[WikiEN-l] Wired on the Spanish mutiny

[Charles Matthews]

On 23/01/2011 05:13, Tony Sidaway wrote:
> 'I must be very naive not to have realised, all this time, that the
> so-called "English Wikipedia" was actually the "American Wikipedia".
> Or could that nomenclature reveal a somewhat suspicious starting
> point?'
>
> I don't see a problem with that choice of words. While there are large
> numbers of non-American contributors much of the English Wikipedia is
> about subjects of interest to American writers and written from a
> largely American point of view. I would not be surprised if this were
> even more pronounced in the early days.
(Something odd about your citing here, Tony.) Actually I think that 
misrepresents the history. The early days of the English Wikipedia 
featured a large proportion of non-native speakers of English contributing.

Anyway NPOV is not negotiable, as we know. There is  systemic bias 
towards American topics, as there is towards Anglospheric topics more 
generally, but that is another issue. (It is true that American 
sensibilities on 9/11 were treated with kid gloves for a while.)

Charles