On Thu, Nov 18, 2010 at 4:13 AM, phoebe ayers phoebe.wiki@gmail.com wrote:
On Wed, Nov 17, 2010 at 2:05 PM, Fred Bauder fredbaud@fairpoint.net wrote:
For some time I am a bit puzzled by the fact that I don't know any African American Wikimedian. For some time just because I am living in a European country without African population, so everything seemed to me quite normal for a long time.
I tried to make a parallel between Roma people and African Americans, but it is not a good one. It is very hard to find a Roma with university degree. At the other side, two former State Secretaries are African Americans and present US president is almost, too.
What are the reasons? Why American Wikimedian community is exclusively white?
Maybe the answer to that question would give us an idea what should we solve to get more contributors.
The short answer:
<snip> this seems like a whole lot of unfounded (and fairly offensive) generalizations? If you're really making a class-based argument, then yes, I think the privileges of having free time, a decent education and good internet access are all class-correlated to some extent and are all likely prerequisites for becoming a Wikipedian -- and that's applicable everywhere. But class cuts across ethnicity and gender; you can make the same arguments about poor white people, or whoever. (For what it's worth, I grew up in a rural area that was lily-white but very poor, and very poorly educated; urban demographics aren't the only part of the U.S. to consider).
These generalizations would still apply had we been talking about the Na'vi People. :)
What we are discussing is more of a social issue than an inherent systemic bias in the guiding philosophy of the project or the software. The barriers to becoming a long-term Wikipedia contributor are very low for a developed country like the United States viz. education, electricity, computer and an internet connection.
On Thu, Nov 18, 2010 at 3:35 AM, Fred Bauder fredbaud@fairpoint.net wrote:
The short answer: Wikipedia editors are volunteers and African-Americans rarely volunteer.
Apart from the evidence Phoebe put up,* it could be that African-Americans do not formally register themselves for volunteering programmes. However, they probably have more pressing needs and priorities than contributing to Wikimedia projects.
*http://www.volunteeringinamerica.gov/assets/resources/FactSheetFinal.pdf
The medium answer: African-American editors often edit only articles which relate to African-American and do that in a point of view way.
I am quite convinced, that is what I have personally witnessed over the last few years.
The long answer: large blocks of African-American are oppressed, unemployed, poorly educated, and computer illiterate. Those that are educated and prosperous tend to be too busy, and as said, are not in the habit of volunteering.
Absolutely, a large number of African-Americans are very poor and semi-literate; they make up 14% of the US population and receive 37% of its welfare payments. This has got nothing to do with race, first and second generation immigrants from Asia and even black immigrants from countries like Jamaica are relatively better off than African-American families that have been citizens for generations and feeding off welfare without any change in their social circumstances.
The culprit is welfarism, not "black culture" (as some other commentators refer to). Cultures are often a symptom of the political systems they exist in.
All that said, we need to be as welcoming as possible, create good Wikipedia editing projects for them to plug into, and reach out when the opportunity arises.
Agreed. :)
On Fri, Nov 19, 2010 at 12:14 AM, Milos Rancic millosh@gmail.com wrote:
Inside of the other private email I've got an interesting data related to Twitter usage. American Twitter population consists 25% of African Americans, which is more than twice more than their population [13].
Contributing to our projects requires more than a computer and lulz. Wikipedia is serious business. :)
What I mean to say is that we will tend to attract serious contributors compared to any social networking website that is chiefly used for entertainment.
anirudh