Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Countering systemic bias
For an archive of some of the discussion that led to this project, see Wikipedia:CROSSBOW. -- Jmabel 20:44, Oct 4, 2004 (UTC)
Image:Crossbow_diagram.png: I don't really care about the outdated name of this, but the image itself needs to be altered to remove the word "CROSSBOW" (in "Area targetted by CROSSBOW": should just be "Area targetted"). Can someone take this on? I'd really like to see this already dealt with before we publicly announce this as a WikiProject. -- Jmabel 23:21, Oct 4, 2004 (UTC)
- I hope this isn't a controversial idea, but can we just abandon the image -- I just don't like the whole idea of a "weapon" "targetting" certain deficient areas as a metaphor for improving Wikipedia. Thanks, BCorr|Брайен 00:15, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)
As far as I'm concerned, feel free to do whatever. The same Venn diagram minus the military metaphor would be fine by me, but so would all sorts of things. And if someone can identify some appropriate existing images to add, please go for it. -- Jmabel 00:50, Oct 5, 2004 (UTC)
New image:
"would normally be longer"
I've taken the liberty of deleting from the list of the concerns of this project the phrase "Subjects which would normally be longer in other encyclopaedias." It's awfully vague, and I don't think it's useful. I've added one remark, reminding people that there already is a Wikipedia:Requests for expansion. -- Jmabel 00:02, Oct 5, 2004 (UTC)
Comments eagerly solicited
I've done about what I can to set this up as a project. My inclination is to give about 48 hours for comments and revisions by the other people who have been actively involved in this, then announce it on the Village Pump, link it into the list of WikiProjects, maybe even add it to the template on maintenance tasks (what do people think of this last possibility)?
Anyway, I've put most of today into putting this together. It's time for someone else to weigh in. -- Jmabel 00:48, Oct 5, 2004 (UTC)
"Third World"
Can I just point out that the term "Third World" is very US/Euro-centric and is frowned upon by globalist organisations/academics. Alternatives include "The South", "Majority World" and "Developing World"; can we agree on standard alternative to use, please? -- Graham ☺ | Talk 00:51, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)
- Fine by me. -- Jmabel 05:58, Oct 5, 2004 (UTC)
When is a to-do article done enough?
Thrilled to see this as an official project. Kudos to the organizers!!
I'm working, bit by bit, to improve Smith College. It is by no means done, but I'm pleased to report it is no longer a stub with an unannotated list of alumnae. :) What I'm wondering is, how will we decide when it's good enough to come off of our to-do list here? And how should I indicate that when/if we do?
I will probably dig into Spelman College next if nobody beats me to it. —Bsktcase 02:32, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)
- I think we need some way to monitor what we are doing, e.g. stub to article, stub created, featured article status. :ChrisG 04:11, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)
- I'm hoping the comments area next to each article on the project page will help with this. We'll probably want to "rotate" what gets put on the shorter to-do list. If someone wants to suggest some "canonical" statuses for the comments section (as I did for Wikipedia:translation) that would be great. -- Jmabel 05:55, Oct 5, 2004 (UTC)
Structures
What about creating a template like the COTW template, but that specifically tags an article as being under active development by this wikiproject? -- Solitude 07:06, Oct 5, 2004 (UTC)
- I think that is a great idea as it also would serve to bring contributors to the project. In fact something similiar got created in response to this this village pump discussion. Currently Template:Importantstub is up for deletion. So I think we ought to save it from deletion and amend so it refers to this wikiproject. Its not quite what you are talking about, but perhaps we need a stub template and work in progress template :ChrisG 07:28, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Location of the to-do list
I feel it is important the todo list is the first thing someone sees when browsing the project page; so that potential contributors are can see at one glance that it is an active project and well worth involving themselves with. Usability research on the internet shows very clearly that most people do not scroll down a page, unless their first view of a page grabs their attention. I think the to-do list should be treated as an advertisment as well as active tool. The current location of the to-do list (below the table of contents) means it is out of sight and so out of mind. ChrisG 07:08, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)
- I suggest placing the to-do list ala the regional noticeboards, with the to-do list at the top of the main page (i.e. Wikipedia:Australian wikipedians' notice board, with all the discussions going under that. Ambi 08:51, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)
- I'd agree. In fact, I think a lot of the project pages could be based on the regional noticeboards. For instance, each project could have a COTW subpage. Filiocht 09:00, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Current direction of page
I had to return to comment about the astonishing direction the page in taking. The page as it stands is completely contrary to what I envisaged when I started the project. It has been watered down to the point of irrelevance. The idea was to concentrate on subjects which fall OUTSIDE the systemic bias zone. The current page seems mainly about filling some missing pieces INSIDE the zone. The bias noted was primarily towards American, European and Developed Countries. Look at the list of names on the page and you find 95% of them are from these countries! It's a joke. The page should be renamed 'Encouraging Systemic Bias'. Completely contrary to the original idea.
It's as if a botanist, instead of searching far and wide for new plants, has just taken a few steps to the other side of his garden - and then congratulated himself for his adventurousness. Writing about US, Euro and Developed countries and people adds to the bias.
Wikipedia founder Jimbo Wales has said he plans to create a printed version of the Wikipedia to distribute for free in the Developing World. What will people in these countries think when there's more articles on Middle Earth than their own countries? And what will they say if we claim to have tried to address this problem by writing about.... Joan Jett..?
The Guinea-Bissau Civil War doesn't even have it's own article, and has only two or three sentences in the whole of Wikipedia. PJ Harvey has a reasonably large article - and yet we are asked by this page to concentrate on PJ Harvey - it's insane! (and I say that as someone who went to Harveys early gigs)
The idea for the page at the moment seems to be that topics are be chosen on individual basis. Logic dictates that more popular topics will be chosen. Instead of a popularity contest, there needs to be a systematic mechanism for choosing subjects. I have outlined such a mechanism below. A popularity contest just chooses popular subjects - and if you're writing 'against' systemic bias, then who cares about those subjects. --Xed 12:38, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)
- Xed: I was willing to stay out of the way of what you envisioned if you were willing to follow it through. I still am. I'm not willing to engage repeatedly in debate with someone who wants to sit on the sidelines and tell other people that they are not doing the right work. I literally know nothing about the Guinea-Bissau Civil War. I can't suggest topics I don't know about. I will, of course, add this to the list of suggested articles — it's obviously appropriate — but why didn't you do this yourself?
- At the time I made up a to-do list, there were exactly two Africa-related topics that anyone had actually suggested in the course of this discussion. The article we singled out for collaboration (Congo Civil War) is one that you and I presumably both agree is a priority. The other was Tuareg), which I also put on the to-do list. If you want to suggest ten, twenty, thirty worthwhile Africa-related topics, great, and I am sure they will get rather high priority. If you want to sit on the sidelines and criticize others for not knowing the terrain well enough to suggest such topics, then you are nothing but a useless scold. And if you want to assert that topics related to women and African-Americans are, in general, adequately covered in Wikipedia, most of my likely responses would violate the code about ad hominem remarks, so I will restrain myself.
- Again, if you want to actively contribute in areas related to the developing world, great! If you want to suggest topics in that realm fine. If you want to sit on the sidelines and heckle... once again, I'll restrain myself, but read between the lines. -- Jmabel 23:57, Oct 5, 2004 (UTC)
Suggested direction
This is a rough idea of how I see the project working. Ethan Zuckerman (weblog) has supplied us with a list of companies that he has calculated receive least attention, using his Global Attention Profile resource:
- Benin
- Burkina Faso
- Burundi
- Cameroon
- Central African Republic
- Chad
- Comoros
- Congo Dem. Rep.
- Congo Rep.
- Cote d'Ivoire
- Ethiopia
- Gambia
- Georgia
- Guinea
- Guinea Bissau
- Kyrgyzstan
- Madagascar
- Malawi
- Mali
- Mozambique
- Myanmar
- Niger
- Papua New Guinea
- Suriname
- Tajikistan
- Tanzania
- Togo
- Turkmenistan
- Western Sahara
I suggest the systemic bias section should be a small box be made up of 6 columns, with 5 items in each column. This would be a box on the 'Community portal page'. (A link would go to main page, which would also have this box, as well as more detailed information)
Three of the columns should have as the first item one of the countries above. The remaining items in these columns should relate to this country, with items 2 and 3 being the History and Politics of that country. The next column would have the name of a popular language (other than english) used by Wikipedia (German, Spanish, Japanese etc), and below it 4 subjects which have more detailed entries in that language than in English. The next colum female oriented. The sixth column would be.... I don't know.
So it would look roughly like (design is evolving):
| File:Mini systemic orange.gif Countries | File:Mini systemic purple.gifLanguage-German | File:Mini systemic lime.gif-oriented | Other | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Benin | Burkina Faso | Burundi | ? | ? | ? |
| Politics | Politics | Politics | ? | ? | ? |
| History | History | History | ? | ? | ? |
| Mathieu Kérékou | Music | Esther Kamatari | ? | ? | ? |
| Dahomey | Mossi | Kirundi | ? | ? | ? |
The countries would rotate every week, so that the next group of countries would be Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad. As would the 4th column language. The main page would have more in-depth details, including a list of the above countries, main languages of wikipedia etc--Xed 12:38, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)
- I think this is an excellent setup. How about putting this in some sort of table, so it can be put up the top of the page? Ambi 12:47, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)
- While I think Xed's emphasis on the poorest and least represented countries is a valid part of the systemic bias within Wikipedia, it is just one aspect, there are other aspects of systemic bias which are equally important. As I see it this project is a broad church of people interested enough in the problem of systemic bias to do something about it. To my mind Xed's suggestion would make a superb child wikiproject from this one; when we get enough critical mass that we can so to speak procreate; but for the moment lets spend so more time defining the problem space, before we jump to a definitive solution. I rather suspect what we focus on in three months time will be quite different to what we are focusing on now, as we begin to identify the major holes in Wikipedia. :ChrisG 14:24, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)
- I agree. If you look at the project page, it would appear that women's studies is at least as big an area as countries. Filiocht 14:45, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)
- From the list, all I conclude is that it is a lot easier to come up with Women and Ethnic Minority subjects that have been underdeveloped, than ones from Africa and Asia. Personally, I am most keen to work on articles on major events in the African and Asian countries mentioned above. Its just I don't know many of them (I guess you'd call it my systematic bias!). Even to produce a list of major areas need knowledge ChrisF 23:25, 5 Oct 2004 (GMT)
- As far as I can see, Xed's table gives room for both women's and ethnic minority subjects, as well as pursuing the countries that need the most help. One thing which we may want to do here is dig through the histories of the respective national articles, and try and find some of the editors that specialise in that area. They may then be able to help us pinpoint articles that need targeting. I can certainly help with Central Asia in this respect, but we'll need people with the appropriate knowledge to point us in the right direction (like with the Guinea-Bissau civil war) on certain others. Ambi 00:15, 6 Oct 2004 (UTC)