Re: [Wikipedia-l] Wikipedia-l Digest, Vol 42, Issue 11 - Wikipedia-l

10 Jan 2007

To whom it may concen

  This is the first time I have received this type of information through  my e-,ail
system.
  It apears to be a web log without  a title to let me know the subject.
  I am afraid that I have too little time to spend on processing such information.
  Please DO NOT SEND SUCH MAIL  To MY E-MAil Address any more. 
  Thankyou
  Firoozeh Derakhshani

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Today's Topics:

1. Re: Entries for deletion.... issues from the Third World
(pekka.gronow(a)yle.fi)
2. Re: Entries for deletion.... issues from the Third World
(J.L.W.S. The Special One)
3. Re: Entries for deletion.... issues from the Third World
(Mark Williamson)
4. Re: Entries for deletion.... issues from the Third World
(J.L.W.S. The Special One)

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Message: 1
Date: Tue, 9 Jan 2007 14:07:18 +0200
From: pekka.gronow(a)yle.fi
Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Entries for deletion.... issues from the
Third World
To: wikipedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
Message-ID:

Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII"

Mark Williamson wrote:

Well, what if I know the truth, but it is not written anywhere? What
if I interview 100 people to make sure they agree, and they do? What
if it is common knowledge in my village, which nobody will challenge?

The answer: it will be labeled "unverifiable" or "non-notable" and 
deleted.

NOT NECESSARILY. If an article is based on oral sources, you could at 
least make a note that "the information is based on interviews with 100 
people, made in the village of X between dates y and z. Copies of 
interviews are deposited at m." Then we'd know what is the factual basis, 
and the article could be useful as such. 

Pekka Gronow

------------------------------

Message: 2
Date: Tue, 9 Jan 2007 20:40:27 +0800
From: "J.L.W.S. The Special One" 
Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Entries for deletion.... issues from the
Third World
To: wikipedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
Message-ID:

Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed

A very interesting and comprehensive post.

You forgot to mention about the language barrier.

I agree that verifiability is important, but making it compulsory
introduces problems such as systemic bias.

Where should we raise this issue for further discussion?

I've been working on an article on a Singaporean movie - I Not Stupid.
It's close to GA status, but there is very little referenced
information on the production of the film. My friend suggested I
interview Jack Neo - my idol, who wrote the movie. Since his child
studies in my school, getting an interview is not out of the question.
The problem is: how do I publish it?

On 1/9/07, Mark Williamson wrote:
...
  This is true. However, is there a workable solution to
that?

 I remember when people didn't worry too much about references on
 Wikipedia. Sure, you were supposed to have them, but as long as you
 had a nice article, nobody cared.

 Well, what if I know the truth, but it is not written anywhere? What
 if I interview 100 people to make sure they agree, and they do? What
 if it is common knowledge in my village, which nobody will challenge?

 The answer: it will be labeled "unverifiable" or "non-notable" and
deleted.

 Wikipedia's current message to the world: If it's never been written
 about, or been mentioned in a sound recording or a film, it's not
 important.

 Well:

 1) Not all cultures have writing.
 2) Among those cultures which DO have writing, they each place
 different importance values on it. In my daily life, I am using it
 constantly. My desk is littered with books with their titles written
 on them, products with their labels. If I go driving, some of the
 signs will have writing on them, there are billboards, signs for
 businesses, all of them using writing. But in some cultures, writing
 may not be used so extensively. Maybe it is usually just used for
 poetry, or just for writing letters to people who are far away. The
 concept of mass communication is foreign to most cultures still, and
 if you don't need mass communication, writing is hardly necessary,
 except to write a letter to someone who is not present.
 3) Among the population of the Earth, a very, very large portion live
 in societies that are not highly literate or which don't place a high
 importance on writing. Most societies don't record every aspect of
 life the way we do. Yes, there are newspapers in India (although to
 the best of my knowledge there are no newspapers in Igbo or Aymara or
 Afar), there are books in Nepal, but if you look it up, the sheer
 volume of materials published in the First World per-capita far, far,
 far, far exceeds that of anywhere else.

 Here, if someone sees an insect doing something strange, they write a
 paper or a book about it, and if they don't, somebody else will! But
 in most countries, this is not the case. Books cost money to make.
 People in developing countries often don't have this money. There are
 no or (comparatively) few publishers there, and those that do exist
 cannot afford to put out the sheer volume of books put out by
 publishers here because the demand tends to be much lower (especially
 for non-fiction books). They do not have Amazon.com or massive
 real-life bookstores, so "specialty" books would not sell because they
 would have no way to reach their intended audience!

 And they say, that the internet will change all this. Well, in these
 societies, although internet access is on the rise, it is still very,
 very, low. Even if you do have internet access, it takes a somewhat
 higher degree of computer literacy to be able to _publish_ on the
 internet. What? You want to put your knowledge on Wikipedia? Go ahead!

 ...

 Sorry, your knowledge is not referenced. It has been deleted. You know
 nothing that is worth anything.

 We are telling the developing world that they do not matter and that
 they are stupid.

 Mark

 On 09/01/07, J.L.W.S. The Special One wrote:
  Requiring verifiability creates systemic bias. To
be more accurate, it
 enforces the systemic bias of existing references.

 On 1/9/07, Michael Billington wrote:
  On 1/9/07, Lars Aronsson wrote:

 Andre Engels wrote:
 > I guess I should not go into the examples, but in this case my opinion
 is
 > that 50,000 would be too high a limit, I myself would be thinking of
 2,000
 > or 5,000.

 Absolutely. Perhaps for the U.S. and parts of Germany we are
 approaching full coverage of all places with 5,000 people. But
 for India I doubt if we have covered all cities with 50,000.
 Nothing stops the limit from being set at 500 too. But a lower
 limit could be questioned a lot more easily than a higher one.
 Then again, some places with 50,000 people are less notable than
 some very small places. But if you can point to the fact that a
 place has 50,000 inhabitants (or was the birth places for a
 president), then it is a lot easier to defend its notability.

 On one side we have western places. For instance, Wikipedia has an article
 about my town, political division and local member of parliament. My town
 and surrounding ones (all of which have wiki articles) have a population of
 1,500 or so. Rambot has written articles about towns 1/10th of the size of
 mine.

 However, whilst lists of Australian, German or US (and more) topics are
 mostly blue links, there are lists populated almost entirely by red links,
 such as [[List of Sudanese singers]]. Unfortunately, very few or no reliable
 sources will probably be found to warrant articles about these singers (at
 least not on the internet), and the only way to get coverage of a large
 portion of them would be through original research (which we can't do
 obviously), or to find print sources. So does anyone on this mailing list
 happen to have access to archives for a Sudanese newspaper? It would be nice
 if we could get more things like [[WP:AWNB]] for smaller countries, so we
 can find people more local* who may very well be able to walk to a library
 to find sources and add articles. That could work wonders for coverage :-)

 *And I may be a bit too ambitious in assuming we have editors from just
 about every country

 Michael Billington
 _______________________________________________
 Wikipedia-l mailing list
 Wikipedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
 http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l

 --
 Written with passion,
 J.L.W.S. The Special One

 _______________________________________________
 Wikipedia-l mailing list
 Wikipedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
 http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l

 --
 Refije dirije lanm? yo paske nou posede pw?p bato.

 _______________________________________________
 Wikipedia-l mailing list
 Wikipedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
 http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l

-- 
Written with passion,
J.L.W.S. The Special One

------------------------------

Message: 3
Date: Tue, 9 Jan 2007 05:51:22 -0700
From: "Mark Williamson" 
Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Entries for deletion.... issues from the
Third World
To: wikipedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
Message-ID:
&lt;849f98ed0701090451m78af8519k6c57310da36f0d8f(a)mail.gmail.com&gt;
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed

Yes. If you interview Jack Neo, you should keep a copy of it somewhere
online or on your personal computer. You may reference it from the
article, but it is of the utmost importance that you can produce a
copy of the interview if anyone wants it.

Mark

On 09/01/07, J.L.W.S. The Special One wrote:
...
  A very interesting and comprehensive post.

 You forgot to mention about the language barrier.

 I agree that verifiability is important, but making it compulsory
 introduces problems such as systemic bias.

 Where should we raise this issue for further discussion?

 I've been working on an article on a Singaporean movie - I Not Stupid.
 It's close to GA status, but there is very little referenced
 information on the production of the film. My friend suggested I
 interview Jack Neo - my idol, who wrote the movie. Since his child
 studies in my school, getting an interview is not out of the question.
 The problem is: how do I publish it?

 On 1/9/07, Mark Williamson wrote:
  This is true. However, is there a workable
solution to that?

 I remember when people didn't worry too much about references on
 Wikipedia. Sure, you were supposed to have them, but as long as you
 had a nice article, nobody cared.

 Well, what if I know the truth, but it is not written anywhere? What
 if I interview 100 people to make sure they agree, and they do? What
 if it is common knowledge in my village, which nobody will challenge?

 The answer: it will be labeled "unverifiable" or "non-notable" and
deleted.

 Wikipedia's current message to the world: If it's never been written
 about, or been mentioned in a sound recording or a film, it's not
 important.

 Well:

 1) Not all cultures have writing.
 2) Among those cultures which DO have writing, they each place
 different importance values on it. In my daily life, I am using it
 constantly. My desk is littered with books with their titles written
 on them, products with their labels. If I go driving, some of the
 signs will have writing on them, there are billboards, signs for
 businesses, all of them using writing. But in some cultures, writing
 may not be used so extensively. Maybe it is usually just used for
 poetry, or just for writing letters to people who are far away. The
 concept of mass communication is foreign to most cultures still, and
 if you don't need mass communication, writing is hardly necessary,
 except to write a letter to someone who is not present.
 3) Among the population of the Earth, a very, very large portion live
 in societies that are not highly literate or which don't place a high
 importance on writing. Most societies don't record every aspect of
 life the way we do. Yes, there are newspapers in India (although to
 the best of my knowledge there are no newspapers in Igbo or Aymara or
 Afar), there are books in Nepal, but if you look it up, the sheer
 volume of materials published in the First World per-capita far, far,
 far, far exceeds that of anywhere else.

 Here, if someone sees an insect doing something strange, they write a
 paper or a book about it, and if they don't, somebody else will! But
 in most countries, this is not the case. Books cost money to make.
 People in developing countries often don't have this money. There are
 no or (comparatively) few publishers there, and those that do exist
 cannot afford to put out the sheer volume of books put out by
 publishers here because the demand tends to be much lower (especially
 for non-fiction books). They do not have Amazon.com or massive
 real-life bookstores, so "specialty" books would not sell because they
 would have no way to reach their intended audience!

 And they say, that the internet will change all this. Well, in these
 societies, although internet access is on the rise, it is still very,
 very, low. Even if you do have internet access, it takes a somewhat
 higher degree of computer literacy to be able to _publish_ on the
 internet. What? You want to put your knowledge on Wikipedia? Go ahead!

 ...

 Sorry, your knowledge is not referenced. It has been deleted. You know
 nothing that is worth anything.

 We are telling the developing world that they do not matter and that
 they are stupid.

 Mark

 On 09/01/07, J.L.W.S. The Special One wrote:
  Requiring verifiability creates systemic bias. To
be more accurate, it
 enforces the systemic bias of existing references.

 On 1/9/07, Michael Billington wrote:
  On 1/9/07, Lars Aronsson wrote:
 >
 > Andre Engels wrote:
 > > I guess I should not go into the examples, but in this case my opinion
 > is
 > > that 50,000 would be too high a limit, I myself would be thinking of
 > 2,000
 > > or 5,000.
 >
 > Absolutely. Perhaps for the U.S. and parts of Germany we are
 > approaching full coverage of all places with 5,000 people. But
 > for India I doubt if we have covered all cities with 50,000.
 > Nothing stops the limit from being set at 500 too. But a lower
 > limit could be questioned a lot more easily than a higher one.
 > Then again, some places with 50,000 people are less notable than
 > some very small places. But if you can point to the fact that a
 > place has 50,000 inhabitants (or was the birth places for a
 > president), then it is a lot easier to defend its notability.
 >

 On one side we have western places. For instance, Wikipedia has an article
 about my town, political division and local member of parliament. My town
 and surrounding ones (all of which have wiki articles) have a population of
 1,500 or so. Rambot has written articles about towns 1/10th of the size of
 mine.

 However, whilst lists of Australian, German or US (and more) topics are
 mostly blue links, there are lists populated almost entirely by red links,
 such as [[List of Sudanese singers]]. Unfortunately, very few or no reliable
 sources will probably be found to warrant articles about these singers (at
 least not on the internet), and the only way to get coverage of a large
 portion of them would be through original research (which we can't do
 obviously), or to find print sources. So does anyone on this mailing list
 happen to have access to archives for a Sudanese newspaper? It would be nice
 if we could get more things like [[WP:AWNB]] for smaller countries, so we
 can find people more local* who may very well be able to walk to a library
 to find sources and add articles. That could work wonders for coverage :-)

 *And I may be a bit too ambitious in assuming we have editors from just
 about every country

 Michael Billington
 _______________________________________________
 Wikipedia-l mailing list
 Wikipedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
 http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l

 --
 Written with passion,
 J.L.W.S. The Special One

 _______________________________________________
 Wikipedia-l mailing list
 Wikipedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
 http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l

 --
 Refije dirije lanm? yo paske nou posede pw?p bato.

 _______________________________________________
 Wikipedia-l mailing list
 Wikipedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
 http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l

 --
 Written with passion,
 J.L.W.S. The Special One

 _______________________________________________
 Wikipedia-l mailing list
 Wikipedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
 http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l

-- 
Refije dirije lanm? yo paske nou posede pw?p bato.

------------------------------

Message: 4
Date: Tue, 9 Jan 2007 20:55:08 +0800
From: "J.L.W.S. The Special One" 
Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Entries for deletion.... issues from the
Third World
To: wikipedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
Message-ID:

Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed

Perhaps I could join Wikinews and add a copy of the interview there?

On 1/9/07, Mark Williamson wrote:
...
  Yes. If you interview Jack Neo, you should keep a copy
of it somewhere
 online or on your personal computer. You may reference it from the
 article, but it is of the utmost importance that you can produce a
 copy of the interview if anyone wants it.

 Mark

 On 09/01/07, J.L.W.S. The Special One wrote:
 > A very interesting and comprehensive post.
 >
 > You forgot to mention about the language barrier.
 >
 > I agree that verifiability is important, but making it compulsory
 > introduces problems such as systemic bias.
 >
 > Where should we raise this issue for further discussion?
 >
 > I've been working on an article on a Singaporean movie - I Not Stupid.
 > It's close to GA status, but there is very little referenced
 > information on the production of the film. My friend suggested I
 > interview Jack Neo - my idol, who wrote the movie. Since his child
 > studies in my school, getting an interview is not out of the question.
 > The problem is: how do I publish it?
 >
 > On 1/9/07, Mark Williamson wrote:
 > > This is true. However, is there a workable solution to that?
 > >
 > > I remember when people didn't worry too much about references on
 > > Wikipedia. Sure, you were supposed to have them, but as long as you
 > > had a nice article, nobody cared.
 > >
 > > Well, what if I know the truth, but it is not written anywhere? What
 > > if I interview 100 people to make sure they agree, and they do? What
 > > if it is common knowledge in my village, which nobody will challenge? 
=== message truncated ===

Firoozeh Derakhshani

firoozeh_derakhshani(a)yahoo.com
Tel:(9821) 8808-8866/8807-7338
Fax(9821)8857-8944
Mobile:+912347031
Add:18 Hormozan Tower, Phase2
Shahrak Gharb
Tehran 14666
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