[Foundation-l] A question for American Wikimedians

[Andreas Kolbe]

Glad to read this question here, have often wondered about this myself.

User:Emelian1977, an African American PhD student named Brenton Stewart, 
conducted a survey of Black American Wikipedians in 2008. I can only find a 
short write-up of his study online:

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http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:v_96mBI74-MJ:ocs.sfu.ca/aoir/index.php/ir/10/paper/view/185+%22Brenton+Stewart%22+black+wikipedia&cd=5&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk

Paper 2: Working for Free: Motivations Behind Black Contributions to the 
Wikipedia Project


The dirty little secret of the Internet is that it’s built upon free labor. 
Internet labor exists in a unique dualism in that the production and 
reproduction of web and social networking sites as well as the design of 
some computer games and software are manifest as entertainment, leisure or 
hobbyist escapism - but not as labor. Greg Downey (2001) argues that this 
type of “flexible labor is hard to see” noting that “the commodification of 
the virtual serves to mystify the material.” Few entities in the new 
digital economy have capitalized upon this form of labour extraction better 
than the Wikipedia Project, the world’s first peer-produced online 
encyclopedia.  However, Wikipedia’s sole reliance on unpaid laborers means 
that it reflects the interests and biases of these contributors who are 
overwhelmingly homogeneous. This study is a descriptive investigation into 
the factors that influence African American contributions to the Wikipedia 
project.  Situated within Tiziana Terranova’s (2001) social-factory theory 
this research seeks to understand the role of racial/ethnic identification 
as a motivator, Wikipedia as a space for the extension of black 
volunteerism, and the topics most frequently edited by this community of 
Wikipedians.  

The findings suggest that while these Wikipedians contribute 
as a form of entertainment and support for the democratization of 
information they are also motivated by their racial/ethnic identity, highly 
cognizant of their minority status and tended to view their edits (labor) 
as a transgressive act that is ultimately beneficial to the black 
community. This research argues the social-factory forms the foundation of 
not only Wikipedia but also a multitude of online peer-produced communities 
such as Facebook, MySpace and YouTube. What is most significant about these 
communities is that their end product, the cultural knowledge of the 
masses, is freely given and results in enormous revenue for their parent 
companies. This investigation contributes to diverse literature including 
media and library & information studies as well as cyber and community 
activism. 

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I'll let that stand there without comment; there are obviously several
ways one can look at that.

I know of at least one African American admin on en:WP, but only a handful 
of other black Wikipedians. A while ago I took part in discussions at
[[Ancient Egyptian race controversy]]; my impression was that black editors
there were given quite a hard time -- resistance to including works by 
black scholars, because they were deemed unreliable, etc., the standard
POV stuff. I tried to help out for a while, but then got sidetracked.

The influx of Indian editors will be an interesting challenge. I firmly
expect that at some point over the next 10 or 20 years, Indian editors will
have something like numerical parity with Western editors. At the moment,
being in a minority, they have trouble getting their points across. 

Look at [[British Empire]] for example, which paints a fairly rosy picture
of colonialism which would be considered ridiculously POV in India, or at
[[Famine in India]], an article written with a more Indian POV, where some 
of the same opponents are battling it out. What's NPOV depends on whether
you allow Indian sources or stick to Western sources. 

On top of it, an en:WP bureaucrat recently blocked an Indian editor in good
standing without prior warning and without talk page notice, for 2 weeks, 
for "trolling and pov pushing at British Empire and talk" (currently at
AN/I). Same crat also commented to another admin on their talk page,

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How the WMF sees India as the new goldmine and is making a big din there 
with speaking tours and likes. More like a goldmine of copyvio, ethnic and 
religious fundamentalist POV. There will be a flood of dudes like 
{{User|X}} if their initiative works, which'll be funny. As you can see on 
the mailing list, which is public, all these leaders are queueing, IPL-
style feeding frenzy. X is after me, lol 

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The other day, the same crat appeared to call another Indian editor a
"retarded nationalist" in an edit summary, never showed up for the 
resulting AN/I thread, and escaped without any sanction whatsoever.

A few mostly Indian editors have recently argued that the article 
[[Ganges]] should be renamed [[Ganga]], as that is now the river's official 
name in India. Now, to be sure, this is not a clearcut case, as Ganges can 
still be found in a few Indian sources, and the name Ganga is only making 
slow inroads in Western news reporting -- it does occur a few times, but 
not that often yet. But one brilliant, tell-tale comment in the discussion 
was, "When Britain and the USA start using Ganga predominently instead of 
Ganges, then the article could be changed." 

Now, this is India's holy river, and we always go on about how we want to
educate kids in poorer countries. But we are telling kids in India that
they can't read about their national river in an article that bears the
name that is the river's official name in their country. Comments like 
that, "When Britain and the USA start using Ganga predominently instead of 
Ganges", are just arrogant and unfortunate, and an extension of the 
colonial mindset. If the US changed the spelling of Mississippi, I bet that 
Wikipedia would follow suit the same day, regardless of whether the media 
in India had caught up with that change or not.

So I think one reason why we don't see more diversity is that the 
established, predominantly white user base is giving editors from other
backgrounds a pretty hard time!

Cheers,
Andreas