Hello to all wikipedians, I'm fairly new to wikipedia, I have accumulated a number of suggestions which all can be summed in one phrase: "Making wikipedia a multi-cultural encyclopedia".
Here are the main guidelines (This refers to English wikipedia only): 1. The language of use in e-wikipedia should be called "International English". I know this is a pretty vague concept (it is highly debated and sometimes ridiculed on alt.usage.english, sometimes said to be a computer jargon) for now, I will use the definition: "English written for an audience without cultural references".
An alternative (but sometimes vague) definition of "International English": "The English language, usually in its standard form, either when used, taught, and studied as a lingua franca throughout the world, or when taken as a whole and used in contrast with American English, British English, South African English, etc." (London: Edward Arnold, 1982, ISBN 0340586451).
Practical implications: Use of Latin, Greek, French (culture specific) etc. derived forms of words and phrases should be minimized, this arose from a short debate I had with Martin (MyRedDice) on whether to use "Formulae" or "Formulas". (I still don't know how to pronounce "Formulae" in speech :) ..)
I have noticed that most wikipedia articles are pretty fine with this rule (The extreme contrast would be Wikipedia written like a Shakespeare play , or like 1911 Britannica..)
Note: This has nothing to do with American Vs British Vs Canadian etc. english. British english is taught in India, I think in south america and mexico, they use forms of American english. Here in Israel we learn mostly American, but some british english..
2. The articles should not assume the reader has a specific cultural affiliation. This is very problematic in the current form. Most articles assume the reader has personal familiarity with "Westren" (or even American!) ideas or way of life and culture. For example, "Popular Music" and related articles, does not even recognize the fact that local popular music widely exists in china, arab popular music, india etc..
I will call this type of writing "Cultural Bias"
Another thing that confuses international readers (and sometimes makes them mad, in my case), Is reader's supposedly familiarity with US geography. For example, in the "Michael Jackson" article: "Michael Joseph Jackson was born on in Gary, Indiana to Joseph.."
Where on earth is "Gary, Indiana"? in Bangladesh? Imagine I would write: "Rotem Dan was born in Holon, Gush-dan municipality" what would you understand by that?
I will call this type of writing "Geographical Bias".
3. Prior knowledge, background, and education. A lot of articles assume the reader is fairly (or even highly in the scientific articles) educated and knowledgeable in the subject of the article. For each article there should be an extensive background paragraph(s), which specifically states what the article is about, it's general field and it's uses in "Real life":
(a bit extreme) example: taken from "Reverse Osmosis": The article starts like this: "Membrane separation technology in the application for water supply augmentation has been well recognised and is getting an important role in water treatment. The family of membrane processes is now very diverse. They are generally classified as microfiltration (MF), ultrafiltration (UF), ..."
This is perfect gibberish to anyone not knowledgeable (or even expert!) in the field. I've noticed most computer-related and social/exact science articles are suffering from some degrees of it.
What does this have to do with "multi-cultural"? In different places in the world, education is sometimes being conveyed differently, or in a lower/higher level of detail then western countries. In some places, high education (college/university) is not as common (and affordable) as in western countries. Wikipedia writers should understand this and be considerate, because these readers will not be able to comprehend these articles if they are not given a full, supportive background of the terms and fields.
I will call this type of writing an "Educational bias"
There are many more types of "Cultural Biases" which are not listed. However, I am by no means whishing to make Wikipedia more "Politically correct", I understand that most writers on e-Wikipedia are from English speaking countries and western cultures (USA and UK especially), this should be changed. Until then, please be sensitive in what you write. Realize you're writing to an international audience with diverse culture and beliefs, varied education levels and understanding of the english language.
Keep up the great work on the living Wikipedia organism Rotem Dan, of Tel Aviv, Israel.