Tomasz Wegrzanowski wrote:
On Sun, Mar 13, 2005 at 01:15:19AM -0700, Mark Williamson wrote:
Mr. Randombtr will be trusted less about Chinese history than Mr. Uneducatedchinesefarmer, even though there is a possibility that Mr. Randombtr has his Ph.D in Chinese history and has lived in China for 20 years - after all, Mr. Uneducatedchinesefarmer is actually Chinese. Even if he never saw a history textbook, or if he moved to the UK at age 3 and never learnt much about Chinese history than some half truth, half legend that his grandparents taught him (probably more likely - uneducated Chinese farmers are unlikely to be editing on en:), he is trusted disproportionately more because "he is Chinese".
You forgot one exception - at least on en, being Polish makes one considered less trustworthy about Polish history, not more.
This is not unusual. Outsiders can sometimes look at another country more objectively. E.g. de Tocqueville on democracy in America; Burke on the revolution in France, etc. Problematic native editors are not limited to Poland
Ec