Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Countering systemic bias/Archive 10

This is an archive of past discussions about Wikipedia:WikiProject Countering systemic bias. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Archive 5

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Archive 8

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Science and Philosophy articles

These articles mostly start with Ancient Greece, and end with modern Europe/America. I am aware that this systemic bias exists in the Western education system, which hasn't probably been updated (with respect to this bias) in a fundamental way for centuries, and this bias shows strongly in wikipedia articles. Also, since most Western editors have studied little about the scientific and philosophical achievements of other civilizations, they remain skceptical about any edits showing these additions. So, while no one bothers to ask about references on Greeks (in any case, the West dominated internet has no dearth of resources on accomplishments of Western civilization), for others, one must have an academic reference of high standard (i.e., authored by a Western academician). I don't know if anything at all can be done about this. deeptrivia (talk) 15:18, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Here's a possible suggestion: Start (in your userspace, probably) a list of online and offline reference sources for non-Western cannon science and phil topics. Once you have a good sized list, start pulling representaive quotes out of them, and listing them on the page; once you have a good body of quotes on a specific article topic, write up a section on the topic (citing the quotes you have) and add it to the article. Be ready to politely, kindly back it up if requested. Repeat. Feel free to ask for help here, or elsewhere. I know there's a lot of material on African and Islamic/Arabic contributions to science and phil; we just need to get them together and add them. JesseW, the juggling janitor 20:35, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

CSB in a nutshell.

If this was an Australian Wikipedia, or an American Wikipedia, it would be easier to focus on specific topics and assume that the reader has reasonable knowledge of Australia or the United States of America. However, this is an English Wikipedia, and the only point that is undisputable is the fact that everyone ~~here~~ reading an article understands English to some extent. Based on that, edit articles as if the reader understands English, but has lived in a box their whole life in the middle of the Pacific ocean. What does that mean ? (don't do that) In the Dale Earnhardt Jr. article, pretend that the reader has no idea where North Carolina is. However, the reader does know where the USA is. Add USA to where he's from. Furthermore, add "American" to professional race car driver. See where this is going? One of the things that I notice when reading an article is that people from Canada have to have Canada written in the (born...) section i.e. Kamloops, British Columbia just has to be Kamloops, British Columbia, Canada when writing about someone from Kamloops. Its a start! --Jay(Reply) 04:17, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

About the people from Canada comment, I agree, but understand that this comes from Canadians constantly reading over decades phrases like "Cochrane, Canada" (which one?) or even worse "the Canadian neighbourhood of Mount Royal" and becoming frustrated that non-Canadian writers and editors seem to ignore the existence of provinces (or even cities, with respect to neighbourhoods.) --Charlene 22:55, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

[...] the only point that is undisputable is the fact that everyone here understands English. I hate to be picky, but I'd dispute that. I would agree that we must assume that an article's reader either understands English or can find the interwiki link to a language he does understand (if there is one); but I don't think we should go out of our way to use complex language that would be confusing for a non-native speaker. Ruakh 04:33, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

When I say reader, I mean reader of the English Wikipedia articles. The articles are written in english, no? --Jay(Reply) 15:03, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I understood, and I stand by my response. Ruakh 15:15, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

The use of complex language was never mentioned. I was trying to establish that in order to counter systematic bias, articles should be edited from an neutral, global point of view, which essentially is no point of view at all. My mentioning of readers understanding English was simply a starting point that should be used when writing an article. --Jay(Reply) 20:13, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Central Asia

This region in general has very little to no information available on it, both on Wikipedia and in the world. I'm trying to get a WikiProject Central Asia off the ground in the next few days before I continue my summer travels, so if anyone at this project would be interested, leave a message in the appropriate place on my Talk page. Aelfthrytha 17:02, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

In case people didn't notice, it is now off the ground :) Wikipedia:WikiProject Central Asia. - FrancisTyers · 12:03, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Shiv Kumar Saroj

Could any Hindi Wikipedians check some sources and way in on this AFD? - Mgm|^(talk) 11:01, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

It is listed here now, so should get appropriate inputs -- Lost 11:13, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

The name of Georgia

Hey, there is a straw poll going down at Talk:Georgia (country) relating to the name of the article, I'd appreciate your input. - FrancisTyers · 21:58, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

"Major" religions

From the project page: "Accurately presenting the major world religions would mean including at the minimum Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Daoism, Shinto and Atheism". Down to Buddhism, I basically agree. "Daoism"?? For starters "Taoism" is a much more common spelling, but the term here is very vague. Are we talking about Chinese folk traditions, or philosophical Taoism, or what? In any case, I am not sure it really qualifies as a major world religion. Shinto, as far as I can tell, is now, for most of its practitioners, more a matter of ritual than belief. And atheism? Well, I myself am an atheist, but in no sense would I call it a major world religion. (And Judaism, which is in my background, really isn't a major world religion either, but is usually worth covering because of how it influenced Christianity and Islam, or if the context includes the U.S or Israel today, or Europe prior to WWII.) I honestly think that an article that covered Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and perhaps Judaism would qualify as accurately presenting the major world religions. Would adding others be a plus? Sure. Would it mean that the article has a problem? I think not. - Jmabel | Talk 19:02, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Further, all of those religions are very splintered, with varying amounts of acrimony. Would the Christian viewpoint be the Catholic viewpoint, the Orthodox viewpoint, the Mormon viewpoint, or one of the Protestant viewpoints? Would the Jewish viewpoint be the viewpoint you'd expect from someone who took the Tanakh, Talmud, Zohar, and Midrashim literally, or it would be the viewpoint of actual Jews? (And in every case you'll have religious partisans who'll insist that the religion has only one viewpoint, even if some errants who claim to adhere to the religion have different viewpoints.) Really, I think the claim should be made weaker — something like "An article describing religious views on a topic should probably incorporate Christian, Muslim, Hindu, and Buddhist views at a minimum, though the exact choice religions will depend on the scope of the topic (for example, a Chinese topic might not require a discussion of Christian views, but might call for a discussion of Taoist views). Views of more prominent religions should be given more space, in accordance with the policy on NPOV." Ruakh 21:35, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Good points. I agree with Ruakh's suggested alternative. --Singkong2005 ^{(t - c - WPID)} 02:49, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Certainly better than the current text. - Jmabel | Talk 06:33, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the support; I've made the change. Ruakh 13:08, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Inappropriate Use of the Globalize Tags

Some of the uses of the various Globalize Tags I feel are misplaced, mostly I am talking about putting a Globalize tag on a topic that primarily about one country, for example legal rulings or requirements of a particular country (I approve this message), or on rules that are only in a particular country's version of a sport. In these cases I feel the tag is misplaced, and only hurts the message of it. PPGMD 00:13, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

If the template is clearly misplaced, and the person who added it made no attempt to start a discussion on the talk-page, then you should simply be bold and remove it. Ruakh 12:04, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

I personally think that the tag is a bit silly in most of the places that I have seen it. With an obscure topic, such as Reverse mortgage, it is not feasible to expect the average wikipedian to be able to globalize the content; such an edit requires extensive knowledge, and could only be completed by a native of a country that has not been properly represented. Besides, many complicated and obscure economical concepts only apply to a couple of countries anyways, as these options do not exist in less developed countries.

Furthermore, no effort was made in the talk page to point out what needed change (although it was fairly obvious) and no effort was made to defend the claim that globalization was needed. If this project is going to use this tag, they need to create some guidelines for usage of the tag, especially in cases like this where globalization may not even be possible or relevant. Heavy Metal Cellist^talk_contribs

Tags should not be added without discussion on the talk page of the article in question. If you see a tag and no discussion, remove it. - FrancisTyers · 12:01, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Disagree - view each on its own merit, and do as you see fit --PopUpPirate 00:18, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Huge 9/11

I realise this might be a sensitive question. Still, I found it amazing how huge the articles about September_11,_2001_attacks got. This single event significant mostly to a political climate of a single country has an article series for itself , allmost rivaling WW2 articles. On the other hand, many conflicts that lasted for years and hence consisted of many separate events, and have claimed immensly more lives - like Rwandan_Genocide, Darfur_conflict, Srebrenica_massacre, Algerian Civil War, Second Congo War, to name a few - Have simply an article (well, Rwandan Genocide has 4). Wouldnt one, or two, or three articles be quite enough for describing a single event? Isnt this huge disproportion itself a systemic bias?--Aryah 20:17, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

This sounds sorta harsh but the amount of death caused by an event is not a direct 1:1 correlation (or even close) to its overall effect on the world. By this arguement the death of an eldery in a hospital should receive equal attention to the assination of a major political leader. For a current example compare the Lebanon/Israeli conflict with the 2006 West Java Earthquake, they have comparable death tolls, but Java Earthquake mainly effects one nation, while the Iraeli/Lebanon conflict effects two countries directly, effects the geopolitical climate of the region, and has had worldwide consequences. Furthermore, however it ends up, it is likely to have lasting effects on most of the parties involved, both directly and indirectly.

It may not be particullary fair that certain deaths are more "important" or that certain nations have wider influence on the world, but its reality, and Wikipedia should reflect that reality.

That said I do agree theres often a lot of supplemental information to things like 9/11, that ultimately are not important, (again I am deeming certain peoples lives as less important then others, (in an encylcopediac sense)... and again its not fair, but its reality) However that is getting more into how much "Obscure" information Wikipedia should have, which is pretty far off topic. (Madrone 04:15, 2 August 2006 (UTC))

Aryah, I'm not so sure that that is actually disproportionate. Consider the consequences of 9/11; at least two multi-decade old entire systems of government were militarily overthrown, at least two more prolonged in power (Bush, obviously, and Musharraf; although the latter is debateable), tens or hundreds of thousands have died as a direct result, somewhere upwards of a trillion dollars spent (by the US alone), and that's not even mentioning the psychological effects on the world or the US (which is still the wealthiest and most powerful nation on the planet last I heard) or the ramifications we have yet to see (how has 9/11 and the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan changed al-Qaeda and affiliated organizations? How has it affected Syria and Iran, or Russia and China? The effects are there, just not apparent perhaps). What effects has Darfur had outside its area of Africa? Not all that much once you get past the refugees. And so on. --Rhwawn (talk to Rhwawn) 02:57, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

I think we should make the articles on these other conflicts bigger, they deserve it. - FrancisTyers · 20:48, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Certanly, some - indeed many - of such conflicts are underrepresented. But my point being - could one ever hope to or even find it reasonably necessary for an encyclopedic content to go into that level of detail as present for instance on the American_Airlines_Flight_11 - which includes names of locally famous people on a particular flight and a minute to minute discriptions of the events. Imagine trying to describe every battle with a minute to minute description of each specific tank movement. And a name-by-name list of all people that got out of each battle alive (and the route they took to escape particularly dangerous situations, and people they encountered on the way) - as here: "The firemen had stopped to help escort Josephine from the building at the time of the collapse. They crawled out and were then escorted alive from an air pocket in the debris. The fourteen survivors from stairway B in the North tower include: (spellings uncertain).........", from Survivors of the September 11, 2001 attacks? It seems absurdly detailed. --Aryah 21:36, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Yes, it's ridiculous, but I think you might want to wait a few more years before bringing this stuff up on AfD :-/ . . . Ruakh 22:41, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

(sigh)Yeah, sadly true...--Aryah 09:52, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

We could suggest moving some material to a separate wiki such as the 9/11 Encyclopedia. We could even move some of the material ourselves (to demonstrate that we are not trying to delete such material, just moving it to a more suitable spot, linked from the Wikipedia article.) Of course, the people who suggest and carry out such things must be have good diplomatic skills, and the ability to be civil and patient in the face of virulent flames and hysteria. --Singkong2005 ^talk 06:28, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

The other thing, that no one has mentioned yet, is the language barrier. People who edit the English Wikipedia speak English (big surprise). So when a catastrophic event occurs in an English speaking nation, it will be more prominent. Not to mention the amount of information available from 9/11 is probably 10 fold to what some of the other conflicts you mentioned because the United States is a developed nation that speaks English, while Rwanda is neither. Dukemeiser 02:55, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

Number 4 in our list of causes of systemic biases is "speaks English to an extent". - Jmabel | Talk 22:27, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

Question on "Wikipedia:Neutral point of view" --> "Undue weight"

(I'm sorry asking this question here. I hope somebody knows the answer)

In article "Wikipedia:Neutral point of view" --> "Undue weight" is written:

"Articles that compare views need not give minority views as much or as detailed a description as more popular views, and may not include tiny-minority views at all (by example, the article on the Earth only very briefly refers to the Flat Earth theory, a view of a distinct minority). We should not attempt to represent a dispute as if a view held by a small minority deserved as much attention as a majority view, and views that are held by a tiny minority should not be represented except in articles devoted to those views. To give undue weight to a significant-minority view, or to include a tiny-minority view, might be misleading as to the shape of the dispute. Wikipedia aims to present competing views in proportion to their representation among experts on the subject, or among the concerned parties. This applies not only to article text, but to images, external links, categories, and all other material as well. Undue weight applies to more than just viewpoints. Just as giving undue weight to a viewpoint is not neutral, so is giving undue weight to other verifiable and sourced statements. An article should not give undue weight to any aspects of the subject, but should strive to treat each aspect with a weight appropriate to its significance to the subject. Note that undue weight can be given in several ways, including, but not limited to, depth of detail, quantity of text, prominence of placement, and juxtaposition of statements."

My Question : what do you mean by "popular views" and majority? for example if in one of the wikipedia languages, one view is the most popular and the other views are minority views, but in the whole world other views are majority, which view must be the most detailed one?

in other words, in one of the languages of wikipedia, the viewpoints(majority, minority) of people speaking that language must be presented, or the viewpoints of all the people of the world?--Seraj 06:28, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

I think the viewpoints of all the people involved in the dispute. If people who have never thought about it just assume that light travels at infinite speed, but people who have actually studied the matter all believe that it has a specific speed, then only the latter viewpoint is actually relevant, even if the former make up 95% of the world's population. Of people involved in the dispute, however, language and location are irrelevant; if Dutch physicists are the only physicists in the world that actually stick to the infinite-speed hypothesis, then the Dutch Wikipedia should still give the finite-speed hypothesis much more weight. Ruakh 13:13, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

I infer that Seraj's concern may involve a political opinion, not a scientific question, and the criteria may be different. A scientific position with only 5% support generally has little impact. A political position with 5% support may swing elections and thereby have vast impact. In the latter case, the position would be deserving of coverage, at least in the language of the country where it affects the balance of power. Good judgment should prevail. Robert A.West (Talk) 17:16, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Wikiracism discussion

I've moved a discussion of Wikiracism to Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Countering_systemic_bias/Wikipedia:Racism, because it was obstructively formatted and not obviously relevant to this WikiProject. Ruakh 15:47, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Bravo! I was going to do it myself, but you beat me to it. --Improv 20:07, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Well, okay, "Thank You" for that, because:

(01.) Moving it is much preferable to what I had repetitively gotten, otherwise: deletion &/or ignorance.

(02.) Indirectly, it sort-of gives me one of the several items that I had chronically requested: a "racism" page.

For the immediate future, I only truly need one other thing: acess to the historylog on the original page, that I might copy what I had written.

Other than that, I would be very willing to limit the bulk of my comments regarding my thoughts on this matter to that page &/or section that you had just now created in my behalf.

So, again, I do, hereby, plead that you would permit me to see the historylog.

I do hope that you would, if anyone other than myself, comments on racism, disability-access, handicappism, handicappist, et al, suggest that they, as well, might therein comment.

Again, I do, hereby, Thank You very much.

Signed, DonFphrnqTaub Persina

screenname: "hopiakuta"

Hopiakuta 16:51, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Nationalistic bias in global city names/redirects

I don't necessarily support this view, but I'm putting it here because of a recent edit war that's making me lose sleep. I also don't know if this issue has been raised before.

Is it nationalistic or geographic bias (per WP:Bias) to redirect a global city (or close to it) name to the well-known city instead of a disambiguation page (e.g. Philadelphia to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania instead of Philadelphia (disambiguation))? The claim is that the views of the home country or the English Wikipedia prevail in such a redirect. The proposed solution is to put the disambiguation on that global city name. This reasoning of bias is contradictory to WP:DAB#Primary topic, and there should be some consensus.

And where something was sorted out nicely: Talk:Newcastle#First among Newcastles. However Philadelphia, Pennsylvania is the primary term... Very clearly... /wangi 10:26, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

I like the elegance that the primary topic title is a redirect, rather than the primary topic article, as it makes it easier to identify links that are deliberately to the primary topic from links that might be deliberate or accidental. I also think that longstanding redirects should not be changed to a different target unless all the incoming links to the redirect are altered first. --Scott Davis ^Talk 15:19, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

My opinion is that this needs to be done on a case-by-case basis. Not every city that is equally important can have its name redirected to its article, because there may be other cities with the same name that are important enough to require a disambiguation. For example, there is only one notable "Toronto", but there are multiple notable "SPringfield"s. Powers 17:46, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

I agree wholeheartedly, this should be dealt with case-by-case. Syracuse should be a disambiguation, but the other Bostons are not nearly as notable as Boston MA by any measure.--Cúchullain ^t/c 18:28, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Boston, Lincolnshire, was the first town called Boston. The Pilgrim Fathers departed from there and named Boston, Massachussets, on its honour. Lincoln used to redirect to Abraham Lincoln but know there is a nice article on the origin of the name with a disambiguation list. Your thoughts? E Asterion ^{u talking to me?} 07:29, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Disambiguation should always be optimized to save clicks. As long as more than a half of readers are going to want one specific disambiguation target, it's best to make the ambiguous name redirect to that page with a hatnote. That way, you'll have over one-half requiring one page load and under one-half requiring three page loads, as opposed to having all viewers require two page loads—total page loads will be less than (.5×1 + .5×3 = 2), as opposed to exactly (1.0×2 = 2).

Of course, this makes assumptions about our readership and therefore is, strictly speaking, systemic bias. But not all systemic bias is bad. This encyclopedia is intended for English speakers, and therefore its utility for English speakers is maximized. For instance, it's written in English. Using disambiguation intelligently increases utility for readers without compromising the neutrality of the articles themselves, which are the important things.

Incidentally, I do think (per Scott Davis) that the article should be at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania rather than Philadelphia, which should be a redirect. That allows more flexibility in case we ever want to change the redirect target. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 20:37, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

If one takes a look at Syracuse, for example, it is a disambiguation page and it has fewer items on the Philadelphia (disambiguation) page and when you say Philadelphia I think cream cheese. I also don't think that Elgin is a good thing to redirect to some town in Scotland, since most people think of the Elgin Marbles when they hear Elgin, as they are the best known. I would also argue that London does not belong at London, but instead belongs at London, England (or possibly something else), with London (disambiguation) being at London, since it is a tad confusing being that there is the City of London and Greater London, something that I really didn't know before looking at the disambiguation page. The issue at hand is a lack of having a consistent format for things. I think that Syracuse would prove as a good model for such pages. Also having such things go to the disabmiguation pages could also prove a learning experince, as in the case of London I mentioned above. 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)

London appears to cover both City of London and Greater London, so it's an appropriate article to have at that name. No other London is even remotely as notable. Powers 11:29, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Your first association with Philadelphia might be cream cheese, but you don't expect to get that when you type "Philadelphia" into the search bar. Elgin is best known as being related to the Elgin marbles, but most people who want those would probably type "Elgin marbles", not just "Elgin" (since how many people know what the Elgin signifies, anyway?). In the case of Syracuse, my immediate association is with the famous Italian city, but there are enough other notable cities of that name that it's doubtful whether that would be a majority. And London is about what people want when they type that in, namely the urban area known as "London" irrespective of archaic legal boundaries.

Of course, in the absence of server logs these estimations of what people want when they go to a page are just guesses, but I don't think it's possible to argue that a large majority of those who type in Philadelphia or London want anything other than the current Philadelphia or London. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 17:53, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

We should not assume that those who type in Philadelphia or London want anything other than the current Philadelphia or London because that would be biased. It would seem that the most unbiased thing to do would be disambiguation. Adam 1212 02:29, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

It's not biased to recognize that the major cities Philadelphia and London are overwhelmingly the most likely target of a user's search or an editor's link. Disambiguation is clearly the best choice in most cases, but it's equally clearly absurd for obvious cases like Philadelphia. Powers 14:05, 28 July 2006 (UTC)