That was an extraordinary case, such a thing is not likely to happen again within some time now. Wikipedia's systemic bias is not exposed in such a candid way very often. We can not use it as a benchmark.
Molu
On Thu, 04 May 2006 19:09:28 +0200, Raphael Wegmann wrote:
"John Tex wrote: [...]
Attempting to stifle advocacy is harmful to the consensus building process and it is harmful to the project. If we try to prohibit it, it will just be taken off-wiki, which would be a huge shame.
It already happened for the JP cartoon poll:
http://www.dartblog.com/data/004950.html http://thelittlegreenblog.blogspot.com/2006/02/more-on-danish-cartoons.html http://penumbra604.livejournal.com/25659.html
... and probably many more.
On 05/05/06, Molu loom91@yahoo.com wrote:
That was an extraordinary case, such a thing is not likely to happen again within some time now. Wikipedia's systemic bias is not exposed in such a candid way very often. We can not use it as a benchmark.
Sorry, but what did this example have to do with Wikipedia's *systemic* bias? Our systemic bias stems from the fact that most of our contributors are young American men interested in technology and the internet. What does that have to do with one person apparently soliciting "votes" from Republican voters for an AfD?
Steve
On 5/5/06, Steve Bennett stevage@gmail.com wrote:
Sorry, but what did this example have to do with Wikipedia's *systemic* bias? Our systemic bias stems from the fact that most of our contributors are young American men interested in technology and the internet.
Hmm we have a pretty strong european base.
-- geni
On 5/5/06, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
On 5/5/06, Steve Bennett stevage@gmail.com wrote:
Sorry, but what did this example have to do with Wikipedia's *systemic* bias? Our systemic bias stems from the fact that most of our contributors are young American men interested in technology and the internet.
Hmm we have a pretty strong european base.
True, and actually that was an incorrect bad use of "most". It would be truer to say that that demographic, amongst certain others, is over-represented.
Steve
Steve Bennett wrote:
On 05/05/06, Molu loom91@yahoo.com wrote:
That was an extraordinary case, such a thing is not likely to happen again within some time now. Wikipedia's systemic bias is not exposed in such a candid way very often. We can not use it as a benchmark.
Sorry, but what did this example have to do with Wikipedia's *systemic* bias? Our systemic bias stems from the fact that most of our contributors are young American men interested in technology and the internet. What does that have to do with one person apparently soliciting "votes" from Republican voters for an AfD?
The systemic bias, which stems from the fact that most contributors are living in anglophone countries, where islamist terrorist attacks occured, which resulted in widespread anti-islam bias, is IMHO bad enough. You don't believe me? Well, read it up on [[Islamophobia]] and it's talk page.
The JP cartoon poll results have been no surprise to me at all, nor have been the hundreds of cartoon deletions ever since.
I can even agree to the many bans, which have applied on editors, which continuously removed the cartoons without inserting a link to them, on the basis of vandalism. The cartoons, even if they are offensive, are indeed highly relevant material, and removing them without inserting a link can be considered a deliberate attempt to reduce the quality of the encyclopedia.
But I strongly disagree, that replacing the cartoons with a link to them, is vandalism, because the motivation of those, who do so, is not to reduce the quality. Instead those who do so (incl. myself) do in fact want to increase the quality of the article, because they think, that an article on a controvery needs to have editors on both sides of this controversy. The current state of this article and the editors backing it, already drove away resp. banned countless editors, who could have added valuable information regarding the muslim POV on this issue.
As if common anti-islam bias among the editors weren't enough, even administrators, who outed themselves as free speech extremists on the Image-Display talk page, which has been created for this content dispute, abuse their administrator privilege by simply blocking editors they disagree with.
"Raphael Wegmann" wrote
The systemic bias, which stems from the fact that most contributors are living in anglophone countries, where islamist terrorist attacks occured, which resulted in widespread anti-islam bias, is IMHO bad enough. You don't believe me? Well, read it up on [[Islamophobia]] and it's talk page.
There is systemic bias, no question. This analysis is unhelpful for a few reasons.
- Islamist terrorist attacks are by no means limited to anglophone countries. - Anti-Islam feeling is not restricted to anglophone countries either. - The real issue with systemic bias is not that it contributes to _systematic_ bias. WP policy directly targets systematic bias, since the NPOV policy says quite clearly that it is not acceptable. It may be there, but it is not acceptable in the encyclopedia. Systemic bias manifests itself, for example, in the distribution of articles by sector, even if those articles are all good.
Charles
charles matthews wrote:
- The real issue with systemic bias is not that it contributes to
_systematic_ bias. WP policy directly targets systematic bias, since the NPOV policy says quite clearly that it is not acceptable. It may be there, but it is not acceptable in the encyclopedia.
Steve Bennett wrote:
English Wikipedia is purely and simply, generally sympathetic to an American point of view. The Arabic Wikipedia is probably more sympathetic to a Muslim point of view.
Who is right?
Is the english Wikipedia supposed to have an American point of view, or is systemic bias whatsoever not acceptable in the encyclopedia?
"Raphael Wegmann" wrote
charles matthews wrote:
- The real issue with systemic bias is not that it contributes to
_systematic_ bias. WP policy directly targets systematic bias, since the NPOV policy says quite clearly that it is not acceptable. It may be there, but it is not acceptable in the encyclopedia.
Steve Bennett wrote:
English Wikipedia is purely and simply, generally sympathetic to an American point of view. The Arabic Wikipedia is probably more sympathetic to a Muslim point of view.
Who is right?
Is the english Wikipedia supposed to have an American point of view, or is systemic bias whatsoever not acceptable in the encyclopedia?
Well, I think you may still be missing the key distinction.
Systematic bias: this means the kind of thing that is talked about, generally, in discussions of 'media bias'. I happen to think that the whole 'media bias' debate is a serious dumbing down of political discussion: as if all that mattered was to establish that one kind of media is 'propaganda', and another is 'truth-telling'. But, in effect, systematic bias means something like a propagandistic, party line effect on content. As I have said, this is unacceptable under NPOV, article by article. Whether what Steve writes is true or not, that would contradict fundamental policy.
Systemic bias is something else. For example if we have more males than females editing WP, which is likely, then we get more coverage of traditional male-interest things than traditional female-interest things. Our discussion of haute couture fashion supposedly reflects that. (I find that much easier to believe than what Steve says.) It has nothing to do with whether people are editing to make a propaganda point. Since on a wiki, what it written reflects ultimately the community writing it, there is no obvious policy such as NPOV that is effective.
Charles
charles matthews wrote:
"Raphael Wegmann" wrote
charles matthews wrote:
- The real issue with systemic bias is not that it contributes to
_systematic_ bias. WP policy directly targets systematic bias, since the NPOV policy says quite clearly that it is not acceptable. It may be there, but it is not acceptable in the encyclopedia.
Steve Bennett wrote:
English Wikipedia is purely and simply, generally sympathetic to an American point of view. The Arabic Wikipedia is probably more sympathetic to a Muslim point of view.
Who is right?
Is the english Wikipedia supposed to have an American point of view, or is systemic bias whatsoever not acceptable in the encyclopedia?
Well, I think you may still be missing the key distinction.
Systematic bias: this means the kind of thing that is talked about, generally, in discussions of 'media bias'. I happen to think that the whole 'media bias' debate is a serious dumbing down of political discussion: as if all that mattered was to establish that one kind of media is 'propaganda', and another is 'truth-telling'. But, in effect, systematic bias means something like a propagandistic, party line effect on content. As I have said, this is unacceptable under NPOV, article by article. Whether what Steve writes is true or not, that would contradict fundamental policy.
Systemic bias is something else. For example if we have more males than females editing WP, which is likely, then we get more coverage of traditional male-interest things than traditional female-interest things. Our discussion of haute couture fashion supposedly reflects that. (I find that much easier to believe than what Steve says.) It has nothing to do with whether people are editing to make a propaganda point. Since on a wiki, what it written reflects ultimately the community writing it, there is no obvious policy such as NPOV that is effective.
Thank you for pointing out that distinction. Back on this issue: Anti-Islam bias (regardless of whether it's systematic or systemic) results in one-sided articles on certain topics, which is IMHO derogatory to an encyclopedia. And putting the JP cartoons in the article increases systemic bias by driving away muslim editors.
On Fri, 05 May 2006 14:29:35 +0200, you wrote:
Thank you for pointing out that distinction. Back on this issue: Anti-Islam bias (regardless of whether it's systematic or systemic) results in one-sided articles on certain topics, which is IMHO derogatory to an encyclopedia. And putting the JP cartoons in the article increases systemic bias by driving away muslim editors.
And the solution is discussion not edit-warring. HTH.
Guy (JzG)
Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
On Fri, 05 May 2006 14:29:35 +0200, you wrote:
Thank you for pointing out that distinction. Back on this issue: Anti-Islam bias (regardless of whether it's systematic or systemic) results in one-sided articles on certain topics, which is IMHO derogatory to an encyclopedia. And putting the JP cartoons in the article increases systemic bias by driving away muslim editors.
And the solution is discussion not edit-warring. HTH.
Please look at the talk pages. I've never shied away from any discussion. And 3 reverts in 5 days can hardly be called edit-warring, nor does it explain a block for 1 week.
On 5/8/06, Raphael Wegmann raphael@psi.co.at wrote:
Please look at the talk pages. I've never shied away from any discussion. And 3 reverts in 5 days can hardly be called edit-warring, nor does it explain a block for 1 week.
Well it can - but I tend to consider most reverts a form of edit warring. If you revert because the person vandalised, you know they were wrong, or you know for sure that you know the context of the article a lot better than them, that's one thing. If you revert because you disagree with them as an equal, you're edit warring.
But I'm trolling.
Steve
On Mon, 08 May 2006 19:45:17 +0200, you wrote:
Please look at the talk pages. I've never shied away from any discussion. And 3 reverts in 5 days can hardly be called edit-warring, nor does it explain a block for 1 week.
It can if it's against consensus, and you *know* it's against consensus, and you repeatedly do it anyway. Your version of debate appears to be to re-state your position. Which, to be fair, is pretty much where everybody else there comes from.
Guy (JzG)
Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
On Mon, 08 May 2006 19:45:17 +0200, you wrote:
Please look at the talk pages. I've never shied away from any discussion. And 3 reverts in 5 days can hardly be called edit-warring, nor does it explain a block for 1 week.
It can if it's against consensus, and you *know* it's against consensus, and you repeatedly do it anyway.
Many editors think that numerical supermajority equals consensus (it doesn't). Consensus is strictly reached only when all concerned have accepted a position.
30 image removals per week clearly shows that no consensus has been reached, this is what I know.
Your version of debate appears to be to re-state your position. Which, to be fair, is pretty much where everybody else there comes from.
Well, I don't think so. Please look again at Talk:Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy/Arguments/Image-Display I've been responsive to almost all arguments stated, leaving out only personal attacks.
lG.
On Tue, 09 May 2006 00:37:32 +0200, you wrote:
Please look at the talk pages. I've never shied away from any discussion. And 3 reverts in 5 days can hardly be called edit-warring, nor does it explain a block for 1 week.
It can if it's against consensus, and you *know* it's against consensus, and you repeatedly do it anyway.
Many editors think that numerical supermajority equals consensus (it doesn't). Consensus is strictly reached only when all concerned have accepted a position.
Wise words - I winder who said that? But the lack of 100% agreement does not mean you can go ahead and enact the minority view in the mean time.
30 image removals per week clearly shows that no consensus has been reached, this is what I know.
No, it means that most people think one thing and a small coterie of edit warriors think another.
Your version of debate appears to be to re-state your position. Which, to be fair, is pretty much where everybody else there comes from.
Well, I don't think so. Please look again at Talk:Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy/Arguments/Image-Display I've been responsive to almost all arguments stated, leaving out only personal attacks.
You've been responsive in the sense of not changing your view. As has pretty much everyone else.
Come up with a new compromise.
Guy (JzG)
"Raphael Wegmann" wrote
Many editors think that numerical supermajority equals consensus (it doesn't). Consensus is strictly reached only when all concerned have accepted a position.
No, that is 'unanimity'. Here on Wikipedia this has never been the definition used of 'consensus'. No one voice has a veto, when it comes to understanding whether there is a consensus view.
Numerically consensus is something like 80% approval, but of course a purely numerical criterion is not useful.
Charles
charles matthews charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com wrote:
Numerically consensus is something like 80% approval, but of course a purely numerical criterion is not useful.
It's equally important that consensus is applied to the writing of policies and guidelines, not to the writing of articles. That is policy, which by definition already "reflects consensus".~~~~Pro-Lick
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On 5/5/06, Raphael Wegmann raphael@psi.co.at wrote:
The systemic bias, which stems from the fact that most contributors are living in anglophone countries, where islamist terrorist attacks occured, which resulted in widespread anti-islam bias, is IMHO bad enough. You don't believe me? Well, read it up on [[Islamophobia]] and it's talk page.
I believe you.
I can even agree to the many bans, which have applied on editors, which continuously removed the cartoons without inserting a link to them, on the basis of vandalism. The cartoons, even if they are offensive, are indeed highly relevant material, and removing them without inserting a link can be considered a deliberate attempt to reduce the quality of the encyclopedia.
Hmm, to play devil's advocate, how would you feel if someone deleted a hard-core pornographic image, and didn't replace it with a link? I doubt you would call it vandalism. I believe that most (some?) Muslims find these cartoons extremely offensive, so it's not surprising that they would remove them without replacing them with a link.
As if common anti-islam bias among the editors weren't enough, even administrators, who outed themselves as free speech extremists on the Image-Display talk page, which has been created for this content dispute, abuse their administrator privilege by simply blocking editors they disagree with.
It's a fine line between blocking an editor you disagree with personally, and blocking an editor who behaves in a way inconsistent with the culture-by-default of the project, one that you share.
English Wikipedia is purely and simply, generally sympathetic to an American point of view. The Arabic Wikipedia is probably more sympathetic to a Muslim point of view. I can't read Arabic, so I can't really check, but it seems that the Arabic Wikipedia for example would not have these links. I notice very quickly for example that [[Swimming]] and [[Dancing]] on the English Wikipedia show women with bare arms. The corresponding articles on the Arabic Wikipedia do not.
Obviously I'm drawing big conclusions from very little data, and would appreciate confirmation from anyone familiar with the Arabic Wikipedia.
Steve
On Fri, 5 May 2006 13:41:58 +0200, you wrote:
Hmm, to play devil's advocate, how would you feel if someone deleted a hard-core pornographic image, and didn't replace it with a link? I doubt you would call it vandalism. I believe that most (some?) Muslims find these cartoons extremely offensive, so it's not surprising that they would remove them without replacing them with a link.
I kind of agree, but only to this extent: the reader of an article on a porn "star" is unlikely to be looking for a neutral analysis of the star's life and work, and if they are they are probably going to be disappointed. A reader of the article on the cartoons might reasonably be expected to be looking for a balanced view of the controversy.
Most porn articles I've seen link to the subject's website, generally that is the sole "reliable" source of information in the entire article, and most of the pictures used on the articles are asserted fair use, very few are free or released by provable authority.
So I personally would not include the cartoons in the article, because they are considered offensive by many of the potential readers and that will colour their view of the neutrality of the article, but undoubtedly would link to them since the whole issue makes little (or at least much less) sense if you've not seen them.
Guy (JzG)
On 5/5/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG guy.chapman@spamcop.net wrote:
On Fri, 5 May 2006 13:41:58 +0200, you wrote:
Hmm, to play devil's advocate, how would you feel if someone deleted a hard-core pornographic image, and didn't replace it with a link? I doubt you would call it vandalism. I believe that most (some?) Muslims find these cartoons extremely offensive, so it's not surprising that they would remove them without replacing them with a link.
So I personally would not include the cartoons in the article, because they are considered offensive by many of the potential readers and that will colour their view of the neutrality of the article, but undoubtedly would link to them since the whole issue makes little (or at least much less) sense if you've not seen them.
Well, the comparison I was making was linking to an image of explicit hardcore porn (not just a film website, for example). There are probably people who argue that such links are a good thing. However, most people don't. However, if you find the cartoons similarly offensive, then linking to them would be quite comparable.
Steve