Wikipedia:WikiProject Countering systemic bias/Politics

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[edit] Does bias exist in Wikipedia's coverage of politics?

Many different people claim that there is a political bias within Wikipedia's articles, slanting either right or left, or somewhere else. These claims are hotly disputed and no consensus has emerged regarding the political bias of the project. However, there is certainly a bias towards inclusion of political topics and ideas of primary interest in the "western world." Political issues outside of Europe and North America received far less coverage than items from within those areas.

Rough evaluation of coverage:

Coverage Region
Excellent North America, Western Europe, Australia & NZ
Good East Asia, Japan, Eastern Europe
Mediocre Latin America, Middle East, South Asia
Poor Sub-Saharan Africa

[edit] Causes

The causes of this bias are fairly readily apparent. Wikipedia exists solely on the Internet and is thus on one side of the Digital Divide. Wikipedia writers mostly come from developed nations. Take a look at Wikipedia:Wikipedians by country. Our writers submit articles about what they know and what they know is more likely to be close at hand.

[edit] Solutions

  • Rather than only encouraging existing users, attempt to recruit new users to the project who can help counter these biases
  • Alter or expand the project so that it is not so subject to the digital divide.

[edit] Significant Regional Disputes

[edit] Arab-Israeli conflict

Considering the table above and the fact that Wikipedia users are on one side of the Digital Divide, it should not be surprising that the majority of editors of articles pertaining to politics in the Middle East hail from an American, European or Israeli perspective. Until the Arab nations establish a broad-based middle class, they will have few computer users and therefore few advocates on Wikipedia. Because of this, members of this WikiProject believe that countering systemic bias in coverage of the Middle East should be a much higher priority on wikipedia.

Current Arab-Israeli disputes:

  • The interminable struggle over terrorism categorization: both sides of this dispute dedicate far too many hours to adding or subtracting terrorism related categories to the heroes and/or foes of either side. The only logical way to end these debates is to incorporate sourced text which defines a given individual's, organization's or nation's role in commiting acts of terrorism. When enough evidence has been provided (that is, cited), it will be hard for the opposition to defend its edits.

[edit] Politics To-Do List

The following politically related articles have been identified as inadequate. They must be completed to counter the systemic bias of wikipedia. Each article is assigned a level of completedness according to the following scale: (We will have to agree on some sort of scale)

Image:25%.png - stub, a paragraph or two, completely inadequate.
Image:50%.png - maybe a few paragraphs, but coverage is inadequate, still missing some basic information.
Image:75%.png - Many paragraphs, covers all, or almost all, basic information, provides a bit of depth.
Image:100%.png - Excellent article. Covers all that is required of an encyclopedia. Has balance and depth. Sufficiently long to cover the topic.

[edit] Requested articles

[edit] Requests for expansion

[edit] Request for review/attention

[edit] Completed Projects

This section is for quality political and historical articles which were once considered weak and biased.