[WikiEN-l] How does this prove voting is evil?

[Steve Bennett]

On 4/11/06, Daniel P. B. Smith <wikipedia2006 at dpbsmith.com> wrote:
> If Steve Bennett's argument is that polls are evil because ignorant
> idiots who voted in the poll came up cast a majority of votes for
> what is "obviously beyond words" the wrong answer, I don't buy it. A
> majority vote for George W. Bush in a national U. S. election when it
> is obvious beyond words that that is the wrong answer does not prove
> that voting is evil. How's that for U.S.-centric for you? Pffpplsfft!

My argument could better be summed up as "Polls are evil because only
the immediate contributors to Wikipedia were asked".

> Non-rhetorical question: does the national makeup of readers differ
> in proportion from the national makeup of active editors?

I would suggest for a start that there is a large number of people who
are comfortable reading, but not contributing to Wikipedia. Those
people are probably less likely to live in Anglophone countries, no?

I feel this way with the French Wikipedia - I rarely feel comfortable
doing any kind of copyediting unless mistakes are particularly
obvious. There is certainly information I could contribute, but rarely
do. Thus I am contributing to the bias of French Wikipedia in favour
of a French/Quebecois perspective on the world.

Could someone please correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought the
Wikipedias were all supposed to reflect the same, neutral viewpoint on
the world - not the cultural biases of the individual nations that
speak the relative languages. That may be a bad assumption on my part.

Steve