While working on articles about Singaporean movies, I've encountered a similar problem: difficulty finding references due to systemic bias.
Some seem to have the impression that Singaporean = non-notable. I've seen articles on many Singaporean topics, which no Singaporean would contest the notability of, get nominated for deletion, under the claim of non-notability.
That Wikipedia suffers from systemic bias is not surprising.
On 1/8/07, Frederick Noronha fred@bytesforall.org wrote:
Hi all, Thank you all for your patience. I'm not being difficult here, but just feel I need to explain how things work in this part of the globe.... not always logically!
Okay, I'm as Indian as they come... my unusual name is because I'm from Goa, the former Portuguese colony.
My wager is that en.wikipedia.org would be far, far more representative of India than, say hi.wikipedia.org Sad but true. And there are reasons for that.
Have you seen the way Indians interact with themselves? If meeting outside the North Indian belt, there's a good chance they (we?) would be taking to each other in English. There are just so much diversity here, that like it or not, English often serves as a link language.
Added to this, many of the Wikipedia contributors would be college/university-educated types, often more comfortable to express ideas in English than, say, in an Indian language. I've made hundreds of edits in English [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Fredericknoronha] but am litterally struggling to get a Konkani Wikipedia going (Konkani is India's smallest "national" languages, with between 1.5 to 5 million speakers, depending whose estimates one accepts).
On 08/01/07, Roberto Alfonso rpgrca@gmail.com wrote:
Hi there,
Personally, I prefer to prod articles with notability asserted but no way to verify that. In these "cases", I also check if the Wikipedia in the language related to the article (in this case, hi.wikipedia.org) has an entry about this topic.
I haven't, but maybe I should suggest creating an article in the user's native language. In the same way as a Google test fails, an AFD may also fail due the inability of users to check the claims.
Oh, once I even posted a note at WikiProject India to get some feedback about Mair Rajputs :-)
Roberto / ReyBrujo
On 1/7/07, Frederick Noronha fred@bytesforall.org wrote:
Hi all, I'm from India, a contributor to the Wikipedia. In recent times, the 'mortality' of new Wikipedia entries seems to be higher than usual. While one can understand the need for abundant caution, it's also important to allow for a diversity of concerns and issues in this space.
Should we presume that because an initiative is not very visible in cyberspace (okay, we are under-digitised societies!) that it is not prominent or noteworthy? See as one example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vikalp This is a campaign against censorship of documentary film in India, one which has the participation of about 250 documentary film-makers.
There must be some way out. Your suggestions would be welcome. FN
FN M: 0091 9822122436 P: +91-832-240-9490 (after 1300IST please) http://fn.goa-india.org http://fredericknoronha.wordpress.com http://www.goa-india.org http://feeds.goa-india.org/index.php
-- FN M: 0091 9822122436 P: +91-832-240-9490 (after 1300IST please) http://fn.goa-india.org http://fredericknoronha.wordpress.com
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