Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Countering systemic bias open tasks

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[edit] Moved from the main project page due to lack of actionable objections

[edit] Perspective

Many articles are subjectively biased. That is to say, they assume one kind of observer always makes the judgement. This is difficult to spot - but for instance ask why it is that a physicist is always getting the last word in the article on physics or a philosopher on philosophy? But the fields aren't defined by the practitioners, they're defined by those who want to use or understand the knowledge that they assemble. This is a more abstract POV problem: that one is always trusting a certain type of person to resolve a certain type of dispute. The Wikipedia's famous anti-elitism does seem to allow more challenge to expert views than other encyclopedias, but this is not quite as disciplined as just seeing perspective itself as a bias.

A particularly ambitious attempt to treat perspective as a bias was the Body, Cognition and Senses bias correction project that according to one person "was censored in one of the more remarkable examples of sysop vandalism ever seen at Wikipedia".

[edit] Scientific claims to truth

Many articles on scientific topics use language that suggests that the current scientific thinking is "true" or unchallengeable; Some even smack of scientism - claiming to find objective moral truth in empirical facts. In climate change and evolution and even particle physics there is some challenge to this, but in other subject areas bald statements that claim much more than scientific method would advise, continue to exist in otherwise good articles. This is probably because there are so many students who write for Wikipedia, and perhaps more young people, who forget (or never knew) that theories change. Realize that in 1960, before the Path Integral Formulation of Quantum Mechanics, it was believed that the Principle of Least Action (from which "f=ma" can be derived) was simply "true" without any need to qualify this at all. Note that this is not to say that fringe theories, such as Creationism, should be placed on equal terms.

[edit] Requests for Review

  • Category:Pseudoscience and subcategories Category:Quackery and Category:Pseudoscientists. See the discussion page Category talk:Pseudoscience. The questions here are: (1) should we be as tolerant of category names that are inherently biased as we are of bias in actual articles, and, (2) should we allow the use of category names (e.g. racists, race-traitors, Godless Communists, pseudoscientists) that people on the receiving end perceive as derogatory? 07:20, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Bible

Bible topics that suffer from a limited (usually pro-literal-truth) point of view. Many of these articles were imported from 19th century public domain sources like Bible dictionaries, and were patched with some weasel words. A permanent revision needs to be undertaken, taking modern scientific/scholarly views into account.

Moved to: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Bible

[edit] Militarism

A lot of definitions straight from military texts are used too. Often for terms that are used mostly or only in the military like command and control warfare, but also often for terms that are much more general like just command and control. This bias may be due to the fact that many U.S. military documents are in the public domain and easily turned into long boring articles that don't challenge the view of the US military at all. Heavily scrutinized articles like collateral damage or terrorism tend to be all right, but some like weapons of mass destruction must be watched constantly to make sure they remain complete and contain all the various possible definitions used by various kinds of institutions, not just militaries and governments. A related issue is that wars might well be always documented from the point of view of the winners.

I want to link Wikipedia:Africa-related regional notice board from this page. But there doesn't seem to be a logical place to put it...—iFaqeer (Talk to me!) 20:58, Dec 16, 2004 (UTC)


---
The following text was found under section "Bible":

I should be noted that this section has been
created by a user who has been banned for
1 year by arbcom from editing chiristianty related articles
Geni 21:47, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Moving it here with the following response:

While that may be the case some of the issues cited seem to hold merit (others, however, do seem confused and suggest ambiguity). These articles are not the place for exegesis, i.e. to defend criticisms to be found in other material and argue for a specific viewpoint. I just deleted an entire section from the Joshua article because of this. ---

that is as it may may be however it is quite clear from the irismaster and mr natural health cases that the arbitration comittee is oposed to this sort of activity.Geni 19:57, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)

WP:NPOV is also quite clear. Did you leave a note on my talk page? ---

No I did not leave a note on your talk page. I have no problem with people viewing these artickes as POV (mostly because if there is an edit war over them then there is no way in a million years that I'm going to get sucked in). The point is that my waring was there for a reason in that care must be taken while using the listGeni 22:35, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)

The Joshua article, was a case in point. Quite clearly there is such bias, and your comments above, Geni, i.e. about my editing status, count as a personal attack, and do not address the issue in question. CheeseDreams 19:54, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)

My statment was entirly factual.Geni 20:32, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I agree with CheeseDreams here. Such focus on "who wrote this" over encyclopedic accuracy is a major source of both systemic and systematic bias, and does not make for good editorial decisions.

Without getting involved in the debate, it's worrying that what appears to the outside reader to be an official warning from Wikipedia should be in such poor English (and use impenetrable jargon); moreover, such matters are surely internal, not for the general reader. It doesn't give a very good impression of Wikipedia. Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 09:56, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Another CSB article on FAC

Lord's Resistance Army has been expanded significantly since it's listing on CSB Open Tasks. It has gone through Peer Review last month and is a Featured Article Candidate right now. Please read the article and support it with your vote if you think it's worth it. The FAC request is here. Thanks! — mark ✎ 12:39, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Don't the Headings show a...er... Systemic Bias?

Just that; don't the Headings show a ...er... Systemic Bias? I just created Muslim educational institutions and I really don't want to put it under "Developing world" or "Ethnic minority" or "Geographically limited". The first characterization doesn't do it justice, besides being a label I just don't want to promote; the second seems inappropriate, because the topic is not about ethnicity, among other things; and the last is just, well, not applicable...—iFaqeer (Talk to me!) 00:12, Feb 26, 2005 (UTC)

That's true. I think most of the heading came about at the beginning of the project when people were trying to get some focus about what was missing in Wikipedia. The headings could easily be seen as limiting at best, and patronizing at worst. What's missing is hard to define. It's probably worth adding a Miscellaneous or Other section- XED.talk 00:31, 26 Feb 2005 (UTC)
It's pretty clear that CSB is systemically biased itself, e.g. against Latin American or Central Asian topics. This is not to deny that the stuff we tend to do is not systemically biased against. It's a vicious circle.  ;-) Since I view Open Tasks as a kind of reminder of the scale of what is being missed, I would encourage people to just add another section header (as Xed states) with what you feel is the missing type of article. But if someone has a neat idea on how to make the list more flexible... - BanyanTree 06:55, 26 Feb 2005 (UTC)
By definition, CSB is not going to have a whole lot of users collaborating on each subject, because we are dealing with the stuff that most users do not know enough about to contribute effectively. The bias is in no way limited to the subject headings that were chosen: more headings should be added as and when they are needed. I disagree with the statement that the headings show bias: they do exactly what they are supposed to do: they draw attention to the least well developed yet important areas of Wikipedia. I actually believe that the articles I've read on Islam (latest was Alawite) are well written and comprehensive. We could have a heading called Islam (or perhaps something more specific), but I see that Islam is served by Wikipedia articles than some of the subjects under the existing headings. That isn't to say that articles on Islamic issues are perfect, or that there is no systemic bias against them, but that they are not overlooked as much as some other areas. Gareth Hughes 13:44, 26 Feb 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Be Bold

I really think people are spending too much time listing stuff on here when they should simply be adding to and editing the articles. Most of the stuff they describe as wrong with the articles can be immediately be fixed by them, I think the problem is they are assuming someone who is smarter then them on that topic should be the one to fix it, but that again plays right into the systemic bias. [posted by 67.180.61.179 (talk • contribs)]

I, for one, do not generally try to write on topics I barely know about. I do come here to request articles on overlooked topics. Are you suggesting that I should not make such suggestions? Or that I should edit where I am largely ignorant? Both seem like bad ideas to me. -- Jmabel | Talk 06:52, Mar 1, 2005 (UTC)
I managed to write and article on a war in a country I had never even heard of proir to starting to research for the article. Sure it isn't a great article but it's better than nothingGeni 11:55, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)
How did you judge the qualitiy of your sources? In particular, how did you know that you were not reading propaganda for one side or another? -- Jmabel | Talk 17:33, Mar 1, 2005 (UTC)

I think I've suggested 95% of the entries in the Linguistics section. There is no way in which I could fix all those myself. Instead, I've listed them and told others about it — and behold, Steverapaport, Pablo D. Flores, and Gareth Hughes came to the rescue and have done many great things. Additionally, I've tried to fill some gaps of my own. Listing entries is not the same as 'not being bold'. It is telling each other what needs to be done in order to be able to counter systemic bias. — mark ✎ 14:28, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Yes, the first step is awareness of the problem. Some things do get listed here and are not dealt with. That's no problem: some of them are not as underdeveloped as others, others just do not do it for us (perhaps we should have Countering the systemic bias of the CSB participants!). When I am bold I like to know that there might be some support from the other good people who read these pages: that's why I list stuff here. Gareth Hughes 14:52, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Being Bold with headings

Here's a proposed scheme for changing the headings on the main page.

NOTE: This is just a proposal. Please feel free to edit this table and add/change headings.

Current New Status/Comments
1 Developing World Underrepresented or Non-Western/European Countries divided into regions Latin America, Central Asia, Oceania are so biased against they don't even have sections on CSB
2 Art and Design -
3 Women's studies -
4 Non-English language literature - Would this not fit under "Underrepresented countries"?
5 Agriculture and horticultural studies -
6 Ethnic minorities Underrepresented ethnicities
7 Labor issues
8 Linguistics Break up in (1) underrepresented languages / linguistic groups, and (2) Linguistic articles that suffer from a limited (usually Indo-European) point of view Isn't (2) under "limited geographic scope" below?
9 Bible Articles relating to the Jewish and Christian Scriptures too often take a pro-religious or anti-religious bias, but rarely a considered, neutral point of view. (I'm not sure that this is limited to Judeo-Christianity)
10 Limited geographic scope Articles that are internally biased I always thought of this as articles like Famine and Chickenpox that are universal but read like only Westerners experience them
11 Militarism Military articles too often represent the point of view of the strong, or oversimplify issues of politics, religion and ethnicity
12 Islam, Muslims, and the Muslim World Break into Islam (for religious topics) and Muslims and the Muslim World for more cultural topics?
13 Country Carousel if there is no Country Carousel on the template, these should be moved into "Developing World" or another relevant category. Do people want to keep a spot on the template reserved for countries?

—iFaqeer (Talk to me!) 00:27, Mar 3, 2005 (UTC)

This is evolving into a table that does more than just discussing new headings. We seem to be listing issues, too. That's nice.—iFaqeer (Talk to me!) 06:32, Mar 3, 2005 (UTC)

Re: Isn't (2) under "limited geographic scope" below?

In a way, yes (but not always). It makes more sense for linguistic articles that need to be improved to be included in the category Linguistics. Being specific helps to focus efforts. — mark ✎ 10:19, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] proposal: subpage system

Well, nobody has reverted the new changes, so I suppose that's a good sign.  :) Mark Dingemanse mentioned on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Countering systemic bias the option of turning the tasks list into a subpage system, like that used at the Village Pump. I rather like this idea, especially if it allows easier navigation from the top of the screen.

I have another wacky idea that would take the idea further. I'm not even sure that this is technically feasible, but could the subpages templates be shared with the appropriate regional boards and projects as their open tasks list? As an example: 1. all the Latin American articles are placed on a template, 2. the template is linked to the main page here along with templates for all the other regions, so the page looks like a coherent whole, 3. the Latin American template is also pasted into the Wikiproject Latin American countries (or whatever the relevant board/project is) to form a open tasks list specifically for them. The end result would be that the Latin American specialists have a small tasks list targeted for them at their page, while the same page is available on CSB to those who may not have any particular knowledge but are willing to help copyedit, make stubs for CSB. Everyone shares in the admin burden, they get more people working on their articles, we get more work against systemic bias.

Thoughts on the subpage and tasks-web ideas? - BanyanTree 04:14, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)

It is technically feasible, but I'm not sure if it's too much. The number of topics that might experience negative bias are endless. I wonder if the CSB tasks should rather be distributed not by topic but by the kind of bias that is found. The major area of bias that we deal with is geographical, and that is the one that most of us want to deal with. A lot of what we are talking about could be lumped together under geographical bias. That might make sure that the project remains focused (e.g. Guatamalan marine life doesn't get a lot of attention, we could create a subpage, or we could acknowledge that it is simple geographical bias). We are positively biased towards tasks that exhibit geographical bias, so this method would raise the prominence of other negative bias, for example gender bias. Gareth Hughes 22:36, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I'm not sure if I understand what you mean. As I see it, lumping together all articles suffering from a limited point of view would only make work less efficient (just because there's so much of them). As I said above, I think that grouping articles in more specific subject areas helps to focus efforts; I also think it attracts participants that otherwise would be scared away by the sheer amount of articles all lumped together. At least, that's how it works for me. — mark ✎ 23:19, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I just feel that we should be quite specific, then, about the subject areas: otherwise, we may be swamped by too many. I wanted to point out that we are focusing mainly on geographical bias rather than any other kind. Gareth Hughes 23:23, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Do you want to have a procedure for evaluating what sections should be on the list and any new proposed section? I would have no problem with that in a sub-page system to avoid chaos and overlapping articles.
Anyway, going back to my initial proposal. The point of shared task templates is to avoid doubling work, or to add something to a pre-existing project. For example, the Africa-related regional notice board has a small open tasks list, and WikiProject Latin America countries has a large list that has gone quiescent. Two lists means double the maintenance work, or leads to people updating one list while ignoring the other. A shared list seems to me to be a good way to encourage cooperation, even if unconscious, between CSB and CSB-related projects. Projects like Wikipedia:WikiProject Languages have an extensive tasks list, but they might benefit from having internally biased articles pointed out to them, perhaps on a subpage. Some page templates clearly have no existing projects to be doubled to as of yet, so would only be available on WP:CSBOT. If anyone is interested in making WikiProject Women's studies, I'd be glad help out as much as I can, and might even be able to mirror a tasks template over from here if we agree to it... ;) - BanyanTree 03:16, 16 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I'm for the idea of subpages, but against the idea of breaking everything up into Wikiprojects and duplicating lists. The subpages idea has been floated before, just after Xed left, but never picked up--nixie 00:08, 5 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Linguistics

I've placed the Linguistics section on its own subpage to make it more watchable. Also, since there are several contributors now, it might be nice to have a separate Talk page. If it doesn't work out, it's easily revertible. — mark ✎ 18:05, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] This page is too big

The open tasks page is really getting unwieldy. Isn't it time it was split up into Geographic bias, Art and Women sections? TreveXtalk 23:43, 4 May 2005 (UTC)

The page wouln't be so big if the lists were pruned of articles that have reached a reaosnable standard, I suggest we do this first.--nixie 00:15, 5 May 2005 (UTC)
Good idea, but this may only reduce the length of the page by a maximum of around 25 percent. I reckon we should both prune and split into sub-pages. TreveXtalk 00:32, 5 May 2005 (UTC)
Well there is also a bunch of stuff on the page that could be brought to the attention of other wikiprojects and moved off the list all thgether, for example the bible section should be sent to Wikipedia:WikiProject Bible. The discussion of pseudoscience, could be moved to this talk page, and the section on perspective shortened and added to the top of the page--nixie 01:05, 5 May 2005 (UTC)
I support nixie's proposal. - BanyanTree 01:14, 5 May 2005 (UTC)
Well, I'm not so sure about this. The problem we're trying to combat here is Systemic bias, and I'm afraid (though I haven't checked the project out) that sending requests over there will give them just the normal biased treatment that they have always gotten. I do suggest that we simply delete all of the old, irrelevent discussion on the page to shorten it a little. --Dmcdevit 01:26, 5 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Countries

What do you all consider when listing a country as "ignored by Wikipedia"? Zscout370 (Sound Off) 1 July 2005 00:11 (UTC)

I don't think there are any real rules. If there were a disagreement, I imagine we'd develop a consensus about that, but I don't think there's been one. If you're asking because you'd like to add one, I'd say go ahead. If you're asking because you dispute one, you should probably just address it here. Other than that, I trust most people's judgment in the matter. You might want to check out Wikipedia:WikiProject Countering systemic bias/Geography. --Dmcdevit 1 July 2005 01:53 (UTC)

[edit] IDRIVE

Template:IDRIVErela

[edit] Stubs

I'm shamefully ignorant about most of the world (I really only know about the countries that are important geopolitical players, and I'd never even heard of Benin until seeing it on CSB) and so while I think this project is important, I'm not sure how often I'll be able to contribute much more than a stub. My question is this: what is the general consensus around here about stubs? If I do a google search on Samuel Ndashyikirwa and write a four-sentence stub, is that considered useful, or does it prevent the creation of a "real" article about him? Dave (talk) 20:39, July 24, 2005 (UTC)

Being fairly new here myself, I can't speak for a consensus, but I'd say a stub would be much better than nothing; you can always write the stub and then move it from "Requested articles" to "Requests for expansion" if you think it's important enough to be expanded further. Article requests sit on this page for a long time, though (check out the history), so I certainly don't think you'd be blocking anyone from creating a "real" article. Have fun!--Dvyost 20:57, 24 July 2005 (UTC)
Yeah, I figured there wasn't much turnover, but I thought I should check before flooding Wikipedia with 4 sentence stubs. Thanks for the quick response, Dave (talk) 21:00, July 24, 2005 (UTC)
4 sentances is pretty boarderline but certainly anything longer is worth haveing.Geni 21:13, 24 July 2005 (UTC)
A stub, assuming it is accurate, is better than nothing. See Wikipedia:the perfect stub. -- Jmabel | Talk 03:39, July 25, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Soviet History

Pretty much all articles about Soviet Union, its history, economy and politics were biased to some degree. While they do not appear anti-Soviet, they use a lot of information, which originates from anti-Soviet sources and is false.

True, but, unfortunately, those anti-Soviet sources are not always false. --Barbatus 11:59, September 9, 2005 (UTC)
  • This section on the main page seems to be neither:
  1. justifying its assertions (oh yeah? who says they're false?)
  2. or offering a suggestion of how we should improve (go to Soviet sources? which are hard to find, and quite often documentably false?)

Until that is addressed, can we abridge this section to something like "Many articles about the SU use information from anti-Soviet sources - where possible, cite the source, and try to find balance"? Otherwise we are devoting a lot of space to unconstructive complaining. GRuban 14:51, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

    • I agree entirely. I would support changing to wording to what you proposed. JerryOrr 15:12, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
      • No one else said anything for a while, so I went ahead. Better? GRuban 14:52, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Where to put these?

I came across another huge gap in Wikipedia: we have almost nothing about oral literature, story-telling, etc.

My question is: where to put these? Non-english literature is probably the best fit, but the subject it's not necessarily non-English. What do others think? — mark ✎ 11:46, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

Orature exists (stubbily). Man vyi 13:01, 15 September 2005 (UTC)
Horrible neologism, but I see it gets 31,000 Google hits, so I guess it has passed into the language. I suppose oral literature, which seems more natural to me, is oxymoronic, but it gets 269,000 Google hits, so isn't that where our article should be, with "orature" as a redirect? -- Jmabel | Talk 06:17, 16 September 2005 (UTC)
Orature is to oracy as literature is to literacy... but I personally don't mind where it sits as long as people can find the info! Man vyi 07:28, 16 September 2005 (UTC)
Oral literature is the most common term, I think (at least for African Studies it surely is). I didn't phrase my question clear enough; I wasn't sure where to put these on the Open Tasks lists since there doesn't seem to be a fitting category for them. — mark ✎ 11:39, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Arab Socialist Union

As requested, I've strated an article on the Arab Socialist Union. This could be a decent article, but the sources are conflicting and confusing. Some of our Wikipedia articles are in a bad state. I was particularly shocked by how flimsy the article on Gamal Abdel Nasser is. Anyway, I just want to flag up that I've started this. If any other participants could spare the time to check sources and write a couple more paragraphs it'd help a lot. Otherwise it could easily languish in this undone state. --Gareth Hughes 19:01, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Question about two autoemancipation stubs

Hmm, I saw the Autoemancipation stub in the template and decided to add a couple things. Then I noticed there is another older stub at Auto-Emancipation. I suppose the Autoemancipation article has more content, but the other article has categories and other language WP links in it. So my question is, which title is right, and how would a merge be done to preserve both article's histories? Smmurphy 17:13, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

  • I'm confused: there seems to be no article at all at the one you say has more. -- Jmabel | Talk 01:20, 20 November 2005 (UTC)
    • Oh no, sorry, how embarrassing. I left off the capitalization. Umm, so the question still stands, I guess. Smmurphy(Talk) 01:06, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
      • Auto-Emancipation appears to be the proper title. I have done a delete-merge-undelete to preserve the histories, and merged the texts. If someone wants to check to make sure nothing important got lost, it would be appreciated. Cheers, BanyanTree 01:27, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
        • Wow, delete-merge-undelete, eh. I did that once, threw out my back, couldn't walk for weeks. Good thing, though, as the bed rest gave me more time to edit Wikipedia. Anyway, the chronology for Leon Pinsker (the author of the pamphlet) was confusing when I looked up the information, and that is nicely reflected in the article as it stands : ( I wish I knew more about it. Smmurphy(Talk) 05:22, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Removal of Section for Catholic Apologia

On first look, the new section titled WP:CSBOT#Catholic Apologia appears to be a content dispute rather than something suffering from neglect. Thoughts? - BanyanTree 04:49, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

  • I'd already removed it on precisely those grounds before noticing your comment here. -- Jmabel | Talk 09:19, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Whatever it is it is a major problem, please realise that systemic biasd is active as I state, ot plese yourselves. The Jmabel removal is not accurate. This is the denial of verifiability, not just content. Jmabel is of the assassination opinion, I presume, of me. I refer you to Bengalski's "Third Party Statement" on my talk page. As to neglect-I have not neglected it, but the supposeddly rational WP has, hitherto. If content is systematically occluded throughout the history, that is systemic . Please help your WP grow up and abandon hagiography .Replace the section please, BanyanTree . In fact make further reports. I object, as I generally do, because there is systemic and effectively ant-wiki bias, and I object to Jmabel's rv.EffK 12:04, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
  • I support the removal of that section. Its subject matter is not within the aims of this project as stated on WikiProject Countering systemic bias. It is a content dispute that should be discussed on the talk page of the relevant article, or taken to WP:RFC if necessary. It is also a badly written rant. 3:1 against so far. --Gareth Hughes 12:41, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
There may very well be bias there, but it isn't systemic bias as defined by WP:CSB. There are ways you can go about resolving this (as Gareth said) but this isn't one of them. Even if it was listed here it wouldn't do you any good because no-one interested in that kind of thing would look for it here.--Cherry blossom tree 13:58, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Removing Krystal Wakem from requests

I'm going to be bold and remove Krystal Wakem from the tasks list. The reason is as described a while ago in Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Krystal_Wakem - either he, she, or it is not notable, or there ain't no such animal entirely. If someone disagrees, please feel free to equally be bold and put up an article with even a one-sentence explanation of KW's notability as other than a song lyric. GRuban 14:25, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

I'd give odds that the name is a joke. "Krystal" as in crystal methedrine, "Wakem" as in "wake you up." - Jmabel | Talk 06:31, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

The name isnt a joke and has nothing to do with what you said. She is a 17 year old girl(As of March 1st 2006) from Portland Maine USA. She is freinds with Le Tigre, I believe, through her aunt who owns the record company that makes their records. Krystal doesnt even know why she is mentioned in the song. I know all this because she is my freind and I've asked her. She isn't famous so you can remove her. I just wanted to clear things up around The name "Krystal Wakem". I Hope I was of some assistance. -Anonymous- P.S. you may contact me via email if you are really interested in knowing more. email adress: fighting_for_air@hotmail.com

Sorry for imagining that your friend's name was a joke. But we seen to be in agreement that she doesn't merit an encyclopedia article. - Jmabel | Talk 04:54, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Perhaps a CSB userbox?

"This user strives to counter systematic bias." Has it been done? Or is there some reason why it shouldn't? Nonplus 20:20, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

I personally tend to dislike most user boxes other than what languages you know, whether you are an admin, things like that. But I've seen far worse: if it turns your crank, feel free. - Jmabel | Talk 20:15, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Geography

I note in your geography open tasks that the main focus is Africa, which I agree needs work. But a number of Pacific Island nations also need to be worked on, yet you haven't covered them. Indeed, the map of the world ignores them. CSB seems to be guilty itself of having a systemic bias. --Midnighttonight 09:02, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

As could be expected of course, seeing that CSB participants are themselves drawn from the ranks of Wikipedians. Feel free to correct! — mark ✎ 12:20, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Move

A minor point, but Wikipedia:WikiProject Countering systemic bias open tasks should be moved to Wikipedia:WikiProject Countering systemic bias/Open tasks. That would make it a subpage, which is what it properly is. As it stands it appears to be a separate WikiProject with a hard-to-parse name. --Trovatore 17:36, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

Agree. But we might need a bot to fix all pages that link here. — mark ✎ 19:43, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
Well, it's really only the double redirects that need to be fixed; there shouldn't be too many of those I'd think. The bigger annoyance is that Wikipedia:WikiProject Countering systemic bias/Open tasks already exists and has a nontrivial history, so it'll take some admin fiddling to accomplish the move (move one page to a temp location, delete the redirect, move the other to the first location, move the temp location to the second location, delete the redirect, and don't forget the talk pages too). --Trovatore 22:19, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Kartini

I recently translated the above Indonesian article into English. I really think that with a bit of work on it, it would make a great English featured article. As a featured article, it counters systemic bias on almost every level...It's about an Indonesian woman who has a very significant place in the pantheon of Indonesian hero[ines].

Kartini wrote letters in Dutch to friends (whom she never met) which profoundly changed the way the Dutch establishment viewed their Dutch East Indian possessions and its people. She was a women with very strong opinions on the way women were treated in her culture, on the injustices of colonialism, on the hypocrises of religion. Ironically, she was also uniquely priviledged - she was allowed to attend school until the age of 12, she had a sympathetic father who allowed her to write to her friends in the Netherlands, and later a sympathetic husband who allowed her to set up a school to educate Indonesian women. She died in childbirth at the age of 25.

Would there be any interest in collaborating on this article to try and bring it up to FA status? There are so many thought-provoking strands that could come out of it that I think it is a worthy project. I will also try and raise support on some of the regional boards.--Sepa 20:33, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

She seems like a noteworthy person, and the article in its current state is a very good start. I would be willing to help improve this article. Before we get to work on it, though, I can tell you the very first thing you will hear if you put it in for peer review: it needs inline citation (see WP:WIAFA). The article cites several references, which is better than many article on Wikipedia, but in order to get featured status, it will have to have inline citation.
The <ref> element is currently in vogue (I find its the best option for inline citation), but it can be a little tricky if you aren't familiar with it. I've made extensive use of it in the Bill Haywood article if you want some examples. However, if you just use simple Harvard referencing, I would be willing to come in and convert it to <ref>.
This is definitely a good start to what could be an excellent article. Feel free to contact me personally if you want any help. --JerryOrr 12:02, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
I agree about the inline references. Since the Indonesian version doesn't have them it could be awkward depending on what access you have to the sources listed, but it will be necessary to get it featured. Also if it is going to be featured it will need an expanded lead section (see WP:LEAD.) I've slightly reworked the article - copyediting, moving a few bits around. The biography section is still very long - maybe that could do with some subsections. That's all I can think of for now. Good article! --Cherry blossom tree 20:33, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Environmental movement

Perhaps this is covered elsewhere but I have not seen any thing about the bias in articles about the environmental movement and articles about the environment. For example the article logging had long sections about the impact on the environment but only one short line at urban sprawl. I didn't see anything about the automobile's impact on the environment. As another example try to find some information about the possibility of any grass-root elements at wise use. Compare to the gentle advice given at preservationist to avoid hurt feelings. This bias is seen through Wikipedia. Another example is the article at resource extraction. Most of the articles I've seen about the environmental movement or the environment are written from the point of view of those within the movement themselves. A good example of this can be see at wildlife,and wilderness. Another example, the article deer does not mention that deer thrive in suburban areas and the resulting over population cause damage to the forest. Deer is portrayed simply as a wild animal. I believe that the fact that this bias is not mentioned on this page is also evidence of the bias as it is largely unrecognized by the majority of editors.

A related bias which is mentioned, the lack of certain professions, the example of a brick layer is given. However even if a brick layer does edit if there is an edit dispute with a white collar computer professional the brick layer is more likely to give up due, both to lack of support for his view, and also lack of editing and writing skills. The white collar professionals can use superior editing and language skills to belittle and marginalize other views. A skilled writer obviously can more easily get points across then an unskilled one. KAM 14:55, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

The point of view or bias of Wikipedia specifically is that man and nature are two separate worlds. In this view nature is good, balanced and perfect unless interfered with by man. The highest good is wilderness, old growth forest and wildlife, as long as it is not ruined by the hand of man. The worse thing would be clearcutting because man "ruins" the world of nature, the forest. Urban sprawl is more of less neutral because it is just a different use for land that is already within the world of man. On the other hand land use within the sphere of man that is close to nature, is good, for example, organic farming. This view point can be easily seen throughout Wikipedia. KAM 13:22, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Bomb Disposal

Hey, I was looking over the Bomb disposal page, and it's very good if you want to know about American and British bomb disposal. While they may dominate the field in the Western world, I find it hard to believe that the Soviets didn't do a fair amount of work on this subject. Is their anyone here who knows about this field who'd be willing to work on it? ManicParroT 01:06, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

by far the most common form of b/disposal is demining which is usually in third wrld/global south countries after one of those 3 gov's or a satelite thereof have been thru. needless to say that page is a joke too, doesn't even mention afganistan, cambodia or bosnia, 3 of the most heavily mined countries in the world. hm there's a lot of work here...  ⇒ bsnowball  14:02, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
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