On Thu, Nov 18, 2010 at 7:56 PM, Milos Rancic millosh@gmail.com wrote:
I suppose that it could help up to some extent. However, we have at least one -- already identified or not -- big systemic problem. And it looks to me that it is not connected exclusively to African Americans.
I think this is part of a general dilemma about the so-called new technologies. On a very broad approximation, Internet (and Wikipedia) has from its beginnings been created and dominated by white, male, relatively young and tech-savvy people, and these demographics have tended to shape it to their own values and style. The rest of the world (which represents a large majority of the population), participates less in Internet/Wikipedia. I think both "these groups are less interested in Wikipedia" and "these groups find a more hostile environment" explain why these demographics are so underrepresented. Compared with the rest of Internet, I guess Wikipedia has been successful in attracting not-so-young people (people involved in teaching in particular), I'm not sure about other demographics. Cruccone