Sam Blacketer wrote:
On Fri, Dec 4, 2009 at 10:48 PM, Steve Bennett stevagewp@gmail.com wrote:
Do we need affirmative action in favour of articles about Africa?
No because we already have this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Countering_systemic_bias
Which would be fine if the concept of "systemic bias" was understood by the very people who exhibit it. (Perhaps that's not quite the right way to put it: individuals do though put forward views and opinions that are representative of our various kinds of systemic bias, and this tends to be unconsciously done on their part.) If we want a good strategy direction, we could ask the WMF to do more to place systemic front and centre in descriptions of the mission, as an unacceptable clamp on WP's ability to reflect the total of global knowledge.
See for example [[Quinary]], which carries a notability query template. The body of the article starts "Many languages^ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quinary#cite_note-0 use quinary number systems". The systemic bias of denary (base-10) people is fairly clear here. The [[tyranny of the majority]] indeed. See [[Category talk:Positional numeral systems]] for me getting annoyed.
Charles