On 31 Aug 2004, at 8:27 pm, Poor, Edmund W wrote:

Christiaan claimed:

...

I don't know about lists, but what you mention is an interesting problem, and not just for Wikipedia, but for all societies in regard to the internet. Our economic system, and the plight of people such as the Palestinians, means that access too and creation of information on the internet is an extremely unequal affair.

This is incorrect, as far as societies that don't censor Internet access go. Now, maybe in Islamic countries it's hard to get online due to national restrictions. But in every part of the English-speaking world that is not a problem.

I'm unsure as to why you single out Islamic countries (it's not just Islamic countries that have restrictions), but, fine, let's add 'censorship' to this list of things that cause inequality in regard to access to and creation of info on the net.

Also, the cost barrier is much lower than you may realize: 4 hours of minimum wage labor will pay for one month of Internet service, in the US, for example. If someone has 30 hours a week of free time, okay, maybe if he's wealthy it only costs him 30 to 60 minutes of labor time to pay for Internet, and he can spend the other 29 hours surfing or (better yet) writing Wikipedia articles; while the other guy has only 26 hours. That's only a 12% advantage: admittedly unequal, but not extremely so. More like moderately or slightly...

I have some questions for you. Where do you live? What's your earning capability? Have you traveled much of where you live and overseas, especially to poor areas? Do you know what it's like to save every single penny so you can pay for your next meal for years on end? Do you know how much most of the world lives on? And have you ever been to the Occupied Territories in Israel?

You can bandy around arbitrary statistics and argue about whether the inequalities are extreme or moderate but the differences are there and until you can answer the above questions you probably have no idea as to what those differences mean in the real scheme of things.

If people have plights, and you want to write about it for Wikipedia, please do so. Not having a homeland is a plight, so you can write about Kurds as well as Palestinians. Not having a safe place to live is a plight, so you can write about any of 2 or 3 dozen insurgencies and/or civil wars dragging in recent decades. Not having a country that's free from the threat of foreign invasion is a plight, so you can write about Taiwan and Israel, et al. Not having freedom of religion or the right to emigrate is a plight, so you can write about Cuba, North Korea, et al.

This is a straw man argument. It doesn't actually challenge my assertion that economics and oppression create extremely unequal access to and creation of information on the net (and for instance Wikipedia).

What you seem to be suggesting in the above paragraph is that, as a collective, we should simply ignore such plights (inequalities) and their possible implications in regards to information on the net and Wikipedia, and if no one takes it on their own back to personally promote these people's points of view, well that's just too bad.

I have no idea what a solution might be to such a problem, but treating it as a little issue in need of little thought doesn't seem like a good idea.

The same problem actually occurs simply with unequal numbers of people. Would you agree that for diversity and freedom to flourish we need to ensure that all forms of media (and especially prevalent ones) are not dominated by one group, be it via their numbers or simply because another group doesn't have equal access?

Christiaan