Going back to nurses...
Yep you are right Fred in that the field a person works in is also one in which they might carry more than a passing interest and are likely to know more about its history. We must also recognise that a person working nursing may also be interested in medicine, palliative care, emergency care, and many other areas related to the field in which they work. The tokenism here is in our expectation that because nurses are female they will want to write about females in nursing, we need a broader base of contributors the subject itself.
What has developed is we have two streams on tokenism developing,
- one is on source issues - one is on expectations of contributors
Romaine original thread was about the second point, the tokenism is in expecting women to fix topics about women (call it womens work if you want) though you can substitute that with any under represented group. The other part is about how we adapt to the bias inherent what we acknowledge as notable and verifiable. The more we evolve and expand our knowledge base the greater the challenges ahead and yes that will take leaps of faith to incorporate other form of notability and verifiability to into areas we may never encountered
On 11 May 2018 at 06:41, FRED BAUDER fredbaud@fairpoint.net wrote:
Going back to nurses... The reason I used them as an example of a group that might edit is that I had been reading the biography of a nurse, written by her grand-niece, also a nurse, someone my mother knew in our local San Luis Valley community, M. Elizabeth Shellabarger. She was significant locally and in nursing at the time she was active. Whoever wrote the article seems to have had little trouble finding 3 reliable sources, including the biography. Not someone to compare to Mother Theresa, but certainly as notable a person as the average Baroness.
The thing is, there are similar notable women in every community on earth, people who form the backbone of the communities they live in and serve. If there is a way to include them we should. That doesn't mean that no basis of notability be required, but that something somewhat less or different than what might be required for someone who lived in a literate society. M. Elizabeth Shellabarger was a diarist... In an indigenous community the equivalent would be the many stories people tell about notable members of the community. Big Spotted Horse of the Pawnee is an example of such a character. He was the source of many stories, and not even a chief.
Fred
----- Original Message ----- From: Todd Allen toddmallen@gmail.com To: Wikimedia Mailing List wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Thu, 10 May 2018 16:41:49 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Gendergap approach causing problems
Abandoning notability and verifiability is a wide open sign for spammers and hoaxers. We have enough of that without giving them an engraved invitation.
If published sources are biased, the efforts to correct that should be made at the source (literally) level. Just like rather than "disputing" a reliable source, if we found evidence that contradicts them, we'd ask them to correct, and then once they do we'll update the article accordingly based on their correction. Wikipedia is not there to second-guess what sources choose to publish or find "alternative" or "non-western" or whatever else have you types of information. If our references are flawed, the solution lies in getting them to correct what they're doing, not "correcting" for any perceived bias by editors. We reflect sources, we do not second-guess, dispute, or correct them.
Todd
On Thu, May 10, 2018 at 10:46 AM, Peter Southwood < peter.southwood@telkomsa.net> wrote:
When Wikipedia was new and unknown there were not so many people wanting to use it for purposes that conflict with our purposes. Times change. Cheers, Peter
-----Original Message----- From: Wikimedia-l [mailto:wikimedia-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Jean-Philippe Béland Sent: Thursday, May 10, 2018 5:30 PM To: Wikimedia Mailing List Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Gendergap approach causing problems
If we where that septic at the beginning, we will never have started Wikipedia to begin with. Really, an encyclopedia written by anyone
without
any authority to double check before it is published? It is doomed to
fail.
Yes, in theory, but practice showed us otherwise. The question is not to remove notability and verifiability requirements, but to change those requirements to be more inclusive of different ways of sharing
knowledge. I
think practice can show us otherwise in that case too if we are ready to
do
that leap of faith, the same way we did at the beginning of Wikipedia
when
we opened editing to anybody.
JP
On Thu, May 10, 2018 at 11:05 AM Peter Southwood < peter.southwood@telkomsa.net> wrote:
One Jar'Edo Wens hoax is enough, and that lasted 10 years in spite of notability and verifiability requirements, Without the verifiability requirement it would probably still be there. Leaps of faith are
things
that I do not generally do, I am a natural sceptic and prefer evidence,
and
where possible, reproducible results. When the evidence is intangible,
the
authors must take responsibility for their work, and that means track record and proof of identity. This would be more easily fitted into a new project. I do not see it as possible in Wikipedia. If the new project became recognised as a
reliable
source then Wikipedia could use it as a source, without destroying the credibility we have. Cheers, Peter
-----Original Message----- From: Wikimedia-l [mailto:wikimedia-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Gnangarra Sent: 10 May 2018 15:50 To: Wikimedia Mailing List Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Gendergap approach causing problems
notability and verifiability are important, every culture and
language
has this issue when it comes to sharing knowledge. These culture
manage
successfully to share knowledge many of them long before the western
styles
were developed, I'd say they are robust alternatives. The issue is how
do
we bring these sources into the western system, how do we respect them, how do we teach ourselves to understand that what we currently do is
not
the only.
There are risks in potential abuses of every system, even our current systems have their faults and we assume good faith in the citations
from
books published but no digital. Changing the way we consider and value alternative knowledge streams will take a leap of faith, the question
is
do
we really want to take that leap, do we really want to share the sum of
all
knowledge, do we want to address inherent bias in our current knowledge networks or are we comfortable with just token efforts.
Maybe the solution isnt in incorporating directly into the wikipedia
but
rather the creation of new project to bring forth these alternative knowledge streams
On 10 May 2018 at 21:47, Eduardo Testart etestart@gmail.com wrote:
Hi,
I posted this a while ago, an investigation on gender bias where a
member
of Wikimedia Chile was involved, in his personal capacity though: https://epjdatascience.springeropen.com/articles/10. 1140/epjds/s13688-016-0066-4
There are many things that can be addressed individually and as a
movement
or collective, if we believe the conclusions are valid, which I
personally
do, since they are supported with data and not on our personal
impressions.
Cheers!
El jue., may. 10, 2018 10:27, Peter Southwood < peter.southwood@telkomsa.net> escribió:
Notability and verifiability are important. They allow us to
produce
reasonably reliable work. Moving away from those constraints opens
the
doors to extremely unreliable material. If Wikipedia is to remain
open
to
anyone to edit, there do not appear to be any robust alternatives.
Other
projects may work around this problem, but would then probably not
be
open
for anyone to edit. Or can you suggest another way? Cheers, Peter
-----Original Message----- From: Wikimedia-l [mailto:wikimedia-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org]
On
Behalf Of Jean-Philippe Béland Sent: 10 May 2018 15:01 To: Wikimedia Mailing List Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Gendergap approach causing problems
"Nothing odd, it's baked in: Wikipedia is a summary of the canon of knowledge, the corpus of generally accepted knowledge."
But it is what we accept as part of the canon of "knowledge" as
Wikipedia
that could be improved. We have a very western approach to that
saying
that
it needs to be published in such books or journals to be notable
enough,
when different cultures use different ways to build their canon of knowledge.
JP User:Amqui
On Thu, May 10, 2018 at 5:53 AM FRED BAUDER <
fredbaud@fairpoint.net>
wrote:
----- Original Message ----- From: Jane Darnell jane023@gmail.com To: Wikimedia Mailing List wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Thu, 10 May 2018 04:02:46 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Gendergap approach causing problems
...because of our rules regarding references. Oddly, Wikipedia can at best only echo the systemic bias, but will never
be
able
to correct it."
Nothing odd, it's baked in: Wikipedia is a summary of the canon
of
knowledge, the corpus of generally accepted knowledge.
The knowledge industry could do better. And when it does,
Wikipedia
will
reflect that. in the meantime it is helpful if gender and other
bias
issues
are noted and accommodated. Our mission is more modest than full
correction
of all bias, but we can contribute or even lead.
Fred
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