English Wiktionary has made a modest step toward ameliorating the FUll Text On the Net bias by reducing for "less-attested languages" the requirement for three citations of a word in use to just one. The result is more coverage at somewhat greater risk of making a mistake in the entry (misspelling, wrong definition, etc). Similar tradeoffs must exist for other wikis. En.wikt tends to be more tolerant, if not exactly welcoming, of contributors of entries in underrepresented languages, many of which do not have their own wikis, than it is of would-be contributors of English entries.
As I see it, What en.wikt has done seems reasonable within the scope of what volunteers can do and are willing to do. A dictionary with trained linguists contributing has an offsetting bias toward preserving smaller languages, which serve as data for linguistic theory.
In my opinion, we also have other biases. We have a subject matter bias toward computer, mathematics, chemistry, and linguistics jargon and against jargon from other fields. Our coverage of Afro-American Vernacular English lags and is incomplete even for older terms. Our definitions are often worded for graduate students or at least college students. We have an antiquarian and literary bias as well. I am certain that I am blind to many other biases.
We would welcome constructive ideas about further steps or ideas on how en.wikt could be a better resource.
On Tue, Dec 10, 2013 at 8:42 AM, Delirium delirium@hackish.org wrote:
In terms of specific articles to create, there is also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Missing_ encyclopedic_articles
That project collects articles that exist in wide range of other encyclopedias, but don't yet exist on Wikipedia. However that's not covering quite the same concerns as the systemic-bias discussion, since many of those encyclopedias themselves have similar biases. Nonetheless this kind of comparison can be useful to find specific gaps in coverage that, equally importantly, are "actionable" in the sense that at least one source to base an article on exists.
-Mark
On 12/9/13, 9:07 PM, Peter Coombe wrote:
The English Wikipedia has attempted a (non-exhaustive) list at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Systemic_bias
Peter
On 9 December 2013 07:35, Romaine Wiki romaine_wiki@yahoo.com wrote:
In various research and media articles is written that in several subject
groups Wikipedia is missing a lot of articles and those groups are relatively unrepresented.
How can we as Wikipedia get clear which subject groups are missing?
How can we get lists of less represented subject groups and the articles in those groups?
Let us get practical, ow can we fill the gap?
Greetings, Romaine
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