[Wikimedia-l] Global East

[Fred Bauder]

And that explains an article on the United States full of misinformation
and an article on the Ottoman Empire that is somewhat better? Actually it
does: we have considerable distance from the Ottoman Empire; and little
ability to be objective about ourselves.

Fred

> Hoi,
> Every Wikipedia has its own point of view. They are all not neutral if
> only
> by omission. Do consider the amount of effort that has gone in the
> creation
> of articles relating to the United States of America,. Compare this with
> the coverage of the Ottoman Empire, given that the English Wikipedia is
> used all over the world, its coverage should be of a higher standard. The
> Ottoman Empire represents one of the more relevant civilisations, now
> consider all the countries who are considered to be less relevant...
> Thanks,
>       GerardM
>
>
> On 14 October 2013 14:57, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at fairpoint.net> wrote:
>
>> A nationalist point of view is not neutral point of view. I can imagine
>> what the dictator of Kazakstan considers a suitable article.
>>
>> Fred
>>
>> > Yesterday Yuri, ED of WMUA (and my college in FDC) was interviewed in
>> > the main morning program on Swedish Radio re the ua.wp contra ru:wp
>> in
>> > Ukraine and of Kazak WIkipedia
>> >
>> > The 8 minutes report is half in Swedish and half in English so a bit
>> > hard to listen to [1]
>> >
>> > The most interesting parts are
>> > *The Kazak dictator is making all academics in this country to update
>> > the Kazan version of Wikipedia, perhaps to get it POV but mostly so
>> they
>> > will not be dependent of ru:wp, ie he sees it as a must to have a
>> decent
>> > Wikipedia version in order to be independent of the culture from
>> Russia
>> > *In Ukraine the former education minister (pro eu and pro Ukrainian
>> > language) actively promoted the ua:wp so not be dependent on ru:wp.
>> The
>> > current minister have the opposite idea and has made Russian  an
>> > official second language in the eastern part of Ukraine
>> > *It seems the university students make it as almost a political
>> choice
>> > if to use ua:wp or ru:wp, and then in western Ukraine choose ua:wp
>> >
>> > The central role of Wikipedia in theses vital political issues I have
>> > not heard of from our ordinary "western" chapters/language versions
>> (or
>> > is catalonian/Amical an example)
>> >
>> > And reflecting on this, I also think, even if independent,  of the
>> > dramatic increase of use of arabic and indonesian wikipedia [2] .
>> Also
>> > of Vietnamese wikipedia which has a tremendous increase in number of
>> > article  by intellegent use of bots. Also of the very interesting
>> > development in India, with their many different language versions.
>> >
>> > We here very little (nothing?) from these interesting developments,
>> > where we all probably can have a lot to learn
>> >
>> > Asaf talks of the problem of getting Global South started as there
>> are
>> > very weak/missing wp communities. But are we as a movement doing
>> enough
>> > to support the active communities and developments in the Global
>> East?
>> > (I can not help also think of Sues words re elections within the
>> > movement. Do these processes conserve our existing dominance in Board
>> > and groups of representatives coming from western world?)
>> >
>> > Anders
>> >
>> >
>> > [1]
>> >
>> http://sverigesradio.se/api/radio/radio.aspx?type=db&id=4725418&codingformat=.m4a&metafile=asx
>> > [2]
>> http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/TablesPageViewsMonthlyCombined.htmtic
>> > increase of use of arabic wikipedia
>> >
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