Message: 11 Date: Fri, 11 Mar 2005 20:29:05 +0100 From: Gerard Meijssen Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] The role of a wikipedia for a language like Hopi To: wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org Message-ID: 4231F181.60408@gmail.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
Delirium wrote:
Ulf Lunde wrote:
I also wanted to say that I agree that gerard Meijssen's point is very important: The wikipedias are indeed culture-bearers for their respective populations, and not just for humanity as a whole!
I disagree that this should be the case, and to the extent that it is, feel it should be corrected. Languages are not culture, although they have connections with it.
Languages are not culture ?? Encyclopedias most certainly are !! Please consider what words are used in a culture. The English used reflects the culture the person speaking or writing comes from. The idea that you can divorse culture from language is odd. When comparing articles on the same topic the diffferences are sometimes huge.
If we wanted languages to be identified with culture, then we should split some up, and have a "United States" wikipedia as a culture-bearer for the U.S., a "French Canadian" Wikipedia as a culture-bearer for French-Canadians, and so on. But we don't, and to the extent possible keep these together. In essence, the only reason we have separate Wikipedias at all is because of language barriers---when languages are similar enough to keep together (as with the French spoken in Canada vs. France vs. Algeria), we do so.
Or do people actually seriously think we *should* have separate Wikipedias catering to different cultures?
When we have an encyclopedia with articles that are acceptable to all people who speak a language, we aim to achieve a neutral point of view and provide more extended information. We want to maintain one wikipedia bridging the divide between the cultures that use a language. Given the virtually limitless amount of harddrive capacity we have articles on cricket and honkbal. We are happy to host any topic that is of intrest. What this discussion is about, is not about en: or fr: It is about Hopi. By having a Hopi or a Dutch or a Frisian wikipedia, you allow many topics to be narrated with a Hopi, Dutch or Frisian point of view. Not a non-neutral but with a Hopi, Dutch or Frisian point of view. This is good because certain things that are true from an English perspective are plain different and non-neutral from another culture point of view. To put it bluntly, the words mean different things, they have different conotations denying people a resource like that is like denying that languages differ and that languages reflect a culture.
The UN has a mother language day. This day is to celebrate the diversity of the cultures of the world. All languages have a need for good information, that is what wikimedia aims to provide. The argument that the Dutch can read and write English and do not their own wikipedia is great. It only reminds me of a recent tiff I was in, where I was accused of not being able to express myself in English... So please allow me to read and write in Nederlands and, I will not be asking for a wikipedia in Westfries. :) And I do apologize for my poor English (or was it apologise ...)
I would almost accept your point if you agree to only read French or Chinese in future. You will find how much it will divorce you from the culture that you live in.
Thanks, GerardM
I agree with Gerard here. I believe scn.wiki serves to explore certain topics from a Sicilian perspective. Why? Rely on the English wikipedia to be NPOV about matters relevant to Sicily? Yeh, right! Do that and you may be excused for thinking that Frederick II never set foot in Sicily and was entirely uninfluenced by his education and upbringing in Palermo (in fact he was educated in Rome according to en.wiki!! the discussion page even questions whether he could possibly have spoken 9 languages - but if they knew anything about medieval Sicily, they would not bother asking the question); that the Sicilian language pretty much stopped developing during the Saracen epoch (with Norman French, Catalan and Spanish, after many paragraphs, being mentioned briefly in one closing line as "influences"); that "Trinacria" may not have come to exist as the Greek name for the island because of the triangular shape of the island - surely this can't be so because it predates proper cartographic technology, i.e. if the English, Americans, or North Europeans didn't do it first - as if a bunch of southern Europeans could have managed it!
NPOV? Please, spare me.
pippu d'angelo
--------------------------------- Nuovo Yahoo! Messenger E' molto più divertente: Audibles, Avatar, Webcam, Giochi, Rubrica Scaricalo ora!
On a similar note, see Bill Gates' essay on Encarta titled "The facts depend on where you are coming from". Ultimately he suggests it "present opposing points of view where appropriate", but notice how the different language editions are having their facts and emphasis warped to meet culture, because "readers will get upset about content that may fly in the face of their reality."
Jack Lutz wrote:
On a similar note, see Bill Gates' essay on Encarta titled "The facts depend on where you are coming from". Ultimately he suggests it "present opposing points of view where appropriate", but notice how the different language editions are having their facts and emphasis warped to meet culture, because "readers will get upset about content that may fly in the face of their reality."
This sounds exactly contrary to NPOV, a lot more like "write biased encyclopedias that will be more locally popular". If the Serbian Wikipedia is biased towards the Serbian viewpoint when it comes to regional conflicts, and the Bosnian Wikipedia is biased towards the Bosnian viewpoint, then they're _useless_ when it comes to providing NPOV information, and any Serbian or Bosnian interested in such information would have to turn to one of the other Wikipedias (en, fr, de, ...) for it.
I'd think we'd want people to be able to get globally neutral information in their local language, not just the locally-biased version.
-Mark
I think in the end the people of the world will want both. We can choose to serve that want or not. NPOV can function in both environments but can subtly change in different cultures.
Fred
From: Delirium delirium@hackish.org Reply-To: wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org Date: Sat, 12 Mar 2005 10:07:34 -0500 To: wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Re: NPOV
Jack Lutz wrote:
On a similar note, see Bill Gates' essay on Encarta titled "The facts depend on where you are coming from". Ultimately he suggests it "present opposing points of view where appropriate", but notice how the different language editions are having their facts and emphasis warped to meet culture, because "readers will get upset about content that may fly in the face of their reality."
This sounds exactly contrary to NPOV, a lot more like "write biased encyclopedias that will be more locally popular". If the Serbian Wikipedia is biased towards the Serbian viewpoint when it comes to regional conflicts, and the Bosnian Wikipedia is biased towards the Bosnian viewpoint, then they're _useless_ when it comes to providing NPOV information, and any Serbian or Bosnian interested in such information would have to turn to one of the other Wikipedias (en, fr, de, ...) for it.
I'd think we'd want people to be able to get globally neutral information in their local language, not just the locally-biased version.
-Mark
Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
Hi all,
Editing the Ossetic Wikipedia I've encountered lots of interwiki problems:
1. Interwiki links to os.wikipedia never appear in other language wikipedias.
2. Interwiki links to some wikipedias (cv, ce, lb and other codes) do not work in os.wikipedia.
3. Standard prefixes for other WikiMedia projects don't work as well, leaving red links.
What can be done about all that and _who_ can help?
As an excellent illustration to my words here's the list of languages of wikipedia: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Complete_list_of_language_Wikipedias_availabl... The Ossetic is among the "active" (at least 100 articles), but it's code is in red. ;)
Slavik
This is not possible.
While ultimately the English and French versions may or may not be /less/ biased in this way, there is no such thing as 0 bias and NPOV is subjective based on the collective cultural experience of the group.
Mark
On Sat, 12 Mar 2005 10:07:34 -0500, Delirium delirium@hackish.org wrote:
Jack Lutz wrote:
On a similar note, see Bill Gates' essay on Encarta titled "The facts depend on where you are coming from". Ultimately he suggests it "present opposing points of view where appropriate", but notice how the different language editions are having their facts and emphasis warped to meet culture, because "readers will get upset about content that may fly in the face of their reality."
This sounds exactly contrary to NPOV, a lot more like "write biased encyclopedias that will be more locally popular". If the Serbian Wikipedia is biased towards the Serbian viewpoint when it comes to regional conflicts, and the Bosnian Wikipedia is biased towards the Bosnian viewpoint, then they're _useless_ when it comes to providing NPOV information, and any Serbian or Bosnian interested in such information would have to turn to one of the other Wikipedias (en, fr, de, ...) for it.
I'd think we'd want people to be able to get globally neutral information in their local language, not just the locally-biased version.
-Mark
Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
This is the reason that it is necessary for anyone who is able to edit on a Wiki outside their country of residence. The English wikipedia is a representative of people who speak English all over the world. The fact that the vast majority of those users are American does not, in my mind, change the fact that a English-speaking person in France can correct point-of-view problems on an article regarding Denmark, or any other combination. There will always be an inherent bias towards wherever the most editors hail from. This simply heightens the need for those who do not live there to provide what could be considered outside input.
On Sat, 12 Mar 2005 16:22:24 -0700, Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com wrote:
This is not possible.
While ultimately the English and French versions may or may not be /less/ biased in this way, there is no such thing as 0 bias and NPOV is subjective based on the collective cultural experience of the group.
Mark
On Sat, 12 Mar 2005 10:07:34 -0500, Delirium delirium@hackish.org wrote:
Jack Lutz wrote:
On a similar note, see Bill Gates' essay on Encarta titled "The facts depend on where you are coming from". Ultimately he suggests it "present opposing points of view where appropriate", but notice how the different language editions are having their facts and emphasis warped to meet culture, because "readers will get upset about content that may fly in the face of their reality."
This sounds exactly contrary to NPOV, a lot more like "write biased encyclopedias that will be more locally popular". If the Serbian Wikipedia is biased towards the Serbian viewpoint when it comes to regional conflicts, and the Bosnian Wikipedia is biased towards the Bosnian viewpoint, then they're _useless_ when it comes to providing NPOV information, and any Serbian or Bosnian interested in such information would have to turn to one of the other Wikipedias (en, fr, de, ...) for it.
I'd think we'd want people to be able to get globally neutral information in their local language, not just the locally-biased version.
-Mark
Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
This is a very narrow-minded view I often encounter.
"So many people around the world speak English!"
In most counts of second-language speakers of English, actual ability is not measured. Thus I might take a random sample of Nicaraguans and find out if they speak English. What do I define "speak English" as? For most counts, that's simply people who /say/ they speak English, which is a lot larger than the number of people who can actually read, write, and/or speak English at an elementary level.
It's especially exaggerated in for example African countries (for example Nigeria), as well as India, many places in Europe, and the like.
In the end we would still come up with a fairly large number of English speakers, even with a revised more accurate count. But a much smaller percentage of them would be second language speakers from outside the US, UK, Canada, Australia, NZ, and Ireland (plus the other, smaller countries where English is the native language for most people).
Yes, we do get some degree of POV counterbalancing from non-native speakers of English, but what percentage of editors on en: speak English as their second or third (or other - I find now on en: that in biographical articles where it says somebody speaks even so few as 9 languages [in the field of polyglots, that's relatively small], people question if that's even possssible on the talkpage out of ignorance) language? AFAICT, it's decreasing rapidly as we get more and more people (an increasing number of them are blockheads, bringing our blockhead percentage up as well to dangerous levels), mostly from the US, Canada, UK, NZ, and Australia (all the people I have met that are my age know about Wikipedia, which is shocking since this wouldn'tve been true a year ago).
Nearly all the non-first-language editors on en: are from the upper economic strata of their respective societies where fluency in English is more common than in, say, the lower middle class.
All these factors combined mean that en: is still very much shaped by the collective cultural experiences of its editors, and thus while we try to remove systemic bias we still miss some important POV holdouts because they don't jump out at us, and en: is still very much an encyclopaedia written from an American-Australian-NewZealandic-Canadian-British perspective/POV with only relatively minor counterbalances from those whose cultural experiences fall outside those of the aforementioned English-native group.
Still, the counterbalances are greater than they are on, say, the Greek Wikipedia, or the Serbian Wikipedia, or the Chinese Wikipedia.
My point is that all Wikipedias have their inherent biases.
People seem to think this is a huge problem, but for now it is unsolveable and it will remain unsolveable until we can see a full, accurate MT solution implemented in a Wikipaedic context.
Mark
Ti Jay Converse supermo0@gmail.com 12.03.05 21:54:30 -0500 siá-kóng:
This is the reason that it is necessary for anyone who is able to edit on a Wiki outside their country of residence. The English wikipedia is a representative of people who speak English all over the world. The fact that the vast majority of those users are American does not, in my mind, change the fact that a English-speaking person in France can correct point-of-view problems on an article regarding Denmark, or any other combination. There will always be an inherent bias towards wherever the most editors hail from. This simply heightens the need for those who do not live there to provide what could be considered outside input.
On Sat, 12 Mar 2005 16:22:24 -0700, Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com wrote:
This is not possible.
While ultimately the English and French versions may or may not be /less/ biased in this way, there is no such thing as 0 bias and NPOV is subjective based on the collective cultural experience of the group.
Mark
On Sat, 12 Mar 2005 10:07:34 -0500, Delirium delirium@hackish.org wrote:
Jack Lutz wrote:
On a similar note, see Bill Gates' essay on Encarta titled "The facts depend on where you are coming from". Ultimately he suggests it "present opposing points of view where appropriate", but notice how the different language editions are having their facts and emphasis warped to meet culture, because "readers will get upset about content that may fly in the face of their reality."
This sounds exactly contrary to NPOV, a lot more like "write biased encyclopedias that will be more locally popular". If the Serbian Wikipedia is biased towards the Serbian viewpoint when it comes to regional conflicts, and the Bosnian Wikipedia is biased towards the Bosnian viewpoint, then they're _useless_ when it comes to providing NPOV information, and any Serbian or Bosnian interested in such information would have to turn to one of the other Wikipedias (en, fr, de, ...) for it.
I'd think we'd want people to be able to get globally neutral information in their local language, not just the locally-biased version.
-Mark
Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
-- I'm not stupid, just selectively ignorant.
I wasn't trying to imply that this bias was in any way avoidable. I was simply trying to point out that without the valuable contributions of those who are not native speakers of English, the Wikipedia would be much more biased towards the large group of nations you just pointed out. I am also fully aware that English is not close to being the most spoken language in the world.
In short, I agree with everything you've mentioned. I'm not trying to sound like a copout, but I think somewhere along the way what I said previously was either misinterpreted, or I managed to brainfart and say something in a way I didn't mean. Apologies.
On Sat, 12 Mar 2005 20:30:43 -0700, Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com wrote:
This is a very narrow-minded view I often encounter.
"So many people around the world speak English!"
In most counts of second-language speakers of English, actual ability is not measured. Thus I might take a random sample of Nicaraguans and find out if they speak English. What do I define "speak English" as? For most counts, that's simply people who /say/ they speak English, which is a lot larger than the number of people who can actually read, write, and/or speak English at an elementary level.
It's especially exaggerated in for example African countries (for example Nigeria), as well as India, many places in Europe, and the like.
In the end we would still come up with a fairly large number of English speakers, even with a revised more accurate count. But a much smaller percentage of them would be second language speakers from outside the US, UK, Canada, Australia, NZ, and Ireland (plus the other, smaller countries where English is the native language for most people).
Yes, we do get some degree of POV counterbalancing from non-native speakers of English, but what percentage of editors on en: speak English as their second or third (or other - I find now on en: that in biographical articles where it says somebody speaks even so few as 9 languages [in the field of polyglots, that's relatively small], people question if that's even possssible on the talkpage out of ignorance) language? AFAICT, it's decreasing rapidly as we get more and more people (an increasing number of them are blockheads, bringing our blockhead percentage up as well to dangerous levels), mostly from the US, Canada, UK, NZ, and Australia (all the people I have met that are my age know about Wikipedia, which is shocking since this wouldn'tve been true a year ago).
Nearly all the non-first-language editors on en: are from the upper economic strata of their respective societies where fluency in English is more common than in, say, the lower middle class.
All these factors combined mean that en: is still very much shaped by the collective cultural experiences of its editors, and thus while we try to remove systemic bias we still miss some important POV holdouts because they don't jump out at us, and en: is still very much an encyclopaedia written from an American-Australian-NewZealandic-Canadian-British perspective/POV with only relatively minor counterbalances from those whose cultural experiences fall outside those of the aforementioned English-native group.
Still, the counterbalances are greater than they are on, say, the Greek Wikipedia, or the Serbian Wikipedia, or the Chinese Wikipedia.
My point is that all Wikipedias have their inherent biases.
People seem to think this is a huge problem, but for now it is unsolveable and it will remain unsolveable until we can see a full, accurate MT solution implemented in a Wikipaedic context.
Mark
Ti Jay Converse supermo0@gmail.com 12.03.05 21:54:30 -0500 siá-kóng:
This is the reason that it is necessary for anyone who is able to edit on a Wiki outside their country of residence. The English wikipedia is a representative of people who speak English all over the world. The fact that the vast majority of those users are American does not, in my mind, change the fact that a English-speaking person in France can correct point-of-view problems on an article regarding Denmark, or any other combination. There will always be an inherent bias towards wherever the most editors hail from. This simply heightens the need for those who do not live there to provide what could be considered outside input.
On Sat, 12 Mar 2005 16:22:24 -0700, Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com wrote:
This is not possible.
While ultimately the English and French versions may or may not be /less/ biased in this way, there is no such thing as 0 bias and NPOV is subjective based on the collective cultural experience of the group.
Mark
On Sat, 12 Mar 2005 10:07:34 -0500, Delirium delirium@hackish.org wrote:
Jack Lutz wrote:
On a similar note, see Bill Gates' essay on Encarta titled "The facts depend on where you are coming from". Ultimately he suggests it "present opposing points of view where appropriate", but notice how the different language editions are having their facts and emphasis warped to meet culture, because "readers will get upset about content that may fly in the face of their reality."
This sounds exactly contrary to NPOV, a lot more like "write biased encyclopedias that will be more locally popular". If the Serbian Wikipedia is biased towards the Serbian viewpoint when it comes to regional conflicts, and the Bosnian Wikipedia is biased towards the Bosnian viewpoint, then they're _useless_ when it comes to providing NPOV information, and any Serbian or Bosnian interested in such information would have to turn to one of the other Wikipedias (en, fr, de, ...) for it.
I'd think we'd want people to be able to get globally neutral information in their local language, not just the locally-biased version.
-Mark
Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
-- I'm not stupid, just selectively ignorant.
Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
Again, I see the term "the Wikipedia". I had previously thought this was reserved entirely for journalists. But let's remember forks, Wikipedia is many and one at the same time. There is no "the" Wikipedia - the proper way to say it is "a Wikipedia", "en.wikipedia", or "the English Wikipedia".
Anyhow, I didn't think you were trying to imply it was avoidable.
It just struck me that you seem to believe that the NPOV level of en: *far* surpasses that of smaller Wikipedias, when in fact it does not. I will explain this in greater detail in my response to Mark's message.
Mark
On Sat, 12 Mar 2005 22:36:50 -0500, Jay Converse supermo0@gmail.com wrote:
I wasn't trying to imply that this bias was in any way avoidable. I was simply trying to point out that without the valuable contributions of those who are not native speakers of English, the Wikipedia would be much more biased towards the large group of nations you just pointed out. I am also fully aware that English is not close to being the most spoken language in the world.
In short, I agree with everything you've mentioned. I'm not trying to sound like a copout, but I think somewhere along the way what I said previously was either misinterpreted, or I managed to brainfart and say something in a way I didn't mean. Apologies.
On Sat, 12 Mar 2005 20:30:43 -0700, Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com wrote:
This is a very narrow-minded view I often encounter.
"So many people around the world speak English!"
In most counts of second-language speakers of English, actual ability is not measured. Thus I might take a random sample of Nicaraguans and find out if they speak English. What do I define "speak English" as? For most counts, that's simply people who /say/ they speak English, which is a lot larger than the number of people who can actually read, write, and/or speak English at an elementary level.
It's especially exaggerated in for example African countries (for example Nigeria), as well as India, many places in Europe, and the like.
In the end we would still come up with a fairly large number of English speakers, even with a revised more accurate count. But a much smaller percentage of them would be second language speakers from outside the US, UK, Canada, Australia, NZ, and Ireland (plus the other, smaller countries where English is the native language for most people).
Yes, we do get some degree of POV counterbalancing from non-native speakers of English, but what percentage of editors on en: speak English as their second or third (or other - I find now on en: that in biographical articles where it says somebody speaks even so few as 9 languages [in the field of polyglots, that's relatively small], people question if that's even possssible on the talkpage out of ignorance) language? AFAICT, it's decreasing rapidly as we get more and more people (an increasing number of them are blockheads, bringing our blockhead percentage up as well to dangerous levels), mostly from the US, Canada, UK, NZ, and Australia (all the people I have met that are my age know about Wikipedia, which is shocking since this wouldn'tve been true a year ago).
Nearly all the non-first-language editors on en: are from the upper economic strata of their respective societies where fluency in English is more common than in, say, the lower middle class.
All these factors combined mean that en: is still very much shaped by the collective cultural experiences of its editors, and thus while we try to remove systemic bias we still miss some important POV holdouts because they don't jump out at us, and en: is still very much an encyclopaedia written from an American-Australian-NewZealandic-Canadian-British perspective/POV with only relatively minor counterbalances from those whose cultural experiences fall outside those of the aforementioned English-native group.
Still, the counterbalances are greater than they are on, say, the Greek Wikipedia, or the Serbian Wikipedia, or the Chinese Wikipedia.
My point is that all Wikipedias have their inherent biases.
People seem to think this is a huge problem, but for now it is unsolveable and it will remain unsolveable until we can see a full, accurate MT solution implemented in a Wikipaedic context.
Mark
Ti Jay Converse supermo0@gmail.com 12.03.05 21:54:30 -0500 siá-kóng:
This is the reason that it is necessary for anyone who is able to edit on a Wiki outside their country of residence. The English wikipedia is a representative of people who speak English all over the world. The fact that the vast majority of those users are American does not, in my mind, change the fact that a English-speaking person in France can correct point-of-view problems on an article regarding Denmark, or any other combination. There will always be an inherent bias towards wherever the most editors hail from. This simply heightens the need for those who do not live there to provide what could be considered outside input.
On Sat, 12 Mar 2005 16:22:24 -0700, Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com wrote:
This is not possible.
While ultimately the English and French versions may or may not be /less/ biased in this way, there is no such thing as 0 bias and NPOV is subjective based on the collective cultural experience of the group.
Mark
On Sat, 12 Mar 2005 10:07:34 -0500, Delirium delirium@hackish.org wrote:
Jack Lutz wrote:
On a similar note, see Bill Gates' essay on Encarta titled "The facts depend on where you are coming from". Ultimately he suggests it "present opposing points of view where appropriate", but notice how the different language editions are having their facts and emphasis warped to meet culture, because "readers will get upset about content that may fly in the face of their reality."
This sounds exactly contrary to NPOV, a lot more like "write biased encyclopedias that will be more locally popular". If the Serbian Wikipedia is biased towards the Serbian viewpoint when it comes to regional conflicts, and the Bosnian Wikipedia is biased towards the Bosnian viewpoint, then they're _useless_ when it comes to providing NPOV information, and any Serbian or Bosnian interested in such information would have to turn to one of the other Wikipedias (en, fr, de, ...) for it.
I'd think we'd want people to be able to get globally neutral information in their local language, not just the locally-biased version.
-Mark
Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
-- I'm not stupid, just selectively ignorant.
Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
-- I'm not stupid, just selectively ignorant.
Mark Williamson wrote:
All these factors combined mean that en: is still very much shaped by the collective cultural experiences of its editors, and thus while we try to remove systemic bias we still miss some important POV holdouts because they don't jump out at us, and en: is still very much an encyclopaedia written from an American-Australian-NewZealandic-Canadian-British perspective/POV with only relatively minor counterbalances from those whose cultural experiences fall outside those of the aforementioned English-native group.
This depends a lot on where on en: Wikipedia you look. Many of the articles related to mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan have been edited by people who actually live there, and their opinions tend to be given somewhat disproportionate weight, as they're presumed to know what they're talking about (not exclusive weight, but more than my opinions on Hong Kong would be given). There was even a class in Hong Kong whose teacher had his students go around on en: adding articles on different places, companies, etc. in the city.
Just now I clicked on "Random page", and I got [[Vienna U-Bahn]], written by [[User:ThomasK]], whose user page indicates he lives in Vienna. Etc.
Percentage-wise, non-English-world users might not make up a large proportion of the editors, but their influence is fairly strong, especially on subjects related to their home country.
-Mark
It is indeed true that areas relating to "the home country" are very likely to be influenced, at least to some degree, by people whose first language is not English.
You make an interesting point, too. There is widespread unconcious discrimination on Wikipedia.
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".
This can be found in the real world as well, but more often than not it is based on the colour of one's skin and the shape of one's eyes rather than heritage and so a man of Japanese heritage born and raised in London will be trusted more regarding Chinese history than will a BTR woman who was born and raised in Beijing and completed university there simply because she doesn't look "Asian" but he does.
But that is getting off topic and I don't think anybody denies it to a large degree, so back to the topic at hand.
Since on most smaller Wikipedias there is usually nobody with enough knowledge about "home countries" other than their own to write much about them, articles such as that are often translations of the English or teh French version.
If a man on the Cantonese Wikipedia (which doesn't actually exist... yet) were to write an article on "Vienna U-Bahn" (that's Vienna Underground, isn't it?), excluding the possibility that he lives or lived at one point in Vienna and knows more than a little bit about the U-Bahn, he will most likely translate from the English or French version, or (perhaps a bit less common) research it on Google to write an original article; in many cases he will use a mixture of the English version and information from Google and completely organise it into what seems like an original article but contains mostly the same information.
Because of this, articles about "the home country" tend to vary little between Wikipedias (especially smaller ones), and since they are by far en:'s articles most influenced by people whose first language is not English, the "POV balancing" and "fact correction" that occurs in articles by non first language-speakers on en: is spread around across projects like butter on bread. Thus, the degree of inherent POV in all Wikipedias is very similar because of this repeated exchange of a narrow range of articles.
Mark (am I "the other Mark"?)
On Sun, 13 Mar 2005 01:48:33 -0500, Delirium delirium@hackish.org wrote:
Mark Williamson wrote:
All these factors combined mean that en: is still very much shaped by the collective cultural experiences of its editors, and thus while we try to remove systemic bias we still miss some important POV holdouts because they don't jump out at us, and en: is still very much an encyclopaedia written from an American-Australian-NewZealandic-Canadian-British perspective/POV with only relatively minor counterbalances from those whose cultural experiences fall outside those of the aforementioned English-native group.
This depends a lot on where on en: Wikipedia you look. Many of the articles related to mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan have been edited by people who actually live there, and their opinions tend to be given somewhat disproportionate weight, as they're presumed to know what they're talking about (not exclusive weight, but more than my opinions on Hong Kong would be given). There was even a class in Hong Kong whose teacher had his students go around on en: adding articles on different places, companies, etc. in the city.
Just now I clicked on "Random page", and I got [[Vienna U-Bahn]], written by [[User:ThomasK]], whose user page indicates he lives in Vienna. Etc.
Percentage-wise, non-English-world users might not make up a large proportion of the editors, but their influence is fairly strong, especially on subjects related to their home country.
-Mark
Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
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.
Did you write [[m:How to deal with Poles]]?
Mark
On Sun, 13 Mar 2005 09:25:08 +0100, Tomasz Wegrzanowski taw@users.sf.net 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.
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
Delirium wrote:
Jack Lutz wrote:
On a similar note, see Bill Gates' essay on Encarta titled "The facts "readers will get upset about content that may fly in the face of their reality."
This sounds exactly contrary to NPOV, a lot more like "write biased encyclopedias that will be more locally popular".
Pure marketing speak, and it does indeed fly in the face of NPOV. See the recent fiery discussions on wikien-l about censorship and how people were saying we needed it for marketing reasons, and never mind that troublesome NPOV.
If NPOV makes people uncomfortable, too bad. It's essential to what Wikipedia is.
- d.
wikipedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org