I agree... What would be worse is if the "systemic bias" follows the traditional fault lines, which we have been so concerned about for so long. After all, the New Media and its bottoms-up approach was meant to make things "different". That's why we have so much faith in it, and would like to invest our volunteer efforts here. Maybe, it is time we recognised this problem and began to deal with it: how do initiatives like the Wikipedia deal with non-English, non-visible, largely non-digitised and oral societies (which have wealth of their own, but not in a traditionally 'recognisable' sense)? To push a topic to Wikia just because *we* can't recognise it's worth is unfair to the topic. We can't also enter the vicious cycle of argument believing that because-it-isn't-there-it-isn't-prominent (how does it become 'prominent' in the first place, if it is being rejected on these grounds)?
Yet, there must be *some* way out. Am optimistic... FN
On 08/01/07, J.L.W.S. The Special One hildanknight@gmail.com wrote:
While working on articles about Singaporean movies, I've encountered a similar problem: difficulty finding references due to systemic bias.
Some seem to have the impression that Singaporean = non-notable. I've seen articles on many Singaporean topics, which no Singaporean would contest the notability of, get nominated for deletion, under the claim of non-notability.
That Wikipedia suffers from systemic bias is not surprising.