On Tue, Jul 22, 2014 at 7:46 PM, Pete Forsyth <peteforsyth@gmail.com> wrote:

If you're looking to have the students engage with Wikipedia's systemic bias, I think it might be more worthwhile to have them evaluate existing deletion debates (and similar discussions) -- rather than having them contribute directly to Wikipedia.

That's an interesting idea, Pete! If that sounds like a meaningful classroom exercise, I'd be happy to get involved.

My dissertation research used deletion debates as a case study -- the Research Newsletter has a couple of writeups here:

https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Newsletter/2012/September#cite_ref-11

https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Newsletter/2013/May#In_brief

I think it would be easier for them to look at a larger number of cases, and observe without having their personal attachment to an article come into play, if they read stuff that they haven't been involved in.

Detachment certainly helps!

Another way to look at systemic bias is to connect to current research about how

- geographic coverage varies

- language editions have different depths and coverage

Happy to talk further if that interests anybody...

-Jodi

-Pete
[[User:Peteforsyth]]