Wikipedia:WikiProject Countering systemic bias open tasks

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These are the open tasks for the Wikiproject Countering systemic bias. Articles are listed thematically, and then by the type of assistance requested. An article stub for a feminist author would thus be found under the "Requests for expansion" section under Women's Studies.

Themes are divided into four stages: non-existent, stubby, identifiably flawed and satisfactory. "Requested articles" are pages that are entirely missing from Wikipedia. A little bit of research on the web is normally enough to write a stub. Be sure to move the list entry to the relevant section once you are done. Articles that are stubby, or otherwise lacking in content, may be found under "Requests for expansion". If something in particular is missing, such as a university article with a long list of alumni but little historical background, be sure to say so when you enter it. "Requests for review" is for articles that are of decent length but need more attention. A need for a copyedit or for a fact check by a knowledgeable reader are appropriate reasons to ask for review.

Once an article has passed through the various stages of this process it may be placed under the Satisfactory section. Satisfactory articles are well-rounded, long enough to cover the topic in reasonable detail, and lack any major flaws. They are not expected to be perfect.

This open tasks list is intended to be a complement to the various Wikipedia features such as Cleanup, Requests for expansion, Pages needing attention and peer review, and you are encouraged to add articles from this list to those pages. Many articles on this page may also be good candidates for Collaboration of the week or the Article improvement drive. If you find a particularly good article in a CSB-related area, by all means nominate it as a Featured Article candidate.

If you feel an article is neglected due to systemic bias, feel free to add it to an appropriate section or even to start a new section below. Sections describing perceived biases that do not include articles are placed at the bottom of the page. If no articles are placed within the section within a month, it will be assumed that the objection is not actionable and the section will be removed.

WikiProject Countering systemic bias open tasks
This project creates and improves neglected articles.

Add this table to your userpage using the following: {{WikiProjectCSBTasks}}

Contents

[edit] Geography

Most neglected countries
Most neglected countries
Logo for Countries section of Countering systemic bias

Wikipedia has major holes in its geographic coverage primarily in Africa, but also Asia and South America.

[edit] Countries for improvement

The countries below have been identified as those most in need of work. They are accompanied by some online resources that may be useful in contributing to the articles. If a user feels that a country article has progressed to the level where it may be replaced by another, please seek consensus on the talk page.

  1. Benin (see Category, BBC profile timeline, HRW, google search images news), Porto-Novo, Cotonou
  2. Burkina Faso (see Category, BBC profile timeline, HRW, google search images news), Ouagadougou
  3. Burundi (see Category, BBC profile timeline, HRW, google search images news), Bujumbura
  4. Cameroon (see Category, BBC profile timeline, HRW, google search images news), Yaoundé
  5. Central African Republic (see Category, BBC profile timeline, HRW, google search images news), Bangui
  6. Chad (see Category, BBC profile timeline, HRW, google search images news), N'Djamena
  7. Comoros (see Category, BBC profile timeline, HRW, google search images news), Moroni, Comoros
  8. Democratic Republic of the Congo (see Category, BBC profile timeline, HRW, google search images news), Kinshasa
  9. Republic of the Congo (see Category, BBC profile timeline, HRW, google search images news), Brazzaville
  10. Côte d'Ivoire (see Category, BBC profile timeline, HRW, google search images news)' Yamoussoukro
  11. The Gambia (see Category), Banjul
  12. Georgia (see Category), Tbilisi
  13. Guinea (see Category), Conakry
  14. Guinea-Bissau (see Category), Bissau
  15. Kyrgyzstan (see Category), Bishkek
  16. Madagascar (see Category), Antananarivo
  17. Malawi (see Category), Lilongwe, Blantyre, Malawi
  18. Mali (see Category), Bamako
  19. Mozambique (see Category), Maputo
  20. Myanmar (see Category), Yangon
  21. Niger (see Category); Niamey
  22. Papua New Guinea (see Category), Port Moresby
  23. Suriname (see Category), Paramaribo
  24. Tajikistan (see Category), Dushanbe
  25. Tanzania (see Category), Dar-es-Salaam
  26. Togo (see Category), Lomé
  27. Turkmenistan (see Category), Ashgabat
  28. Western Sahara (see Category), Laayoune

Translations of any appropriate articles in the French or Portuguese Wikipedia can be requested on Wikipedia:Translation into English - though some articles are actually shorter in the foreign language version. For materials not in Wikipedia, but available in electronic form, you could contact an appropriate individual at Wikipedia:Translators available.

[edit] Missing geography articles

The following articles are about important geographical regions in the non-English-speaking world.

  1. Bura Gauranga River (in Bangladesh)
  2. Shuozhou (in China)
  3. Zambezi Escarpment (in Zimbabwe)

[edit] Rename problems

There's yet another attempt to replace Java with a disambiguation page... See Talk:Java for the discussion - it's amazing how many people think a programming language can be even remotely comparable in notability to an island with a population of 120 million. -- Danny Yee 03:06, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Colonialism

Maybe making a Wikiproject would be a good idea? Loads of work to do: Decolonization (only charts and lists, no text) Decolonization of Africa, Colonialism, New Imperialism (all the serie), Long Depression (connected to New Imperialism), etc. etc. Try to find a way to organize all the resources on colonialism so it is easy to acceed (some people couldn't find Scramble for Africa!), especially relating to the question of three main articles: colonialism, colonization and colony, which should at least be transformed into two main articles (one for European colonialism, 15th century onwards, and other for all types of colonization - Roman colonization, space colonization, etc.). This also goes, of course, for neocolonialism and postcolonialism and all Third World debt related issues and economical policies. Lapaz 14:06, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

I think you are totally correct. I don't think I'll have time to help you on this, at least not in the foreseeable future, but I think it would make a great WikiProject. - Jmabel | Talk 17:26, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Please also take a look at articles involving the annexation of Hawai'i, such as Liliʻuokalani, Blount Report, Morgan Report, and the so-called Republic of Hawaiʻi set up by wealthy white pro-annexation forces. There's been a single-handed attempt to fashion out of thin air validity in the last two articles, with references to sites set up by that same wikipedia contributor! Huangdi 10:52, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

Mahalo, the references to the http://morganreport.org site are simply in the same spirit of the UH annexation documents, who were unable to finish digitizing the Morgan Report due to a major flood that interrupted their work (they provide a link to the http://morganreport.org site as well). The report is there in its entirety, with original scanned images available for verification that the digital text is accurate. The question as to what reports are valid or not may be disputed by pro-hawaiian sovereignty activists, but my work has been specifically to counter the systemic bias that had ignored important parts of the historical record. For example, Huangdi added a sentence, "The charge by Native Hawaiians that the overthrow was illegal persisted, covertly at first for years, but then openly during the so-called "Hawaiian Renaissance". With no citation whatsoever to the "covert" charge, this kind of baseless assertion has been frankly common in the pro-sovereignty articles here for quite some time. Of course, being "covert" means of course they wouldn't be able to find any citations (how could they, if everyone was keeping it secret?) - I suppose one could also add the sentence, "The acceptance of Native Hawaiians that the overthrow was not caused by the U.S., and that Statehood was desireable persisted, openly at first for years, but then only covertly since the so-called "Hawaiian Renaissance". I would love to have a third-party look at the articles, though, and help building up proper citations. If Huangdi would like to help systematically go through the articles in question with me, I'd be more than happy to address specific issues he may have. --JereKrischel 02:27, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Developing World

All aspects of the "developing world", primarily in Africa, but also Asia and South America.

[edit] Requested articles

See also: Wikipedia:List of missing Africa topics, Wikipedia:List of missing Middle Eastern topics, List of conflicts in Africa

Here are some Africa tasks:

  • Requests: African People's Congress, History of East Africa, History of Central Africa, Coptic Evangelical Church, Taukhe, Johann Rebmann, more
edit
  • Charter for Peace and National Reconciliation - Algerian Charter supported at referendum, October 2005
  • Wikipedia:List of missing Latin American topics, Wikipedia:List of missing South Asian topics, isn't it kind of ironic that these lists are missing? Judging by the Africa and Middle East one, I think it would be useful if someone could compile these.--Dmcdevit 04:34, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)
  • Sami Naïr es:Sami Naïr french-algerian scholar, known for his concept of codevelopment --Varano 22:00, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
  • settler colonialism: the concept in general: there are at least two related meanings. In either case, it means that people from the colonizing country settle in large numbers in the land, instead of just trading, or operating plantations run by natives or slaves, or plundering militarily, or "adopting" a local governor and establishing a protectorate. Sometimes the term is restricted to settlers who have become, effectively colonizers in their own right instead of on behalf of a home country. In this last sense, it has been controversially applied to analogize Israel to South Africa. - Jmabel | Talk 06:16, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Current and recent events

  • Execution of Saddam Hussein -- Lack of sources other than main US news outlets such as CNN or BBC. US-sources dominate the article, and this reflects in the tone. Would need an array of both independent and international sources. Sfacets 02:30, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
Events and people recently or currently in the news that may need updates

[edit] Requests for expansion

  • Kintampo — archaeological site of major historical interest in Ghana. Ceramic Late Stone Age cultural complex dating around fourth millenium BP. Sometimes thought to be the first agriculturalist settlement in West Africa. Also known for its waterfalls. — mark ✎ 15:34, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • New Halfa — place in the Kassala state of Sudan where housing and work was provided by the Sudanian government for Nubians from the inundated areas around Wadi Halfa. The forced resettlement raised much controversy.
  • Yasuní National Park, in Ecuador. "Yasun may well be the single most biodiverse forest on earth," state some of the world's leading biologists, including Jane Goodall, E.O. Wilson and Stuart Pimm, in a February 2005 letter to the president of Ecuador. --Carwil 21:11, 26 August 2005 (UTC)
  • Media in Africa
  • Union of Forces for Change, opposition party in Togo
  • Poverty reduction, stub
  • Poverty in Africa
  • Yellow Emperor Important chinese mythological charecter. It should be as long as the article on, say, Zeus
  • 2000 Mozambique flood Very recent major humanitarian disaster with many online resources, but short page so far
  • Afghan parliamentary election, 2005 I expanded it from stub to what it is now in the past two days, but it still lacks any candidate information or political analysis (how much power will the parliament have? What is the expected political colour? How reliable will the results be? etc.)
  • African diaspora A big, big group of people with a small, small article
  • African languages Currently no more than a listing of the four major African language families and some big languages; so much more could be said about language and linguistic issues in Africa, alphabetization, language politics in multilingual countries, the impact of West-European languages, and so on, and so on...
    • Mustafaa and I have been working on this article. It is expanded considerably already, especially the part on the language families, but it is still very drafty and the issues mentioned above are not yet covered. Please check if you can help out! See also its to do list. — mark ✎ 12:39, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)
  • African National Congress Again a poor article for such a significant organisation
  • African slave trade Doesn't even exist! (But Slave trade has some info already).
  • African Union also a CotW
  • AIDS in Africa Barely above a stub. Sacrilege really.
    • Improved, but it still needs a section on Women and HIV. Some data tables for each region sould be good too. TreveX 22:37, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  • Ali Hassan Mwinyi Former Tanzanian president but little analysis of his reign in power
  • Andean States A very neglected article for an entire important region of the world. --Dmcdevit 03:17, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)
  • Benjamin Mkapa Tanzanian president could do with more detail
  • Commission for Africa - started by Tony Blair to provide new impetus for development. TreveXtalk 23:17, 29 May 2005 (UTC)
  • Cuisine of Jamaica just a stub about a fairly well-known cuisine
  • Culture of Afghanistan
  • Culture of Iraq currently (26 Nov 2004) a pitiful stub
  • Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist-Leninist) Nepalese government party
  • Cultural appropriation needs expansion, broadening outside Western concerns
  • Dependency theory Influential political theory within the developing world
  • Ethiopian famine Major media event. One of the few events to actually catch Western attention, renamed 1984 - 1985 famine in Ethiopia
    • Converted Ethiopian famine from redirect into article, providing a brief introduction & a list of famines since 1535. (Note: at the moment, I don't have access to information for the period 1801-1880.) -- llywrch 00:18, 10 September 2005 (UTC)
  • First Sudanese Civil War, article begun but few specifics
  • Futa Toro, on the recent changes list, Senegalese tribal group
  • Gacaca, or maybe Gacaca courts are made up of the common people to prosecute the Rwandan genocide perpetrators. Witnesses, survivors, etc. participate. see [1]. -- little stub created, help expand!--Dmcdevit 05:07, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)
  • Guinea-Bissau Civil War
  • History of Africa Article is very poor on African in the 20th Century, just an incomplete list of events. The article also needs to be reduced in size, and some child articles set up for the periods
  • History of North Africa extremely spotty coverage of some periods, 20th century section only talks about Suez canal
  • International development Huge topic, very little on this in Wikipedia anywhere
  • Ketuanan Melayu I'm sure there's a lot more to be said on this, but I don't know where to find it. If anyone could even just compile some reasonable sources, I'd be glad to do the rest of the work. Johnleemk | Talk 17:07, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
  • List of countries where language is a political issue Not a single African country in this list. There should be at least ten and most probably many more.
  • Maria Lionza should be a challenging topic to research, but is also a very interesting one.
  • Neocolonialism At least until recent times the dominant ideology.
  • Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika Redirects to National anthem of South Africa; inspiring anthem of the ANC deserves its own article explaining its origins, apartheid-era history, translations, etc., prior to its adoption as half of the anthem (all of which the Afrikaans portion of the anthem, Die Stem van Suid-Afrika, has!)
  • Nollywood Nigerian Cinema, massively popular (particularly in Africa) but only a stub
  • Pan African Parliament OK, it exists only since september 16th, but we should have an article on this...
  • Parishes of Jamaica the 14 main regions of Jamaica have only a handful of stubs
  • Politics of South Africa Poor article considering the ongoing difficulty of transition to stable, free and prosperous post apartheid state.
  • Prime Minister of Uganda needs info on the role and also some of its other office holder. TreveXtalk 00:21, 5 May 2005 (UTC)
  • Salif Keita One of the best known Mali musicians has a small article
  • Sarcade The article is on an exotic little town in Somalia with 25,000 inhabitants. Would be a real challenge to expand it.
  • Sétif massacre Created but could use expansion; a major incident of Algerian history.
  • Tamasheq languages - languages of the Tuareg, stub
  • Third World debt Still remains the dominant issue for governments for most countries in the developing world. Only a stub
  • Vietnamese television could really use some attention from someone who is familiar with the topic or who can read the VTV website and other information sources that are available only in Vietnamese. I have looked on the Vietnamese Wikipedia but couldn't find any articles that looked like they might provide useful info upon translation, so it looks like we are on our own. Article should probably also be moved to Television in Vietnam. - AdelaMae (talk - contribs) 21:20, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Budhia Singh - The "Forest Gump of India" has recently completed a 65Km run at the age of 4. He is a hero to many of the poorest people in India.
  • Miguel Hidalgo - not sure if Mexico is in the "developing world", but this man is an absolute legend in Mexico, and his article is embarrassingly short. Batmanand | Talk 23:19, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Request for review/attention

  • Tripoli hmm... apparently Tripoli is one of those ancient cities that used to exist but its history stopped after 1911. Oh yeah, and it doesn't have any geography, culture, politics/government, economy, demographics, recreation, transportation, all that good stuff. Quite depressing. --Dmcdevit 18:58, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC)
  • Congo Civil War Previous collaboration. Split into First Congo War and Second Congo War. Work needed on intros for both and First in particular could use some expansion. BanyanTree 20:39, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)
  • Rwandan Genocide - The French version spans several articles.
    • Páll has translated the French and created subpages and a navigation template, but the subpages could do with a copyedit, and content needs to be organized between the main and sub-pages. - BanyanTree 21:33, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)
    • PS: also Initial events of the Rwandan Genocide per CSBOT template --Dmcdevit 00:45, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)
  • Ogaden War - could do with some work putting it into the context of both History of Somalia and History of Ethiopia
  • Politics of Uganda - a lot of copy/pasted stuff. Not very good. Tidied up but still needs some more depth, especially given recent developments re. political pluralism in Uganda. TreveXtalk 12:22, 3 May 2005 (UTC)
  • Thomas Sankara A major African leader for many African people.
  • Arsen Kotsoyev, Ossetian writer and journalist, the article is a candidate for "Translation of the Week", but its English version needs to be reviewed by a native speaker of English. -- Slavik IVANOV 15:37, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)
    • Done (but leaving it open in case I missed something) --Nimlot 20:58, May 31, 2005 (UTC)
  • Zimbabwe Republic Police, currently horribly pro-government POV. the wub "?/!" 10:04, 12 July 2005 (UTC)
Seems to have been fixed adequately for a little while now. --Dpr 06:22, 9 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Places in Afghanistan This article is HUGE! I put it up for deletion and no consencess has been reached so far making an automatic keep. Someone suggested that it be submitted to Systemic bias so it could be a kind of to do list. --Banana04131 19:47, 21 August 2005 (UTC)
  • Alcoholism luckily only affects people in N. America. Rich Farmbrough 15:59 7 March 2006 (UTC).

[edit] Featured article candidates and peer review

[edit] Art and Design

[edit] Requested articles

  • Frida Baranek (1961- )
  • Alice Beard
  • Mirella Bentivoglio (1922- )
  • Virginia Beresford
  • Virginia Berresford (1902- )
  • Nell Blaine (1922- )
  • Karen T. Borchers (1957- )
  • Wendola Boreel (1895-??)
  • Louise Borgeois (1911- )
  • Dorothy Dehner (1901-1994)
  • Marina Nuñez del Prado (1912- )
  • Eulabee Dix (1878-1961)
  • Caroline Durieux (1896-1989)
  • Mary Emily Eaton (1873-1961)
  • Lydia Field Emmet (1866-1952)
  • Jessie Benton Evans (1866-1954) her grandaughter Jessie Benton Evans, was also an artist
  • Katherine Cameron (1874-1968)
  • Louisa Chase (1951- )
  • Young-Ja Cho (c.1955- )
  • Irene Clark (1927-1984)
  • Clyde Connell (1902-1998)
  • Joan Danzinger (1934- )
  • Dale de Armond (1914- )
  • Anna Findlay (c.1903-??)
  • Mary Beth Fogerty (1948- )
  • Ursula Fookes (1906-1991)
  • Patricia Tobacco Forrester (1940- )
  • Harriet Whitney Frishmuth (1880-1980)
  • Ethel Gabain (1883-1950)
  • Anna Gardell-Ericson (1853-1939)
  • Sybil Gibson (1908-1995)
  • Ruth Gikow (1915-1982)
  • Francoise Gilot (1921-)
  • Judith Godwin (1930- )
  • Natalya Sergeevna Goncharova (1881-1962)
  • Enid Grierson (c.1906-??)
  • Nancy Grossman (1940- )
  • Elisabetta Gut (1934- )
  • Lilian Wescott Hale (1881-1963)
  • Beverly Hallam (1923- )
  • Harmony Hammond (1934- )
  • Gertrude Hermes (1901-1983)
  • Myra K. Hughes (1884-1918)
  • Anna Vaughn Hyatt Huntington (1876-1973)
  • Georgia Mills Jessup (1926- )
  • Connie Imboden (1953- )
  • Margaret Kemp-Welch (c.1880-1968)
  • Marcia Gygli King (1931- )
  • Beauty myth, a review of Western ideals of corporeal beauty, how that contrasts with those of other cultures, and effects of acculturation. -- I moved the article that was there on the Naomi Wolf book to The Beauty Myth. Beauty myth now redirects there. The blue link here should not be taken to mean that someone has started an article on the concept apart from Wolf's book. Jkelly 07:43, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Requests for expansion

See also: Category:Art stubs, Category:Artist stubs, Category:Art organization stubs, Pages needing attention/Culture and Arts

[edit] Requests for review/attention

  • Arts and Art need a lot of whole lot of work. There are also several open questions about categorization - see their talk pages. Clubmarx 17:48, Nov 27, 2004 (UTC)
  • Chord (music) and Interval (music) have both been described as Eurocentric and are specifically biased towards European classical music. Hyacinth 19:53, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC)
  • Physical attractiveness and Facial symmetry articles purport to be universal but appear to perpetuate Western aesthestic ideals of physical beauty.
  • Red squirrel, at least a section on conservation is written from an almost entirely UK-centric point of view. --Eleassar my talk 10:03, 28 August 2005 (UTC)
  • Harp, Lyre, Flute, Drum and Musical Notation are all eurocentric and need to be split into a general part with a globalized view and special articles on special European forms of the topic. This is probably also true for other music-related articles (I am currently checking this). Nannus 18:12, 8 August 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Women's studies

Logo for Female-oriented section of Countering systemic bias

Female oriented subjects - Feminism, Women authors, professions with high proportion of women etc

[edit] Requested articles

[edit] Requests for expansion

[edit] Requests for review/attention

  • Systematic silencing of so called "problematic" points of view in articles on or in articles related to Women's studies, gender and other feminism-related articles. Prominent feminist whistleblowers, feminist dissidents, scientists and other non-feminist points of view are being censored when they oppose the 'gender' feminist "party line". Much pandering to politically correct but blatantly gynocentric propaganda points but rarely is balanced non-sexist research common in these articles. 128.111.95.245 02:49, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Oriana Fallaci prominent Italian journalist and author. Little though I like her remarks on contemporary Islam, she certainly deserves more of an article. We mostly have a bibliography, quotations, and links. -- Jmabel 22:59, Sep 23, 2004 (UTC)
  • Category:Modernist women writers

[edit] Non-English language literature

Non-English language literature (particularly writers whose work is unavailable or not widely available in English). See also List of African writers.

[edit] Requested articles

These include all of the nonexistent links listed under "Literature by country or language"

  • Sorbian literature (for inspiration, see de:Kategorie:Literatur (Sorbisch))
  • Muhammad Awzal (ca. 1680-1749), the most important author of the Sous Berber (Tashelhiyt) literature tradition. Needs an article as badly as the literature section of the language article needs expansion.
  • Hoda Barakat
  • Latin American and Caribbean women writers - Marie Chauvet, Darline Dorce-Coupet, Carmen Lyra, Carmen Brannon, Daisy Cubías, Mirta Aguirre, Magali Alabau, Dora Alonso, Maria Alvarez Rios, Emilia Bernal, Teresa Bevin, Dulce Maria Borrero, Juana Borrero, Julieta Campos, Rafaela Chacon Nardi, Cristina Garcia, Fina Garcia Marruz, Chely Chima, Mercedes Matamoros y del Valle, Mirtha N. Quintanales, Eliana Rivero, Mireya Robles.
  • Korean women writers - Hyung-Soon Cha, Han Kang, Hildi Kang, Hyun-Deok Foreman Kim, Myung Mi Kim, Ok-Kyo Kim, Yoko Kawashima Watkins, Mia Yun
  • Indonesian women writers - Soewarsih Djojopoespito, Elisabeth Woensdregt, Mevrouw Kloppenburg-Versteegh, Nellie van Kol (alias Jacoba Maria Petronella Porreij), Mina Kruseman, Medy Loekito, Jeanne de Loos-Haaxman, Harryet Marsman, Louise de Neve, Cornélie Noordwal, Karin Ottenhoff, Mary Pos, Dé-Lilah aka Lucie van Renesse, Annie Romein-Verschoor, Lin Scholte, Ena Stok-van Es, C. Swaan-Koopman, Hélène Weski, Augusta de Wit, Marie C. van Zeggelen
  • Red links on the Premio Nadal
  • Red links in the Premio Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz for women writers.

[edit] Requests for expansion

[edit] Satisfactory

Shortcut:
WP:LPOV

[edit] Linguistics

Many linguistic articles are written exclusively or largely from an Indo-European point of view. In some cases this becomes apparent in the examples provided (Onomatopoeia seems an irredeemable example), while others treat grammatical categories and linguistic terms as if they pertain to English or other well-known I-E languages only. This is something that needs to be remedied in an encyclopedia of international scope.

[edit] Requested articles

  • Tense (linguistics). A general article to cover temporal constructions in language is needed.
See Grammatical tense/multilingual sources for a draft.

[edit] Requests for expansion

(The most common request is to correct a limited (usually Indo-European) point of view.)

[edit] A-J

  • Affix. Uses English examples only (!!?). Needs work.
  • Augment. Probably needs a disambig and another article. Augment can be much more than 'an affix in Indo-European languages' and is used in a broader sense in linguistics.
  • Closed-class word. English-based. Cross-linguistically, there are interesting differences here. In many African languages for example, the class of adjectives is a closed class. On a sidenote, cognitive linguistic views of reasons for the distinction between closed and open classes (e.g. Talmy 2000:413, Langacker) are also worth mentioning.
This is very interesting. I would love to see some references of how adj's are in the closed class. While the open-closed distinction forms the basis for Talmy's model of form (grammatical) vs content, I am not sure where Langacker refers to this. Certainly it is not very prominent in his 1987/1991 texts. mukerjee (talk) 07:22, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Continuous and progressive aspects. First a section on 'the English continuous', then a section treating some other languages, predominantly Indo-European. Issues like this can only be fixed by taking a broader approach to tense and aspect. Overlapping terms would be durative or continuative. — mark ✎ 16:24, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
    • Added information about how continuous and progressive aspects are not the same in some languages, and gave Chinese as an example. —Umofomia 12:27, 11 June 2006 (UTC)
I think I will make some additions here, the Sanskrit tradition had a lot to say on this which remains germane today. mukerjee (talk) 07:22, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Determiner. Really should be renamed to 'Determiner (English)' or something like that. Interesting things could be said about determiners and definiteness cross-linguistically.
    • Reworded a bit, less LPOV, de-emphasized English. Desperately needs contrasting examples (please not plain ol' Western IE languages isomorphic with English). --Pablo D. Flores 15:38, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  • Diminutive. Oh boy, look at the structure. First, English is treated, and then a few other languages (predominantly European) are lumped together under a heading "non-English languages". This needs quite some work. — mark ✎ 16:17, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
  • Function word. English only. It should be noted that the term 'function word' is per definition largely restricted to isolating languages (and as such is inevitably LPOV, like many Indo-European-inspired linguistic terms).
  • Grammatical tense. Only about the English tense system, only English examples. Should be renamed Grammatical tense (English) or something like that. There is also some overlap with English grammar. Steverapaport fixed this, but it still needs non-English examples. The table of tenses and their uses is a bit unwieldy and hopelessly LPOV. Useful examples: periphrastic/idiomatic "tenses" in Eurolangs; lack of distinction in Chinese; aspect emphasized over tense ibidem. --Pablo D. Flores 15:52, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)
See also its talk page. Additionally, cross-linguistic data collection and some brainstorming is going on at Grammatical tense/multilingual sources — mark ✎ 21:58, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Grammatical aspect. Although the term is based on the work of Indo-European grammarians, it has been used in linguistics worldwide. At present, the article contains mainly English examples and some Serbian ones. Nothing is said about application of the term in linguistics outside the Indo-European language family.
  • Grammatical particle. English-only. Contains a list of English parts of speech considered 'grammatical particles'. I gave it a start by toning down the misleadingly strict definition a bit, but it still needs lots of work. — mark ✎ 23:35, 2 Feb 2005 (UTC)
I just made a start on this one - please review it and suggest improvements on its talk page! — mark ✎ 22:05, 10 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] K-Z

  • Metathesis. Universal phenomenon. Mainly covers some English sound changes. Could use cross-linguistical examples.
    • Provided examples from Navajo (Athabaskan) and Saanich (Salishan). The Klallam example is not just phonological but grammatical (I dont explain the phono part since it would be complicated). — ishwar  (SPEAK) 03:36, 2005 Mar 28 (UTC)
  • Onomatopoeia. Universal phenomenon. Very stubby, needs cleanup. What is worse, at present it only includes English examples (mainly sounds of animals).
  • Palatalization. Not bad, but could be more outspoken on occurences of palatalization troughout the world (Berber, Bantu, to name a few). Especially in Bantu, interesting morphophonological things happen involving (among other processes) palatalization.
  • Pleonasm. There was actually an edit warrior who wanted to remove the non-English examples from this article. Fortunately he is gone, but in the aftermath of the battle, this article is in pretty lousy shape, and still needs some non-Indo-European examples.
  • Possessive case. This is actually a fairly good article, even including non-Indo-European concepts like alienable/inalienable possession. The problem is its context and naming. Case is defined as a feature of inflecting languages. Indeed, many languages do not express possession by inflecting the noun (like the case article would suggest). It would be better to merge much of the content of the Possessive case article to something like Possession (linguistics) and to reserve the Possessive case article for languages that actually do show a possessive case. Additionally, all those articles could do with more cross-linguistic examples.
  • Prefix. Indo-European perspective.
  • Progressive tense. English-only. Don't know what to do with this one; maybe rename to Progressive tense (English), or maybe (considering its size) merge into English grammar.
  • Reflexive pronoun. Mostly English, mentions three other Indo-European languages and one constructed language. Nothing on non-IE languages, no typological perspective (Schladt (1999)'s 'The typology and grammaticalization of reflexives' would be a good source).
  • Rhetoric. Nothing on rhetoric in (say) Sanksrit, or other Indian languages, or for that matter any non-European (e.g. Chinese) culture. The talk page mentions this.
  • Root morpheme. Limited point of view. Redirected to Root (linguistics), corrected and added examples, though a few more would be nice. Someone with more than amateur knowledge of linguistics, please correct me. Added a hook to Stem (linguistics) -- which BTW is not a synonym for root and needs a formal definition. -- Pablo D. Flores 15:17, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)
  • Tone (linguistics). Universal phenomenon. In desperate need of a good definition. Is too Mandarin/Chinese minded. Check the 'what links here' of that page and see why.
    • Improved it by adding a section on different notational systems. Still needs much work. — mark ✎ 16:07, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC)
  • Question. The paragraph on grammar seems OK, albeit fairly short. However, the mentioning of just the Indo-European intonation pattern and the English-only examples narrow the scope.
    • Fleshed it up a bit, though examples are still welcome. --Pablo D. Flores 15:17, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)
  • Relative pronoun could use some information on non-Germanic languages. The long English section is justified as these really are tricky in English, especially for foreign learners, but it's not meant to be an article just on English grammar. --Doric Loon 18:16, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)
    • It's severely skewed towards IE-style relativisation in general. I turned "Relative pronoun" into a stub, and kept the original Relative clause that "Relative pronoun" redirected to, which however, and rather unfortunately, treats the whole subject mostly focusing on relative pronouns. I think the whole topic should be addressed abstractly, and English should be treated along with other languages, of which more variety should be present. Hebrew was already there, and I added Japanese (which is important as a contrast because the relative clause goes before the noun it modifies, without a relative pronoun, or conjunctions, or any marks of relativisation other than word order). Chinese, I think, does the same, but it should be there too. --Pablo D. Flores 15:58, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)
    • Me again: Relative pronoun filled up, Relative clause cleaner (theory only), created English relative clauses for specific English usage. Some more theory, examples and illustrating trivia needed.

[edit] Requests for review/attention

[edit] Satisfactory

  • Inflection. Quote from the article: 'Various major languages, including English, German, Russian, Spanish, French, and Hindi - all Indo-European languages - are inflected to a greater or lesser extent. Other languages [sic!] use almost no inflection, Chinese and Vietnamese among them.' The definition used in the article is part of the problem. More historical background should be given and current, cross-linguistical use of the term should be covered. Fixed by Steverapaport 15:39, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC), probably could be removed from this list. --Pablo D. Flores 15:52, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Mama. Currently a dab, but surely we should have an article about the striking cross-linguistical similarities in the basic word for mother (cf. Jakobson 1962 etc.). It currently reads that 'mama' is a slang word for 'mother' - speaking about LPOV! See Mama and papa --Pablo D. Flores 14:21, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Papa. Currently a dab, but surely we should have an article about the striking cross-linguistical similarities in the basic word for father (cf. Jakobson 1962 etc.) See Mama and papa. There is also a completely absurd Papa (slang) on VfD. --Pablo D. Flores 14:21, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Reduplication. Universal phenomenon. Needs a better definition, a more logical structure and more examples. Note the phrase 'most notably in Malayo-Polynesian' (other language-families or areas are not even mentioned).
    • Cleaned it up a little -- Pablo D. Flores 15:17, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)
    • Provided biblio. The linked OT papers have many examples from unrelated langs. — ishwar  (SPEAK) 03:39, 2005 Mar 28 (UTC)
    • exanded (with organization). kind of a redupl. typological survey. now includes langs from all continents (i.e. N. America, Central America, S. America, NE Africa, Siberia, E. Asia, SE Asia, Papua New Guinea, & Australia) & a few major lang families (i.e. Salishan, Siouan, Tibeto-Burman, Tupí, Pama-Nyungan, Chukotko-Kamchatkan, Austro-Asiatic, Mayan, Cushitic, & Uto-Aztecan). is this enough? peace — ishwar  (SPEAK) 15:18, 2005 Apr 28 (UTC)
      • Much improved thanks to Pablo & Ish. — mark ✎ 16:15, 25 February 2006 (UTC)
  • Spatial tense. This article should be written from a Lojban grammar perspective, and certainly should not start with the sentence: Spatial tenses are a category of tenses not found in English. See its talk for an extensive discussion.
    • Done from a Lojban perspective, still needs natural language examples (if Hopi does indeed have spatial tense). --Pablo D. Flores 14:38, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)
      • You've done great work. I don't think natural languages have it and I think I made a clear case on why not at its talk page. I think this one can be moved to 'Satisfactory'. — mark ✎ 15:48, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Agriculture and horticultural studies

Agriculture etc

Agricultural and horticultural studies. Not typically a 'geek' concern, especially outside of botany as such.

[edit] Requested articles


[edit] Requests for expansion

[edit] Requests for review/attention

  • Farmer - modern and Western (esp. US) bias, nothing on pre-modern farming, farming in the rest of the world
  • Slaughterhouse -- Some debiasing is done. Global and historical persp. needed
  • Food science
  • Dairy science
  • Meat science
  • Wool -- the current article is about sheep wool, rather than an overview, while limited information about alpaca wool is relegated to the alpaca article, and other animals such as goats are merely mentioned as alternative sources.
  • Threshing-board - great job recently done translating this from Spanish, but inevitably it show a Spanish/Iberian bias in terminology, coverage, selection of sources, etc. It's a featured article in Spanish, and it's easy to see why, but it will takes some work to get it there in English. - 19:06, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Ethnic minorities

Under-represented ethnic minorities in the developed world etc. (and other related topics)

[edit] Requested articles

General

American Indian biographies:

African American biographies:

Basic version complete --Dpr 05:01, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
Even featured on Did You Know (10 November 2005) --Dpr 05:43, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Requests for expansion

[edit] Requests for review/attention

  • NABJ Hall of Fame is probably OK as it stands, but full of red links that could be followed up. Leading African-American journalists past and present. - Jmabel|Talk 18:04, Oct 14, 2004 (UTC)
  • White supremacy deals almost entirely with contemporary, marginal groups and does not discuss white supremacy as a domininant ideology beginning with the period of European expansion and continuing at least well into the 20th century. -- Jmabel | Talk 20:02, Mar 21, 2005 (UTC)
  • Young Lords New York area Puerto Rican semi-gang, semi-political-party circa 1970, moved at least for a while towards trying to become a Puerto Rican equivalent of the Black Panthers. I got this one started: there is a lot of online material & probably more elsewhere. Expect sources to somewhat contradict one another. This would be a great topic for a good researcher who understands how to cite sources, etc. - Jmabel 23:19, Oct 4, 2004 (UTC)
  • Zoroastrianism, Zoroaster and related topics all suffer from serious neglect, bias and misinformation. Someone has even categorized "Zoroastrian gods" -- despite the fact that it is a monotheistic religion -- including listing Ahriman in that category. This is equivalent to listing Satan as a "Christian God"! Zosodada 20:22, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Aramaic-speaking Christian groups: Syriacs, Aramaeans, Assyrian, Chaldeans, Assyro-Chaldeans. These are quite a mess, as ethnic definitions are not very clear, and all of these labels have political connotations.
  • Latitude -- dubious section on "Evolutionary explanations" futurebird 14:38, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Norouz and Kurdish celebration of Newroz. The old Zoroastrian new year, celebrated by Persians, Kurds and other groups in the region. One ethnic group, not surprising the by far largest, seems though to be very dominant in the coverage. Bertilvidet 13:33, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Labor issues

labor

Labor related issues. See also Wikipedia:WikiProject Organized Labour.

WikiProject Organized Labour open tasks
This project creates and improves neglected articles.


[edit] Requested articles

[edit] Requests for expansion

  • AFL-CIO America's largest federation of unions. An important contributor to the U.S. Democratic party. Stub.
  • Congress of South African Trade Unions Played important political role as ally of the ANC. Short article.
  • CGT the major French trade union has just a stub.
  • European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) Similar to the ICFTU regional organisations. Very active in lobbying the EU. Nothing.
  • Bill Haywood Important leader in the IWW in the early 20th century; this article could use some expansion, but it especially needs to be cleaned up and cited. --JerryOrr 22:23, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
    • moving to Requests for review/attention --JerryOrr 21:41, 31 March 2006 (UTC)
  • International Labour Organization Very brief text on U.N. organization that has meant a lot for working conditions in developing countries.
  • International labour standards Defined as the ILO "core conventions". We have nothing on this.
  • Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions Potentially important labour organisation in Iraq. - now a stub.
  • Nigeria Labour Congress One of Africa's strongest trade union organisations, with a history of actively working for democracy in the country. Article now created, proofreading and expansion needed.
  • Picketing Nothing.
  • Strike action A reasonable article, but nowhere near as comprehensive as it could be.
  • Ver.di With 2.6 million members, this German trade union is the largest independent trade union in the world. Stub now created, more needed.
  • Worker safety and health The Wikipedia article only deals with U.S. legislation. A lot more could be done.
    • There's also Occupational safety and health, which is more general, describing principles rather than specific national regulations (but is still a victim of systematic bias, it only specifically mentions US & EU practices.)
  • Asbestosis_-_Compensation_and_Liability_Disputes An attempt to do just that.
  • London Dock Strike (1889) "...is widely regarded as a major milestone in the development of the trade union movement, marking..."

[edit] Requests for review/attention

  • Bill Haywood Important leader in the IWW in the early 20th century. I've made a to-do list; once these items are addressed, I plan on putting it in for peer review and eventually pursuing featured article status. I've pretty much been the sole contributor to this article for quite some time, so any help would be greatly appreciated! --JerryOrr 21:41, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Limited geographic scope

Limited geographic scope

Most of the articles listed on Open Tasks are neglected because of their subject matter. The articles below are internally biased. In other words, they currently deal only with matters in certain countries, and/or often have a U.S. or developed country perspective rather than a global one. Once they have been edited to remove the geographic bias, please place them in the Satisfactory section.

  • Adoption Lacks perspective of countries that are the sources of international adoption.
  • Interracial adoption is solely from a U.S. perspective, is from a white adoptive family perspective, and lacks information on international adoptions (which can in some cases also be considered interracial).
  • Beekeeping Has been a subsistence method from time immemorial for some societies. Article makes it almost look like a Western hobbyist practice.
  • Bimetallism Deals almost exclusively with bimetallism in U.S. history; could use information on Islamic bimetallism and any other non-US historical/modern examples that may exist. Another editor removed {globalize/USA} tag when I added it to the article (twice) but raises no objection to having the tag on the talk page. --Eloil 22:40, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Bomb disposal This article is heavily anglo-centric. Other definitions of domain terminology (e.g. Explosive Ordnance Disposal) is also American. Drdan 18:06, 9 April 2006 (UTC) - It was invented by the British, and refined to where it is today by the Americans. There hasn't been significant additions by other countries because most of the second and third world countries today send their Technicians to UK or US schools for training. It's not a topic many can speak about with authority. What about a topic that has systemic bias because it is monosystemic in nature? Shawn 11:42 15 April 2006 (EDT)
  • Breakfast Scant references to non-western practices. Much added on Latin America, Asia and the Middle East. Still lacking anything on Africa.
  • Civilian control of the military I'm in the process of expanding this article but will be the first one to admit that my examples and structure draws heavily on the American philosophy and practice (this could be my limited perspective showing, but I think the term is probably used most frequently in this context as it is). I've attempted to add some mentions of Maoist theories and the Soviet commissars, but would really appreciate any input from editors who can contribute more material on theories of civilian control in other countries. — MC MasterChef :: Leave a tip — 09:22, 1 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Coeducation Brief discussion of history in U.S. only, and some lists. Needs internationalization in any case, and might the subject of women's education in Muslim and developing countries be appropriate here?
  • Columbus Day - suggests that Columbus Day has only ever been celebrated in the United States, and that opposition to the concept is limited to the United States - Now mentions similar holidays in several other countries. Examples of opposition from US and US Virgin Islands only.
  • Crenellation As if the concept is only relevant in medieval western European architecture. Lacks a global point of view (at the very least, Islamic architecture should be added). See also its talk.
  • Cronyism - only gives examples from the Bush presidency, where politicians all round the world hire their mates for the best jobs.
  • Death Legal definition section should be expanded.
  • Dinner Focuses on North America and the U.K.
  • Famine Focuses mostly on the European experience, with fairly limited discussion of the modern phenomenon.
  • Freedom of speech Developed World examples only. Short paragraphs on the situation in India, in Asia in general and in Africa. Much potential for expansion.
  • Gang Deals almost exclusively with the U.S.
  • Ghosting (identity theft) The characterization deals with the U.S. as if understood, the rest is not much better.
  • Grazing rights - mostly U.S. and a little Brit. Needs expansion for the many other countries that have domesticated grazing animals
  • Illegal immigrant Only U.S. references. (Although the French Wikipedia's Sans-papiers article does not seem to have that much to add, it might at least provide a starting point for a European perspective. However, this article needs much more than that.)
  • Internationalization Anything but. Mentions internationalization only in one direction – from the US to other languages/cultures.
  • Category:Inventions The only inventions-by-nationality categories we have are for English-speaking nations: thus there's Category:Australian inventions but no Category:German inventions, even though we have a huge number of Category:German inventors each of whom presumably invented something notable. It's tempting to suppose that only nationalists tag articles with invention-by-nationality. —Blotwell 22:10, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
  • Journalism scandals A long list of examples, all but one or two from the U.S.
  • Labor law Limited to U.S. and U.K. mostly, misses the fact that there are international labor standards.
  • Labor union/Trade Union Some general history, but country-specific information for U.S., UK and Sweden only (excluding half a sentence mentioning China in the introduction).
  • Landmine. Almost entirely about the mines themselves and the countries that make and remove them. Countries plagued by mines are mentioned only in passing.
  • Lawyer/Solicitor Lead has U.S. perspective, only deals with the U.S., UK and Poland.
  • Locomotive and the related Electric locomotive and Diesel locomotive. Articles need added material on European history and usage, without Euro-biased suppression of North American experience. (This problem affects almost every article about rail technology, though most commonly it's the North American side that's missing.)
  • Market town You wouldn't know that trade existed outside of Europe.
  • Marriage too much bias on s.s. marriage- western countries are minority against china, india, japan and third world/south america. article "s.s. marriage already exists". people may consider it "annoying information", just looking for man/woman marriage information. wikipedia is not a "political platform".
  • Media bias Mainly concerns itself with the U.S. liberal vs. conservative bias discussion.
  • Modesty - passes beyond systemic bias into outright chauvinism: modesty norms outside the industrialized Western world are only discussed (and then only briefly) in comparison and contrast to the average Western norm. Even that norm is generalized and ignores real variations between countries, regions, and ethnicities.
  • Music genre only US/West, doesn't even mention that there is music in Africa, or that people who are not Western have music at all. More discussion about "honky tonk" than about entire continents!
  • Nudity, especially Various modern-era attitudes has only Western perspectives, plus a short sentence on Islam, and a bit on Japan, but nothing from Central/South America, Africa, or most of Asia.
  • Nursery rhyme solely deals with songs sung to children from a French and English perspective, and 1 sentence on indigenous cultures. Nothing from the rest of the world.
  • Physician Generally lacking, as it currently deals mainly with training, but only covers the U.S., the UK and France.
  • Plastic Surgery has a section on cosmetic surgery which deals entirely with regulatory issues in the US
  • Police Mostly U.S. and UK (for historic reasons) references. Nothing on the role of the police force in neither democratic nor oppressive developing countries.
  • Proof coinage Article reads like the world has only one country (guess which one).
  • Public relations Almost exclusively uses U.S. examples and figures.
  • Public transport, vitally important throughout the developing world but the details focus on the decision to implement mass transit in industrialized countries
  • Rape Western perspective. Discusses the legal definitions of the U.S. and the UK only. Apart from brief mentions of the social consequences of rape in "societies with strong sexual customs and taboos", and rape as a means of torturing detainees in some countries, the rest of the article deals with the U.S. situation. No mention of the practice of rape as a war crime.
  • Secondary Education The "in various countries" section almost entirely excludes Africa.
  • Special needs consists of (a) American general view (b) American legal minutiae
  • State of Emergency only deals with the U.S.A. Still deals mainly with the U.S., although info on other Western democracies have been added. Very little on ongoing SoEs in e.g. Egypt and Syria.
  • Student activism and Youth activism Deals with the U.S. only. Nothing is said about the leading role students often take in protesting against oppressive societies, as in Czechoslovakia in 1968 (see Jan Palach), Myanmar (esp. 1988), China (Tiananmen Square protests of 1989), Iran (Iran student protests, July 1999), Serbia during Milosevic (see Otpor) and Indonesia (History of Indonesia). Also, the student protests of 1968 in places like Paris (May 1968) and Mexico City (Tlatelolco massacre) should also be mentioned.
    • I've reworked this page to give it a more international scope - US-specific stuff is in its own section now, and I've added a skeletal Indonesia section. More to do - the above is a great (inspiring!) list of places where student activists have (usually) made changes. - Cdc 20:10, 27 Nov 2004 (UTC)
      • I've added a small bit on France. The May 1968 page is extremely thorough so all we need here is a brief overview to show the context of it in student activist history. Leyanese 17:35, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • Traffic congestion This article mainly focuses on traffic in the United States. It contains only a small mention of traffic in the UK.
  • Unemployment Focused on the U.S., with a lengthy discussion on the U.S. definition and little or no mention of unemployment in other parts of the world.
    • Underemployment, a much more widespread problem than unemployment in the developing world doesn't have an article at all, although it could be treated as part of the unemployment article if it was revised. --Sepa 21:51, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
      • Actually, there is an article for Underemployment, albeit a poor-quality one. --JerryOrr 16:52, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
  • Water resources "The problem: Human populations in some areas (e.g. southern California, Israel, and Florida) are growing from 1 to 3% per year, while fresh water supplies are remaining constant or shrinking." Ever heard of a place called Africa? This article hasn't.
    • I've re-written and re-focused this article. As it stands, there are no explicit geographical references - don't know if that'll make you guys happy or sad. In the process of further refining this article, I expect specific geographical references will be worked back in or linked to. Toiyabe 19:44, 5 May 2005 (UTC)
  • Cannabis rescheduling is unashamedly about various bits of legislation in the USA, and has nothing to say on Cannabis legislation anywhere else. Gareth Hughes 18:21, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • Wedding. Western perspective, although some four sentences are included on non-Western traditions.
  • Ancestor worship focusses on Chinese and East Asian practices, with nothing on Africa or Amerindians (do they have ancestor worship?) --Taejo 09:39, 24 September 2005 (UTC)
  • See Category:Limited geographic scope for more.
  • Harp, Lyre, Flute, Drum and Musical Notation are all eurocentric. Nannus 18:18, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Warship Virtually all information is about Europe.--Cúchullain t/c 20:39, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Manga, specifically the International Influences section, which is mostly American with a bit of Europe. ColourBurst 04:47, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Islam, Muslims, and the Muslim World

See also: Wikipedia:WikiProject Islam, Wikipedia:List of missing Middle Eastern topics
  • Jyllands-Posten_Muhammad_cartoons_controversy Who would have guessed Wikipedia might attract writers with a pro-free-speech POV? Editors of this article have slanted it heavily toward describing the controversy as between religious zealotry and the ideal of free speech, and have excluded content that explains the context of ethnic hate speech or current regional conflict. Dirinici 07:11, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
  • Istihlal, or maybe Istihlaal, is something like the crime of making up an Islamic law, recently in the news when a group of Spanish Muslims accused Osama bin Laden of the crime. --Dmcdevit 23:49, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)
  • Muslim educational institutions: created this and would like people to add and expand it. There are almost no resources on the web--or anywhere that I can find, actually, on institutions like the Haqqania madarassa in northern Pakistan, where the Taliban leadership was educated. Or the historical universities in the Muslim world--other than Al-Azhar.—iFaqeer (Talk to me!) 20:36, Mar 1, 2005 (UTC)
  • Should we also have a Wikipedia:Islam and Muslim World-regional notice board? I would want to do that, but only if we can get people with more than one kind of POV involved.—iFaqeer (Talk to me!) 20:36, Mar 1, 2005 (UTC)
See Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Islam#Theology-centrism?—iFaqeer (Talk to me!) 22:41, Mar 1, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Requests for expansion

  • Al-islam.org Apparently a large & popular website & forum (most popular, according to Yahoo) regarding Shia Islam, but the article is severely a stub.
  • Shalash al-Iraqi - I started this article after reading about him on an Iraqi's blog, and after doing some research I was unable to find any information on him that wasn't from other bloggers. I ended up using these as references anyway, I know that's not the ideal Wikipedia standard, but the blogs seem to suggest that he's very notable in Iraq. Is there anyone who has read a print article about him or can translate better web sources from Arabic, perhaps? Also, I'd appreciate a message on my talk page if this article is nominated for deletion. --Grace 07:28, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Requests for review

  • Sunbul Effendi - this article has been posted to VfD. I believe the topic is notable but there is an issue with transcription: apparently the correct spelling would be Sümbül Efendi (alternate Sünbül Efendi). Google returns 179 results but most of them not in English. There are also alternate spellings like Sümbül Efendi, Sünbül Efendi, Şeyh Sümbül, Sümbül Sinan, Sünbül Sinan etc.--AYArktos 22:09, 9 May 2005 (UTC)
  • Baha'i Faith--Currently the editing of this entry (and related entries) is dominated by Baha'is, who take the opportunity to downplay criticisms and in general slant their information in predictable directions. Please consider this a call for non-Baha'i editors to come have a look at the site, and help ensure balance. Thank you. Dawud 10:44, 3 December 2005 (UTC)


[edit] Evangelical Protestantism

  • Carlton Pearson - Tulsa, Oklahoma-based African American preacher and theologian, long a protegé of Oral Roberts—also an advisor to Bush on faith-based initiatives, had a TV show, etc,—whose theology began to change in the late 1990s, when he decided that there is no Hell (or, more precisely, turned around to a rather existentialist view of Hell being something we make on earth, but not part of the afterlife). This eventually evolved into the Doctrine of Inclusion: that everyone is saved. As a result, his enormous Higher Dimensions [5] megachurch slowly collapsed, though, with his new theology, he again has a congregation numbering at least into the hundreds. Fascinating figure. Recent hour-long radio story about him on This American Life [6], but as of when I'm writing they haven't archived it to a permanent address. Founder of a Christian music festival that I believe is called Azuza, as well. -- Jmabel | Talk 19:24, 17 December 2005 (UTC)


[edit] Non-neoclassical economics

Probably the worst example of overclaiming what the status quo of experts really says about things is in economics. Many articles use definitions straight from neoclassical economics with little challenge from other theories. Though there has been work on this, it never seems to end. The article capitalism is not bad at balancing major theories and what they have to say but less-argued articles tend to be far less balanced and not give all major economic theories enough space. Where possible the claims of the economists who invent terms and metrics should be used, not the claims of those who promote them as silver bullets. Since every political party has its own theory of economics, and promotes its own policies as if they were such silver bullets, the dominant theories in rich countries have far too much space - see also Developed World bias above

[edit] Requests for expansion

[edit] Requests for review

[edit] Nature (biology, chemistry, physics and related)

[edit] Requested articles

  • gestation - This article is not an article, but a redirection to "mammalian pregnancy", whose title is disputed. There should be a separate article about gestation in general, that unlike pregnancy, discusses more about animal gestation. The word "gestation" itself is not well defined, because it is not explained which animals gestate, where the limit is between gestating and non-gestating animals, and the pragmatic, semantic and connotational difference between the words "gestation" and "preganancy".

[edit] Requests for expansion

  • mating - This article is a stub and should discuss more about animal mating, apart from copulation, like the behavior of animals that court or of social animals that nurture their offspring in pairs.
  • snail - This article is underdeveloped and doesn't discuss in more detail the different taxons of snails. Also, there may be some inaccuracies.
  • tool - The section regarding tool use in animals, while having numerous references, doesn't say much besides that monkeys & other primates, ravens, and sea otters have been observed using tools. Could be expanded.
  • Chinese astronomy - 3000 years of history and until a week ago it was a single sentence. Above all, something should be added about astronomy in China today, to counter any perception that Chinese science is only about the past. Please help counter the bias against nonwestern science in this and other history of science articles.

[edit] Requests for review

  • Electrical engineering - This article is currently focusing on the North American meaning of the term. European and Global use seems to indictate the seperation of the terms Electrical and Electronic into different fields.
  • sex - This article focuses too much on the human aspect of sex and does not discuss essential things about sex like genetics, biology, biological evolution and origin of sex, etc.
  • mammalian pregnancy - The word "pregnancy" instead of "gestation" in the title of the article is dubious.
  • copulation
  • sexual intercourse
  • sexual reproduction

[edit] Perspective Biases

  • Execution of Saddam Hussein -- Lack of sources other than main US news outlets such as CNN or BBC. US-sources dominate the article, and this reflects in the tone. Would need an array of both independent and international sources. Sfacets 02:30, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
  • paint -- only deals with the art aspect not the commercial painting aspect.
  • mammalian pregnancy - focuses too much on humans by using the word "pregnancy" instead of "gestation". This article was initially split from the article about human pregnancy. Also, doesn't define well which animals gestate and which not, and discounts gestation in other animals, if any.
  • Wikimedia is written from an insider point of view, without mentioning criticism made by MediaWiki developer User:Tim Starling. My edit which added it was removed by a sysop who used his revert power. Wikinerd 03:31, 16 August 2005 (UTC)
    • FWIW, "his revert power" consists of skipping a click: it is exactly the same ability anyone else has to revert an edit, just slightly more efficient. -- Jmabel | Talk 05:14, August 16, 2005 (UTC)
  • List of people who have said that they are gods - Western bias in addressing the concept of God and divinity. Article is currently protected due to ongoing disputes. Please come and help out at the talk page. --ZappaZ 17:01, 14 September 2005 (UTC)
  • Robinson list -- mentions the US Do Not Call list, but then procedes to deal with only email spam and talk about Robinson lists as if they were only for spam.
  • Mythology and related articles -- some mythologies are treated differently from other mythologies. Problems with definition. Many editors have strong feelings about these articles. – ishwar  (speak) 05:13, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
  • The Democracy article needs attention to ensure that it does not suffer from a bias from the point of view perspective of Liberal Democracy. BruceHallman 19:16, 16 December 2006 (UTC)
  • All articles related to the creation-evolution controversy, including Intelligent design, and Objections to evolution, among several others. Particularly strident defense of bias on talk pages. Gnixon 23:52, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Countering systemic bias open tasks

[edit] Soviet history

Many articles about the Soviet Union rely on information from anti-Soviet sources. Both pro- and anti-Soviet sources can be greatly biased. Where possible, cite the sources used, and try to find balance. GRuban 14:50, 1 March 2006 (UTC) (greatly condensing Paranoid 17:00, 17 July 2005 (UTC))

  • Please review Axis powers of World War II where Soviet Union is shown as an ally of Nazi Germany, while Spain even not shown as a Nazi collaborator state.--Certh 09:43, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
    • Um, did you read the article at all? It mentions that the Soviet Union was at one time an ally of Germany (which it was), but of course goes on to say how that changed after Operation Barabarosa. And there is a section discussion Spain's (and Portugal's) collaboration with Germany. I see no systemic bias in that article... --JerryOrr 12:26, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] People with disabilities; disability studies

I think most Wikipedians do not consider themselves people with disabilities. Therefore, things such as the sociology, history, psychology, language, etc of disabilities do not get covered in too much detail. We do have a very nice, somewhat long List of disability rights activists, but a lot of the artilces are redlinks. Some of the articles that are not redlinks go to articles about people other than the ones mentioned on the page, and need to be disambiguated; a few other are pages of politicians, whose pages need to be checked for mention in their involvement for disability rights. Also, the vast majority of people on the list, if not all of them, are from the Western world.

I suggest taking a peek at the history of Ed Roberts. There's an Ed Roberts who maufactured the Altair 8800 and an Ed Roberts who was the first disability rights activist at a university, who basically started the movement from scratch. There was a long article about the computer-related Ed Roberts, and none about the activist, though what the activist did came first chronologically by a few years, and was also easy to look up.

When a user first introduced information about the activist Ed Roberts at the bottom of the existing Ed Roberts page, someone removed the content without explaining why. (I can't speculate as to the mindset of the person. Maybe he or she just didn't know it was common practice to have a few lines about a different guy with the same name on the same page, before creating a disambiguation page. Then again, I hope it wasn't an off-the-cuff judgment that the activist Ed Roberts wasn't important.) The person who added it back said something along the lines of, "If you Google 'Ed Roberts' the first three links are about my guy, not yours." I have since created a disambiguation page, and grew Ed Roberts (activist) from a stub. The latter was featured on Did You Know -- but might never had grown to fruition if the original response to the new content was the last, which it certainly might have been. --Jacquelyn Marie 12:46, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

(reads over) I didn't really give a concrete request, did I? I guess the most concrete one I could give would be a request to fill in redlinks on the list of disability rights activists page.
But what I'm really looking for are other people who are willing to make it a priority every time they are on Wikipedia to add a little content regarding people with disabilities. I'd make a WikiProject if I could find the support. --Jacquelyn Marie 12:53, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Underrepresented occupations

*Pipefitter redirects to Plumber and pipefitting redirects to Plumbing - fixed but needs expansion --Bookgrrl 05:01, 9 December 2006 (UTC) *Steamfitter - no article - redirected to pipefitting since everything I found everywhere including the trades description lumped the two together --Bookgrrl 05:01, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

General comment: one reason many of these articles do not exist, or are still stubs is that potential contributors have no model for a successful article on a profession. If one of the more complete articles could be improved into a featured article, this might help Wikipedians in filling these needs. -- llywrch 17:29, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
I agree, are there any jobs that are FA status? Engineer, or Software writer maybe? Kevlar67 02:36, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Women and non-English-speaking Scientists

Numerous notable women and non-US/English scientists have no entries in Wikipedia. Ways to help include

  • award-winning scientists - developing articles for women and non-US scientists on pages that list award winners. (See especially the List of prizes, medals, and awards for women in science and Category:Awards by country, although many scientific medals are not yet included in those categories
  • List of members of the National Academy of Sciences is important
  • Standardizing "family" information across male and female scientists; in many entries on male scientists, family is not mentioned or is mentioned only minimally; family information is sometimesm accorded more priority for women biographies. Preferred for any scientist is prioritizing scientific accomplishments in the body of the article, with a small paragraph at the end of the biography section for personal/family connections. There are lots of scientist couples, and this is a good way to work on those articles -- find a female scientist who is married to a male scientist, and make sure both have equivalent family information.
  • Uncredited scientific achievements should be credited in the appropriate articles, with links to the scientists. This helps avoid erasure of women.
  • Scientific "pedigrees" that include notable students or advisors should be added where appropriate. Generally advisors listed near the top with graduate and postdoc work. Notable students may be mentioned in a single paragraph about the lab and/or influences of the scientist. This helps avoid erasure of women.
  • Too many embarrassing omissions to list them all, but Ruth Benerito ... Cynthia Kenyon ... Susan Solomon ... Jean Machnamara ... Elizabeth Neufeld ... Anne Anastasi ... Isabella L. Karle ... Marjorie Lee Browne (African-American mathematician; one of the first Af-Am female math phds in US)
  • These scientists need to be fleshed out: Esther Lederberg
  • Be sure to add them to the appropriate lists of scientists (and that's also a good way to find redlinked scientists who should be included)

[edit] Merging overrepresented content

In addition to adding new content to underrepresented areas, we should also work on minimizing content in overrepresented ones. It is easy to generate a hundred 1k articles out of 3k of text, if you break it up poorly and repeat yourself for a long intro paragraph in each of a hundred stubs, rather than making a single, concise page including them all.

Subjects to watch for:

  • Star Wars characters and locales
  • Star Trek characters and locales
  • Tolkien-related characters and locales
  • any modern television show (one article per episode summary, per throwaway character) -- particularly cartoons
  • Any serialized media : comic strips, comic books, serial stories, 10-part novels. In each case, figure out what the right chunk-size is for the text...
  • slang or jargon (can be moved to wiktionary, or combined into topical pages with the history of that jargon type, not one page per term)

These are all topics that should be in Wikipedia; and none of the existing content needs to be removed; but repeated content, and generation of hundreds of stubs rather than one or two good articles, is bad for readers, for categorizers, for quality-editors, and for the 'random article' feature.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Sj (talk • contribs).

Not really sure what this has to do with countering systemic bias... --JerryOrr 11:30, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
It is relevant to systemic bias - contributors' systemic bias leads to these short messy articles. It isn't really what this project focuses on, though, which is more to do with filling in neglected areas. See umpteen discussions about choosing a less misleading name if you're interested. --Cherry blossom tree 22:34, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
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