neutral list of news sources considered 'good' from the English-speaking world.
Njál 19:49, 6 July 2007 (UTC)
I am thinking about a new template, similar to {{ fact}}. It could be called {{ where}} and add something like this:
It would be useful in cases where there is a concrete statement that should be of limited scope, but article as a whole doesn't warrant one of globalize templates. What do you think? Nikola 00:38, 13 July 2007 (UTC)
FYI - The following lists & article have been nominated for AfD and the following categories nominated for discussion ....
LISTS:
List of Irish American writers (
deletion discussion)
List of Iranian women (
deletion discussion) The result was No consensus - Keep. Non admin closure. Jorvik 20:38, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
ARTICLES:
Quechua Wikipedia (
deletion discussion)The result was delete. Jaranda wat's sup 02:45, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
Battle of Abu Ghraib (
deletion discussion)
CATEGORIES:
Category:Irish-American singers (
upmerge discussion)The result of the debate was rename/merge as nominated --Kbdank71 17:29, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
Category:Jewish American singers (
upmerge discussion)
Category:Mexican American singers (
upmerge discussion)
Category:Italian-American journalists(
upmerge discussion)The result of the debate was upmerge as nominated --Kbdank71 18:25, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
Category:Irish-American journalists(
upmerge discussion)The result of the debate was upmerge as nominated --Kbdank71 18:25, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
Category:African-American journalists(
upmerge discussion)The result of the debate was upmerge as nominated --Kbdank71 18:25, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
Category:Asian American journalists(
upmerge discussion)The result of the debate was upmerge as nominated --Kbdank71 18:25, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
Category:Jewish American journalists(
upmerge discussion)The result of the debate was upmerge as nominated --Kbdank71 18:25, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
Category:Arab-American journalists (
upmerge discussion)The result of the debate was upmerge as nominated --Kbdank71 18:25, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
Category:African American radio-TV personalities(
upmerge discussion)The result of the debate was rename/merge as nominated --Kbdank71 20:41, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
Category:African-American television anchors(
upmerge discussion)The result of the debate was rename/merge as nominated --Kbdank71 20:41, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
Category:Ethnic Newspapers published in Canada(
merge discussion)The result of the debate was close per work done by Bearcat --Kbdank71 18:12, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
Category:Jewish American comedians (
deletion discussion)The result of the debate was merge. Yes, "Jewish comedians" is a meaningful intersection. However, sub-dividing that by nationality does not seem necessary. >Radiant< 10:46, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
Category:Roman Catholic composers (
deletion discussion)
.... in case anybody is interested. -- Chicaneo 19:09, 13 July 2007 (UTC)
If I may, I would like to respectfully request that this project - which I think is a very good idea - be a bit more conservative in the application of its templates. While it is fully understandable why it is a good idea to fight bias about American only viewpoints in worldwide issues, I have been noticing the {{globalize}} tag being added in places where it is not necessary. The only one I have changed, at this point, was Multiline Optical Character Reader. Considering that the tag was added almost a year ago and had no follow up, as well as the fact that this is just a description of a piece of machinery with a description of how it is used by the USPS, I did not think that the justification that there is a single line mentioning that it is used in Canada as well requires a complete overhaul to state how the machine may be used in every country around the world.
As a compromise, perhaps this tag could be used in the same way that the {{fact}} tag is suggested to be used: if a user adds it, that user should then take the responsibility to follow-up on it himself/herself after a reasonable amount of time.
This is just my opinion, and I always try to keep an open mind. Please feel free to contact me if there is a desire for further discussion. Thank you for the consideration. Maijstral 01:44, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
Shortly after I Not Stupid's GA nomination passed, Haemo (who helped me copy-edit the article) gave me an Original Barnstar, with the following comment: "There's no "countering systemic bias" barnstar, so this will have to do. Good work!"
His comment inspired me to suggest a "Countering Systemic Bias" barnstar, to be awarded to Wikipedians who go the extra mile to counter systemic bias, whether by writing a dozen GAs about typically under-represented topics, significantly changing the demographic of Wikipedia or repeatedly protesting against policies which discriminate against the Chinese.
I failed Art, so please don't ask me to design the barnstar. However, since I excel in Literature, I'd be happy to provide ideas for the design. Due to my interest in fighting systemic bias, I'm considering joining this WikiProject.
-- J.L.W.S. The Special One 13:10, 17 July 2007 (UTC)
This seems a worthy article, and it's worrying from a worldwide perspective that it's been nominated for deletion. On a broader note, perhaps there should be some fiction-specific examples on the project page? For example, Princess Mononoke has extensive information about the English translation, whilst Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope has nothing about translations into foreign languages.-- Nydas (Talk) 12:20, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
I have noticed examples of inconsistencies in how criticisms are handled in particular articles which could be an example of a systemic bias. For example, George W. Bush has an allegation from Michael Moore which is considered acceptable while in the George Soros article there is resistance about including an allegation from Bill O'Reilly which has led to a locked article and "strong consensus" is needed to include it. However, there is basically a stalemate in the debate. Both Moore and O'Reilly are controversial people so any input from them should carry equal weight. This appears as a double standard to me. Why include one example and refuse to include another example? I'm not here to say wikipedia is pro/anti liberal or conservative or any other political persuasion because that is not the issue I am trying to address. I believe that guidelines should be established on how to handle criticism that supplements core policies and provides a consistent way to handle criticisms and hopefully reduce edit warring to some degree. Does this sound like a good idea? MrMurph101 03:54, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
I discussed with other wikipedians on the Talk:Punctuation. I think that the article Punctuation violates the principle of worldwide prespective becuase while the article introduce puntuation in general but English puntuation is specially treated and separated from other languages. (I stated the reason at the talk page.) But other wikipedians replied me that "This is the English language edition of Wikipedia, which more or less justifies any bias toward that particular language." I don't think it is a justified reason to be bias towards one of the languages. I want to know whether this kind of bias is allowed officially? Any policy on wikipedia regarding this issue? Salt 17:49, 21 July 2007 (UTC)
Here's how your project influences some specific articles:
I'm a much better copyeditor than an author, but I have written a little in stock market articles because it's my job. I see complaints that the articles aren't international enough. But I haven't written about the Chinese stock market (for instance) for the same reasons I haven't written about kumquats: for one thing, it would often be wrong. Nobody is discouraging Chinese authors; in most articles there just aren't any. Complaining doesn't make writers suddenly know about distant lands; it makes them feel less like writing at all. Anyway, if someone wanted to read about the Chinese stock market he would be more likely to speak Chinese and use Chinese Wikipedia.
On the Main Page, complaints about US-centrism appear more often than science articles get complaints from creationists. As a result, the Main Page often says things like "the U.S. state of Kentucky" but never " Liberia, Africa". Art LaPella 04:27, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
An article would say "Liberia, Africa" because if English Wikipedia readers don't know where Kentucky is, they are unlikely to know where Liberia is, regardless of the bureaucratic distinction between a state and a country. Open proxies are a good point (although your link describes why they aren't allowed), except that I chose China only for definiteness - it could have been any country. I don't object to labeling U.S. stock market information as being U.S. - I think that's already been done. Will the tags attract foreign authors? Oh, maybe. Not yet. Art LaPella 15:06, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
If they do, I hope they start with the much more financially significant Japanese stock market, a major omission from Wikipedia, which I might trade someday if understanding its details were as simple as a trip to the library - before they attempt a more politically correct writeup of the smaller, unpredictable Chinese stock market. Art LaPella 21:26, 28 July 2007 (UTC)
Personally speaking, I know where Liberia is, but I'd struggle to locate Kentucky on a map. If we start tailoring our content for who we think readers of the English Wikipedia are, it will open the door for more bias. Would it just be African countries or would we have things like "Puerto Rico, North America" or "Estonia, Europe"?-- Nydas (Talk) 12:13, 31 July 2007 (UTC)
Kentucky gets more Google hits than Liberia, but not nearly as many more as I was expecting. The only door I wanted to open was basic honesty, and I think I've made my point. Art LaPella 21:02, 31 July 2007 (UTC)
I don't know if any of you saw the recent Washington Post article by Uzodinma Iweala Stop trying to 'Save' Africa, but in it, its asked, "Why do Angelina Jolie and Bono receive overwhelming attention for their work in Africa while Nwankwo Kanu or Dikembe Mutombo, Africans both, are hardly ever mentioned?" I thought this was a good question for WP:CSB. Mutombo's work is discussed a bit, but Kanu's not at all. Any soccer fans want to help out? Best, Smmurphy( Talk) 16:15, 28 July 2007 (UTC)
There is a big problem growing in the area of "logic" and "mathematical logic." The problem extends to perhaps many dozens of articles, and more every day. There is a group of people in the very organized WikiProject Mathematics who are of the strong opinion that "mathematical logic" is not "logic." This has lead to numerous territory issues in the creation of WikiProject Logic, which is intended as an interdisciplinary subject connected to philosophy, and perhaps linguistics, computer science, etc.
Well these guys don't have to share anything if they don't want to, and they don't want to. They have as many people babysitting the wikipedia as they need to A) keep anti-logicist propaganda in the articles, B) have split project areas for logic stubs/math-logic stubs C) remove all the mathematical logicians from the logicians category D) remove several categories out from under the logic category (including mathematical logic) E) disintegrate numerous articles into conceptx (logic), and conceptx (mathematics) which are the same concept. The issues go on and on. It is a serious issue to the intellectual integrity of the wikipedia. I am not sure that this discussion page is where to go, but perhaps someone can suggest a way to address this. I have started an account for myself on meta wikipedia, but it is not clear when to go in there either. Please advise. Gregbard 22:02, 1 August 2007 (UTC)
I added a (very necessary) blurb on left wing bias here at Wikipedia. -- Rotten 07:36, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
After a bitter dispute on Singapore Airlines, Russavia (who appears to have a vendetta against the Little Red Dot) nominated many articles about Singaporean hotels for deletion. I have previously mentioned here that when articles on non-American topics are nominated for deletion (or speedied) by editors unfamiliar with the topic, they are worsening Wikipedia's systemic bias. In the interests of fighting systemic bias, please comment at the deletion discussions. -- J.L.W.S. The Special One 14:36, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
The only "systemic bias" I see here is by those who've mistaken Wikipedia for a travel directory -- or did I miss the part where you demonstrated the huge imbalance of lists of hotels in other cities? -- Calton | Talk 14:45, 5 August 2007 (UTC)
Requests for Comments have been filed regarding two users who have been seriously disrupting the Battle of Washita River (now blocked from editting), and it's talk page. If folks could weigh in, that would be great. Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Custerwest, Wikipedia:Requests for comment/HanzoHattori. Murderbike 20:04, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
Hey, it's your own fault for discriminating non-English countries, it's always bla bla this is not relevant to the English speaking people and a million references of "oh this is popular in the U.S." and "this is popular in the UK" throughout the site, isn't Russia bigger than the US? What if I went into every one of these articles and added "this is popular in the U.S. and Portugal" (if true), yeah, probably get deleted because the American/Canadian public doesn't give anything what the Portuguese think. LOST and 24 DVDs are sold all over the world, of course LOST only mentions US and UK releases which is logical since English-speaking countries are expected to have the higher audience, just don't come complaining about "Worldwide View" in Women when you obviously could care less about cultural relativity. -- AnY FOUR! 03:45, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
I created 2 articles ( OAG (band) and Malaysia national field hockey team) where someone placed speedy deletion tags on it ({{ db-band}} and {{ db-bio}}). Both due to notability issues. The tags have since been removed as i have justified their existence in compliance with wiki guidelines. I find this quite annoying. Wouldnt you? I believe this is due to systemic bias. Is there a way to make the placing of deletion tags more difficult? Suggesting an article in AfD would not be so bad. Ppl should do a bit of research first (wiki guidelines + google, etc) before requesting speedy deletion. kawaputra hello! 14:27, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
Dealing with historical religous issues, we are faced with sources written by historians and by religous communities. I feel there is a bias against religous views/texts and in favor of what historians produce. But each has their own problems: In academic view, actions of people are aimed to be explained based on "economic" , "political-social" parameters and less on spritual grounds. But as a matter of fact, we really do a lot of things for spritual reasons. The religous sources on the other hand usually avoid textual criticisms and apply a supernatural model to their knowledge. Both have drawbacks, and both can useful depending on the questions reader has in his/her mind. But based on my experience, Wikipedia seems to have a bias towards the academic view. -- Aminz 21:49, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
Compare:
en:Kim Holland
nl:Kim Holland
Mel
sa
ran 16:25, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
Hi, We are discussing reworking some material over at Talk:Mother Teresa and have realised we don't know how she was/is viewed by the India press and people (or indeed the Third World press in general). Anyone here able to contribute from a position of knowledge? We know about her state funeral and government honours in India and have seen [8] but that is a hostile source and therefore might not properly reflect what Indian reportage on her is really like. (Posting this at both WP:Bias and WP:India-- Peter cohen 09:45, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
Hi I'm an spanish wikiuser and there is a lot of bias in some of your projects. For example, in the grat WikiprojecteMissing aeticles, section notable books. They only consider anglosaxon prizes appart from the Nobel prize. They dont consider as notable books awarded with prestigious French, German or Spanish prizes, as Goncourt, Cervantes or the National Critics. And i don't talk about other litteratures! You should talk with that wikiproejct and make them aware of the situation. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.175.86.207 ( talk) 18:45, August 28, 2007 (UTC)
Could someone have a glance at the discussion here? I'm running into arguments which smell of Anglocentric bias: that a translation of book titles should be viewed as suspect because most Wikipedians can't read Russian, and that a book series is not worth including because it's never likely to be translated into English. Gordonofcartoon 13:08, 8 September 2007 (UTC)
I wonder what you folks think of "As the number of reviews should be limited, and as languages other than English are not understood by a large number of readers, reviews in languages other than English should generally not be included unless the language is especially relevant to the album in question." which has recently been added to WP:ALBUM. It's at Wikipedia:WikiProject_Albums#Non-English atm. Kappa 12:01, 19 September 2007 (UTC)
Edits to the Jena 6 article made me wonder if there was some sort of wiki standard for defining people's races. Are white/black acceptable compared to caucasian/african american or whatever? Murderbike 03:33, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
An RfC has been posted at Talk:Legal status of Hawaii regarding WP:WEIGHT issues. If folks could take a look and throw in their two cents, it'd be great. Murderbike 05:22, 22 September 2007 (UTC)