Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Countering systemic bias/Archive 4

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Archive This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Contents

A Humble Man's Advice

It is wonderful that the community is doing something about this problem, and believe me, this is a big problem. I myself attempted to define the Rubinomics article but I believe the outcome of the article was disappointing and I got disenfranchised, but the solution of the problem is not adding more views that are varied. The solution is not to add or recruit more contributors who are from different backgrounds. Not even to read more brick and mortar works. These may all help but it is not the solution to the problem, for the problem is a fundamental characteristic of the community. You see, the community (in my humble opinion, correct me if I'm wrong) is mostly composed of enthusiasts (tech maybe?). This is a big problem. Your goal is to build a collection of all human knowledge - encyclopedia. But in order to collect this knowledge, you need to have the best and the wisest in all possible fields that humanity has to offer from all over the world. Ladies and gentlemen, this is not just a Star Wars factbook, its a contribution to the world for generations to come. There are great men and women out there who have decades of hardwork and wisdom who are willing to share their wisdom. You should pursue them and ask them to join and share. They have proven their greatness in their given fields even before the Internet existed, so in my opinion, they should be part of the article writing process. Talk to them. Listen to them. Learn from them. Attend their classes if you are fortunate to be their student, even though they have flaws. (I'm sure you guys have watched 'A Beautiful Mind')Better yet, let them write themselves and then go into an intellectual discourse with them. Many of them will enjoy talking and debating about what they know for curious minds contribute as much as the pioneer if all are together discoursing like Socrates' garden school. And this applies in everything not only Philosophy. Don't let them become writers exclusively for the big publishing companies. Just recently, a great mind by the name of Jacques Derrida died. He is one of the greatest minds of his field in the last century. He began the Deconstructionalist school of criticism. He is gone now, but has he ever contributed to the noble cause of building the greatest collection of human knowledge? I doubt. Even in his own work? Great minds like him are disappearing one by one and they are the best prospective contributers in the many fields like the Humanities, the Social Sciences, the Natural Sciences, etc. that the world has to offer. It will be a complete waste if they do not contribute to the wikis themselves. Their hard untainted work will be gone forever after their books (or their unpublished dissertations) turn to dust and this digital medium remains composed of reinterpretations of another man's great ideas and views. What is left will not necessarily represent the ideas or views of the pioneer. How could one be objective if one does not recognize that there is validity in the different sides of the coin? It is not fair and just to not involve them in the writing process after they pursue post-graduate studies and a lifetime of research. We have it easy for they will just feed you their conclusions filled with their sweat, blood, and dead brain cells but you will just throw it away preferring your interpretation of an objective assessment of their work. Terrible. Credibility goes to someone who didn't work as hard. Thats the reason why the many good writers are those who read alot. Let them take part, if not....Shame....

And if you are a skeptic, I will try to make my advice clear. Look for the best in people in their field no matter what their background and ask them to contribute, at least interview. And if they do not know how to use the Internet, teach them! There are so many great historians, economists, doctors, mathematicians, sociologists, psychologists, natural scientists (all branches), philosophers, etc. out there who want to contribute to the world for free before they are dead. Even university professors will be ok. SO let them join! Your noble cause will only grow in greatness if you do this. THEN you can discourse and edit mercilessly for you know that you are sharing ideas with the expert, who will also try see it your way as well. Knowledge is truly shared and the world will move forward.....
23:16, 10 Oct 2004 203.76.241.215


Good stuff, Humble Man. But what this subproject is about does not preclude anyone from approaching more experts to encourage them to contribute. (I've been doing that for the Wikipedia Maori while writing articles for it.) We can each do as much or as little as we choose along each path or just one. Robin Patterson 01:42, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)

"Female oriented" or "Women's studies"

I prefer "Female oriented", since "Women's studies" sounds dry and academic, and doesn't sound like it encompasses professions with high proportion of women --- Xed 15:13, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)

And as a male who is interested in working in the area (I have created lots of articles on women writers in the past), I would argue strongly against 'Female orientated' as being almost segregationist, a bit like 'Women's magazines' or something. These articles are about women, not for them! Filiocht 15:21, 2004 Oct 12 (UTC)

'Women's magazines' and 'Women's studies' - both sound segregationist. 'Female orientated' has a broader meaning, one which includes 'Woman's studies'. Like you imply, 'Woman's studies' sounds like it's just about Women writers --- Xed 16:24, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I agree that "Women's studies" seems to suggest only academic subjects. I find "Female oriented" to be aesthetically just awful (sorry!) and not any clearer. How about "Women and feminism"? If "feminism" is too divisive or otherwise undesirable, then just "Women"? "Women's issues" (or "Women and women's issues", too repetitive?) could work, don't know if it has the same problem as above ("for women" vs. "about women"). We do have a "Labor issues", but also simply "Ethnic minorities". —Bsktcase 21:50, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I don't think dividing it up helps to keep it simple. The page is already far too complicated. --- Xed 22:17, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Not on the title of the Wikiproject, but a related issue is that "gender studies" is becoming more common. An increasingly-popular view in the "post-feminist" era of liberal thought on gender is that gender is a fuzzy concept (rather than binary men/women), and there are some issues that apply across genders, at the intersection of genders, and so on. For example, it's now widely held that gender stereotypes for children are more detrimental to women's career progress (anti-science/math/etc.), but may also be detrimental to men's psychological progress (violence/anti-empathy/etc.). But this is also a very controversial area, and "women's studies" versus "gender studies" itself is a holy war on both sides. --Delirium 17:51, Oct 15, 2004 (UTC)

Gender-related issues? comments?Pedant 18:21, 2004 Nov 5 (UTC)

Doneness

I've added a bunch to Smith College, and other wonderful people have filled in Spelman College and Bennett College. They originally got listed here because they were either missing or so stubby as to be embarrassments to wikipedia, which they definitely aren't any more. I guess my thinking is, if women's (and historically black) colleges are written at a level comparable to existing co-ed (etc.) colleges in wikipedia, then even if there's more to say about them, they're no longer examples of "systemic bias". I think these three have reached that point.

This was discussed back in the Archived talk page, but no consensus was reached.

I would seriously suggest that we consider removing these three from our list so we can focus attention on more needy candidates. We don't necessarily need to remove every article that grows beyond a stub—I'm sure some articles will merit our ongoing attention—but I don't think these three college entries necessarily need to be monitored and maintained at such a high level. Opinions? —Bsktcase 22:03, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I fully agree with you. I think we need a mechanism for this sort of things; otherwise we won't be able to keep track of improvements and achievements due to WP:Bias. Filiocht proposed a 'Requesting review' category, along with some others (see above). I think his is a good idea. Is that what you mean and what we need? - Strangeloop (talk) 22:33, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)
And I'm quite amazed at how far those articles reached. Review is definitely the next stage. [[User:Poccil|Peter O. (Talk)]] 23:32, Oct 12, 2004 (UTC)
I added an article to requesting review in the women bit (whatever we call it) yesterday and suggest that the same be done with these. Filiocht 07:33, 2004 Oct 13 (UTC)
I went ahead and moved the three (moved, rather than copied) to the Review section. This seems like a good first step. Thanks for the responses! —Bsktcase 15:14, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)

The next step is for these articles to be reviewed. This is vital to get more project input. I'd suggest that comments be made on the article talk page. Filiocht 08:51, Oct 14, 2004 (UTC)

Now this is interesting

While scouring old Wikipedia project pages, I found this little gem: Wikipedia:Topics_where_Wikipedia_is_weak, which predates this project by three months. Do you think there's anything we can incorporate into here? [[User:Poccil|Peter O. (Talk)]] 15:16, Oct 13, 2004 (UTC)

He's right on the book/movie angle. Wikipedia is does read sometimes like a guide to popular culture rather than a broad knowledge resourse. Also, the part about information the various provinces and towns of countries strikes a chord. The UK and US have particularly detailed information in this regard. So it might be worth encouraging people to create articles for the main towns and provinces in the weekly country carousel countries. The creator of the page (Danny) is a member of this project --- Xed 23:24, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Thanks for noticing the page, and for taking up--far more effectively, I might add--my original effort to expand the scope of Wikipedia to include far more than pop culture and U.S.-based references but to be a truly global project. Danny 04:06, 14 Oct 2004 (UTC)

socially acceptable back-door way of promoting anti-Americanism

This is what administrator Jayjg believes this project is all about. Anyone agree? --- Xed 17:30, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Let me talk with him. [[User:Poccil|Peter O. (Talk)]] 18:09, Oct 13, 2004 (UTC)
Re: your comment on his talk page - I certainly don't agree with him, I was just wondering if anybody did. --- Xed 18:15, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Jayjg was referring to the way you are pitching the systemic bias problem to others, and not to this project, which he greatly supports. [[User:Poccil|Peter O. (Talk)]] 18:49, Oct 13, 2004 (UTC)
Actually, that's not at all what I believe this project is all about. While I strongly support the project itself, I also understand its history, and Xed's motivation for promoting it. It grew out of Xed's attacks on Jimbo and his attempts to minimize the significance of the 9/11 attacks. Viewing the development of this project in context reveals much about Xed's motivations. Xed, of course, disagrees with my characteriztion of his motives, as is Xed's right. Xed also deliberately mischaracterizes my statements as being about the project itself, rather than about Xed's motivations, which is not Xed's right, but which is unsurprising knowing Xed. Jayjg 19:22, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)
You're talking shit as usual. It grew out of my realisation that there's more on Babylon 5 than Congo Civil War - but that would be anti-American to you! Where did I minimize the importance the importance of the 9/11 attacks? What does Jimbo have to do with Babylon 5? You are full of bizarre conspiracies --- Xed 19:38, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Perhaps you forget, Xed, that I was there when you attacked Jimbo in more than one way (including a rather amusing Request for abitration), then attempted to insert Congo Civil War information into the 9/11 article against the will of all other editors, and then (after a 1 week ban for trolling) came up with your Systemic Bias project. That said, I commend the project itself, and recommend you spend your time working on it, rather than various other destructive activities such as inserting irrelevant and poorly substantiated trivia into the John Kerry page. Jayjg 19:57, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)
How can you commend a project which you believe was formed as a "socially acceptable back-door way of promoting anti-Americanism" to "minimize the significance of the 9/11 attacks" (which you have provided no evidence for)? Show me where in the Systemic Bias project I have tried to make it into a "socially acceptable back-door way of promoting anti-Americanism" to "minimize the significance of the 9/11 attacks". --- Xed 20:02, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)
The project is a good one regardless of your motivations for proposing it. As for the rest, see previous comment. By the way, a week or two ago didn't you say you were leaving Wikipedia? Jayjg 20:13, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Again. "socially acceptable back-door way of promoting anti-Americanism" to "minimize the significance of the 9/11 attacks" - Show me the evidence. Xed 20:18, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Who is India Oxenberg's father? Enquiring minds want to know. ;-) Jayjg 20:27, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Again. "socially acceptable back-door way of promoting anti-Americanism" to "minimize the significance of the 9/11 attacks" - Show me the evidence. --- Xed 20:39, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)
See comments above. By the way, she has a very strong chin, don't you think? ;-) Jayjg 01:53, 14 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Again. "socially acceptable back-door way of promoting anti-Americanism" to "minimize the significance of the 9/11 attacks" - Show me the evidence, or withdraw the statement. If you don't I'll take the matter to mediation or arbitration. --- Xed 08:36, 14 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Hey you lot, take this outside. This project, as I see it, is not anti-anything. It's for the inclusion of those things being currently ignored or undervlaued here. If you two have problems with each other, sort them out elsewhere and let the rest of us get on with it. I'm taking the 'socially acceptable back-door way of promoting anti-Americanism' bit off the project page as having nothing to do with the actual project as I, and I feel sure most participants, understand it. Filiocht 09:04, Oct 14, 2004 (UTC)

I concur. This is not the proper place for this discussion. - Strangeloop (talk) 09:46, 14 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Jayjg's claim that the project was formed as a "socially acceptable back-door way of promoting anti-Americanism" to "minimize the significance of the 9/11 attacks" is now part of Wikipedia:Requests_for_mediation - Xed 11:04, 14 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Why not just let it go? Filiocht 11:12, Oct 14, 2004 (UTC)
Because his claims are deeply insulting and belittle the project. Would you like it if he accused you of being part of the project as a socially acceptable back-door way of promoting anti-Americanism to minimize the significance of the 9/11 attacks? - Xed 11:19, 14 Oct 2004 (UTC)
No, but I'd ignore it and get on with the real work. Filiocht 12:51, Oct 14, 2004 (UTC)
Can't really be ignored since it's so defamatory. Also, he is an admin, and unfortunately admin's views have weight - though by coming out with these sickening accusations he's shown himself to be unworthy of being an admin - Xed 13:36, 14 Oct 2004 (UTC)
I'm an admin too, by the way, and I've never known my views to carry much weight. Frankly, you're over-reacting. Filiocht 14:14, Oct 14, 2004 (UTC)

Same here. Take it to your personal talk pages. Also, everyone use less bold please, it makes reading these pages hard. I may refactor this section to remove the bold if it isn't moved somewhere instead, as it's detrimental to the discussions here. --Delirium 19:14, Oct 15, 2004 (UTC) Seconded!!!Pedant 17:59, 2004 Nov 5 (UTC)

Expanding the to-do list here

It seems that most of the articles that have been put forward, with a few exceptions, are done with some form of COTW in mind. It'd be nice to have a longer list of many articles that need doing in sparse areas (as several of the national notice boards have done) to then choose from. That way, we might end up getting a lot more done. Ambi 10:15, 8 Oct 2004 (UTC)

How do these national notice board cope with page size? My fear is that the page becomes too heavy if all sections keep long lists. Maybe subpages for each section, with only some 10 top-priority tasks advertised on the main page, could be a working solution? Alarm 11:29, 8 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Simply have a "complete to-do list" subpage, supplementing the main one, which actually sits on the main page. The page size issues would also be helped by moving the COTW discussions to a seperate page, per everywhere else that does this. Ambi 11:33, 8 Oct 2004 (UTC)
It looks to me that the talk page is going to fill up very fast as well. Should we adopt the village pump method of making it a virtual page. We could split the talk page up into project policy, topics and articles, COTW, Templates etc. :ChrisG 12:56, 8 Oct 2004 (UTC)
I just think it needn't have to do so. Move the stuff that shouldn't be here, like to-do lists and COTW-related stuff to subpages. That's half the problem - having all that stuff here is just creating unnecessary page lag, not to mention being confusing. Then archive lots. And suggest that people get on with working on these articles rather than arguing over who's in charge. Ambi 13:53, 8 Oct 2004 (UTC)
I agree with some of Alarm and Ambis suggestions, and would advocate 10 items for each section -with the breadth of the the items chosen covering the whole spectrum (for instance, the ethnic minority section doesn't have much on Hispanic, Chinese, South Asian etc issues) . And a link to 1 subpage which has a large list of subjects from all the sections. Xed 14:40, 8 Oct 2004 (UTC)
I didn't mean just on the main to-do list. What I'm suggesting is have a complete list on a subpage, with even subpages of that if necessary. That's what we've done for the Aussie notice board, and it ensures there's always something to work on. When there's potentially hundreds of articles to choose from, it also results in a lot more action. Ambi 11:32, 9 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Page size reduction vote

Please vote yay or nay below on this proposal. ---Xed 18:50, 8 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Each section in Open Tasks (apart from the country carousel) should contain 10 items representing a broad cross section of the sections potential articles. Furthermore, there should be a separate page (with links to it in the Open task section) that contains all of the CSB articles which have been identified

nay - moving it completely to a linked page would make sense, but dual maintenance will be a headache and will be particularly confusing for any marginally involved people who want to make suggestions. -- Jmabel 21:11, Oct 8, 2004 (UTC)

That's not what I meant. The 10 items would simply illustrate the idea behind the section. Only the the items on the separate page would change.--Xed 21:50, 8 Oct 2004 (UTC)

yay- I can't speak about the technical side, but the suggested improvements should make it much easier to add and identity tasks. It also offers the opportunity to have the big lists subdivided with respect to completion --nixie 04:30, 17 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Requesting review

Can I also suggest a Requesting review section where articles that have been improved can be listed for the rest of us to look at? Filiocht 10:17, 8 Oct 2004 (UTC)

How about if we divide each topic in open tasks into sections:
  • Requested article
  • Request for expansion
  • Request for attention
  • Request for review
  • Good articles (i.e those we work on and get to a good standard)
This would make it easier to decide what to work, see that status of each article, and to see progress :ChrisG 13:15, 8 Oct 2004 (UTC)
I agree, with this part. Ambi 13:53, 8 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Me too. Filiocht 13:58, 8 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Seems like a good idea. Alarm 14:29, 8 Oct 2004 (UTC)
I agree, although I'm worried the page is already too long. Xed 14:40, 8 Oct 2004 (UTC)
It needn't be, if we just cut it back to the articles that need doing and cut out the "join us" and "recruit people" blather. Ambi 11:32, 9 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Can certainly cut "join us", but I believe the key to the success of this project will be recruiting people outside the usual pool of Wikipedians. Quite simply, if a group consisting mostly of white men starts writing about Africa, women, African-Americans, etc. Wikipedia won't be a lot better off for it. Some articles will be written, but the systemic bias will remain essentially the same. None of this needs to be on the to-do list, but all of it belongs on the project page.
Right now, as you know, I've pulled back my level of participation in this, so I guess you don't particularly have to listen to me, but I really believe that over the course of time recruitment to Wikipedia is more important than having the current crew work on articles. -- Jmabel 19:06, Oct 9, 2004 (UTC)
Of course recruitment is important. We know if this is to work we need to recruit people. But we don't need a reminder of that taking up space on the to-do list. Ambi 22:12, 9 Oct 2004 (UTC)
I also agree with the different categories. But is this a suggestion for the Open Tasks pane only? The list of problematic articles is already growing pretty big; I think we need a similar division there if we want to keep track of what we are achieving. - Strangeloop (talk) 22:36, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I curently have two articles requesting review (H.D. and Djuna Barnes and as far as I can see, nobody has gone near them. Requesting review will only work if we are all willing to do reviews, and I'd suggest that anyone can review any article for basic readability, grammar, spelling, etc. And yes, I have reviewed some other articles on U.S. colleges, a subject I know nothing about. Filiocht 11:01, Oct 20, 2004 (UTC)

I've reviewed both, and made only tiny adjustments. For whatever my opinion's worth, both articles are very good and I think H.D. is exceptional—certainly on par with articles about male writers. Now what? I believe these two topics are now well-covered and are no longer examples of systemic bias! Are we ready to declare victory, declare doneness, move them off the to-do list, and move on to other articles? I think it'd be pretty cool if we could acknowledge that our WikiProject is accomplishing a little bit of what it was created to do.  :) —Bsktcase 21:52, 21 Oct 2004 (UTC)
First, thanks for the reviews; all your edits are distinct improvements. I still have some work to do on both but intend to list H.D. on WP:FAC as soon as the two nominations I have there are gone. I would be quite happy to remove them from the todo list ASAP, but will wait for other input. Filiocht 08:18, Oct 22, 2004 (UTC)

Age related bias

Is this worth adding? I mean there are proportionately less computer-literate old folks. Anyone for knitting?---Xed 22:11, 6 Oct 2004 (UTC)

  • Speaking as someone almost certainly among the oldest 20% off Wikipedians, and possibly the oldest 10%, that example of subject matter is pretty condescending. There are legitimate issues here, although my suspicion is that right now we have bigger fish to fry. Still, for the record:
    • Yes, we probably do under-represent issues of specific concern to older people. For example, our article on the Gray Panthers is four paragraphs, and our article on American Association of Retired Persons is a stub; yes, I could imagine adding old age and aging to the list of concerns of this project.
    • The other is trickier and is generational rather than age-related as such. Take a look, for example, at an article like slide guitar. You'd practically think it was invented in the 1960s. Or Jackson Pollock: a near-stub on one of the half dozen most famous American artists of his generation.
-- Jmabel 01:19, Oct 7, 2004 (UTC)

Progress reports

I decided to check out what had been done to Economy of Africa, since the link has gone from red to blue, and found that there is now a long article in place, and as far as I can judge it seems great. From a quick look at the edit history it seems as if SimonP and ChrisG have been the ones contributing most of the content. This calls for some cheering and applause, I think.

I am truly excited to see some real impact of this project. I think others, just like me, would be interested to know when major progress has been made somewhere. This would give us all a sense of moving forward. Also, I think people contributing to the articles we've targeted deserve to get some credit within the project. But there are now so many articles listed as Open tasks that it is hard to keep track of what is happening with them just by checking them occasionally. And I don't think it would be practical to watchlist them all.

This leads me to the conclusion that we could benefit from having some loose guidelines for progress reports. Some of our members have added a comment below the listing. This is possible as a general solution, but comes with the drawback that it soon would double the size of the (already long) list if it is generally applied. Another solution might be a subpage titled "Progress reports" or something similar. There are surely other alternatives. I'd like to hear other people's thoughts and suggestions on this. Alarm 16:59, 15 Oct 2004 (UTC)

The progress is great. For fairness, it should be noted that Simon P contributed greatly to articles on African affairs before CSM. As for the subpage idea, I think the progress reports should go on the same page as the subpage suggested above (Expanding the to-do list here) - Xed 17:27, 15 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Credit goes to Simon P, I just added a few paragraphs. Perhaps we should a CSB Hero of the month award. :ChrisG 17:47, 15 Oct 2004 (UTC)

After a week, of the current items on the To Do template, only one - Djuna Barnes - has had any significant improvement. This is no more than would be expected if this project did not exist. 50 times more has been written on this talk page than on the articles. I see this as a failure, of myself and of the project. CSB seems to be no more than a talking shop. - Xed 17:53, 15 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I disagree. The to-do template is only a subset of the project. Many pages on the larger CSB lists have been greatly improved since the inception of the project, so it's unwarranted and possibly a little dramatic to declare all of CSB a failure. Furthermore, Spelman College was considerably developed after being featured on a previous to-do list.
I glanced at your contributions page and could not help but notice almost all of your work this week has been on Talk pages of various kinds. If you contributed any content to this week's to-do list items, I didn't see it. I hope you're holding yourself to the same standard of participation that you imply for the rest of us. —Bsktcase 20:49, 15 Oct 2004 (UTC)
I am. I didn't contribute to any items on the To Do list. I'm the worst offender. I'm not blaming anyone (except myself), I'm just reporting what I found. And so far, the project seems to be failing. That makes me very unhappy. I'm not sure what the solution is. But I know what the problem is - people (yes, including me), aren't editing the items on the To Do list. Something has to be done to get things written. To engender some responsibility, perhaps we should make it a policy that if you nominate or vote for an article, you must make a significant contribution to it - Xed 21:15, 15 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Xed, you have got to be more patient. We are trying to do is change the direction of Wikipedia by a few degrees and that is not something that is going to happen overnight, because there is so much inherent momentum. I do agree with your proposal, that one shouldn't nominate something you aren't going to work on. Taking that as a policy does engender commitment and ensures that if interested parties check the to-do list articles they should see progress being made, and may be inspired to give a hand.:ChrisG 14:25, 16 Oct 2004 (UTC)
If no one objects, then that policy can be added to the voting section when, as seems likely from the vote below, it's moved to a subpage. Xed 17:13, 16 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I've edited a couple of Benin related articles to salve my conscience. Xed 04:17, 17 Oct 2004 (UTC)

As the person who did most of the expanding of Djuna Barnes, I'd love to have dsomeone, anyone, review it and suggest what more needs doing. To me, that would be more helpful than lamenting the lack of work done. Filiocht 09:01, Oct 18, 2004 (UTC)

Moving sections from main page to subpages

We've had several requests to move the voting section of the main page to subpages. I think the list of participants is growing long enough to justify being moved to a subpage as well. Please add your names under the alternative you prefer for each one. (added another vote - Xed 16:58, 16 Oct 2004 (UTC))

Move Voting section to from main page subpage

  • Support
    • Alarm 17:08, 15 Oct 2004 (UTC)
    • ChrisG 14:30, 16 Oct 2004 (UTC)
    • Joe D 14:33, 16 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  • Object
    • Xed 17:30, 15 Oct 2004 (UTC). I don't think you should have to jump thru too many hoops to vote or submit a subject.

Move Participants to subpage

  • Support
    • Alarm 17:08, 15 Oct 2004 (UTC)
    • Xed 17:30, 15 Oct 2004 (UTC)
    • ChrisG 14:30, 16 Oct 2004 (UTC)
    • Joe D 14:33, 16 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  • Object

Move List of All subjects section to subpage, whilst keeping a representative selection of 10 on main page

  • Support
    • Joe D 17:14, 16 Oct 2004 (UTC), but I think the list should be larger than 10, parhaps we should make a template with the COTW, 10 red links, 10 expansion requests, 5 cleanups and 5 peer reviews?
      • but how would we choose the cleanups and peer reviews? Xed 20:01, 17 Oct 2004 (UTC)
    • --nixie 04:32, 17 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  • Object
    • Xed 20:01, 17 Oct 2004 (UTC)
    • Alarm 21:02, 17 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  • Comment
    • Please clarify: is this the same vote as above, under "Page size reduction vote", or not? There, the suggestion was 10 items per section. Reading Jmabel's comment to this suggestion I suddenly saw the dual updating problem that would mean. The wording here seems to imply that only 10 items in total should be advertised on the main page, but I'd like clarification on this point. Such a model might be easier to handle, but I'd also like to know that someone is prepared to take responsibility for changing the selection if the listed articles improve to a point where they're no longer relevant as examples of systemic bias (a highly likely development considering their high visibility). But even if that is taken care of, I remain sceptical. With reference to Xed's comment above on moving the voting section, I actually think it's more important not to have to jump through too many hoops to see and contribute to the task list. After all, it does a lot to define what the project is about. Perhaps this kind of reform could at least wait a bit. Alarm 17:37, 17 Oct 2004 (UTC)
      • I wasn't very clear with the wording. I meant 10 items in each section (Women, Limited geo etc) on the main page, which would be represent the breadth of the section. I was mainly concerned with the length of the page. The updating thing is a problem, and the choosing of the ten would be a problem - so I'm changing my vote to oppose. But I still think the page is too long. - Xed 20:01, 17 Oct 2004 (UTC)
    • I'll have to oppose it for now. (I think Jmabel's vote above should probably count as Object here as well.) There's no hurry, we can probably find a better solution. Alarm 21:02, 17 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Reform of voting and To Do template vote

The To Do template is due to be updated to take into account this weeks votes. As of 17 Oct, it contains 17 elected items and 9 rotated items from the Country Carousel. Not many of the items of this list have been significantly edited, leading me to believe we're being over-ambitious to start with. Also, there are only 14 items in the current voting section to choose from. To get some focus, I suggest we:

  • limit the country carousel to one country. In the future, we can add more later.
  • limit the Voted Items to 5.

This would make the total elected items to 8 (including Cotw and 2 extra carousel items). In addition, I propose we add the text "If you nominate or vote for an article, you are expected to make a contribution to it" to the voting section.

So the new template would look like this (note also the new Watch options):


Here are some of the Countering Systemic Bias project open tasks: Feel free to edit or discuss this list.

Add yourself as a participant. Vote for our next collaborative articles. Discuss our strategy. Create, Improve, Identify or Comment on articles from the list below or from the more comprehensive list on the project page. Publicise and recruit other contributors. Watch the items on the list below or the comprehensive list. Use {{WikiProjectCSBTasks}} to include the template on your user page or elsewhere.

CSB collaboration of the week: Congo Civil War
Country carousel: A country is selected from a list every week.
Benin, Category, Politics, History, Mathieu Kérékou, Dahomey
Voted items: Every week, 5 articles are chosen in the voting section.
Black History Month, Djuna Barnes, Knitting, Freedom of speech*, Land Reform. (* Any starred articles have a limited geographic scope.)
  • Support
    • Xed 13:36, 17 Oct 2004 (UTC)
    • Alarm 17:48, 17 Oct 2004 (UTC) I think fewer alternatives is a very good idea. Also support more compact form. However, I think the watch option is a bit unneccesary in the template. (Watching the progress is not really a priority task. If kept, wording needs clarification.) Instead, I think the possibility to add new articles to the Open task list should be mentioned.
    • nixie 00:24, 18 Oct 2004 (UTC)
    • [[User:Poccil|Peter O. (Talk)]] 03:39, Oct 18, 2004 (UTC) Less is more.
  • Oppose
    • I support the country carousel being just one country. Three countries spreads any interest too far, and weekly doesn't perhaps give enough time to change. However, I suggest changing the To-do list to approximately fortnightly. Updating weekly is too frequent, for a relatively small project, and means spending too much time talking and too little doing. Even if updated fortnightly each country on Xed's list will receive some attention in just over a year. I would suggest the first day of each month and the 15th. I would prefer the action points on the To Do list to be in bullet points, as it is clearer and more professional. And I think the watch option is unnecessary. I also think it shouldn't be so much a voting section as a commitment to edit; and we should only vote for a colloboration article based on articles participants having committed to editing in that two week period. Articles you wish to be updated should go on open tasks. :ChrisG 00:16, 18 Oct 2004 (UTC)
      • I think we should try weekly first, since a lot of new CSB contributors might join up due to the Limitedgeographicscope and CSBArticles templates appearing on so many pages. If the weekly is unsuccesful we can start the fortnightly scheme from the 1st Nov. The watch items are useful (to me) to keep an eye on CSB articles, and act as kind of ongoing peer review. If the action list can be both bulleted and compact I would be happy. - Xed 15:28, 18 Oct 2004 (UTC)
    • Sounds fair enough to me. :ChrisG 21:32, 18 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Implementing recent decisions

Template and votes updated. I don't know how to move the voting section and participants to a subpage--Xed 00:21, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC)


CPN(UML)?

I see you've added Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist-Leninist) with the sidetext "Fights civil war". Have you confused CPN(UML) with Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist)? CPN(UML) is a major legal political party in Nepal (part of the current government in fact) and have no armed activities. --Soman 11:44, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Category: African-American history

I've noticed in the past that there is no category for African-American history that I can find. Am I wrong about this? I know there is one for African-Americans, and another one for Civil Rights history... would this be useful? It'd be large, that's for sure, but maybe that'd be the point. Well, it's a thought... --Fastfission 13:39, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Confusion between "systemic" and "systematic"

Although the distinction between "systemic" and "systematic" is mentioned in the section "Systemic bias" I think this distinction needs to be emphasized and made more prominent, as I'm sure many people have confused and will continue to confuse these terms - in fact I wonder if the project should even consider changing its name to "Countering structural bias". Consider some of the remarks made by some of the participants indicate to me a possible misunderstanding of this distinction, and thus the purposes of this project:

  • blankfaze - I'd like to cut down on as much bias/POV in the project as possible, but I'd especially like to keep Israel and its related articles free of bias. Some users, I've noticed, are on a mission to install a pro-Israel POV in the project.
  • Bontenbal I think that there is systematic bias of the European Union. It's far more important than most UK/US people seem to think.
  • ShaunMacPherson 01:21, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC) - I think that the people with the most edits should be looked at as their point of view is dominating. As well, I say that many of the math articles are pedantically biased towards an audience well above our average user .
  • Sjc - already involved in the elimination of bias from (particularly) articles on history, social sciences, etc. This looks a sensible and practical approach to the problems I am encountering en route.
  • Ta bu shi da yu 13:39, 15 Oct 2004 (UTC) - OK, I'll give this project a shot. Let's see how well you guys do at fixing Christian views of women.

Perhaps there needs to be a section titled "What systemic bias is not"? or "What this project is not about"? I've added a bit of qualifying text to the "Systemic Bias" section, but I think much more should be done. Paul August 16:37, Oct 19, 2004 (UTC)


Where to put cleanup entries?

There are a lot of cleanup entries like: "Traffic congestion - needs to be less US-centric". These seem like the right thing for "WikiProject Countering systemic bias", but where would you like me to move them to? I'll just attach them to the end of this comment for now... Thanks for your work. JesseW 22:37, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC)

More:

US-centric phrasing

Sorry, couldn't find the right place to put this: http://www.google.com/search?q=site:en.wikipedia.org+%22came+to+the+united%22 If you can't figure it out on your own: It should be "went" or "moved" instead of "came". I'm sure there are other phrases like this. I'm working on fixing a few articles. Is there already someone working on this? --stw (Talk) 20:23, 23 Oct 2004 (UTC)

That's an interesting way of finding subtle biases in wikipedia. Replacing "the united" with various countries and cities is instructive, as is trying "went to x". It seems a lot went to Moscow, not came. I like to know a few more of these types of phrases. Maybe it's worth creating a section on the main page? - Xed 00:38, 24 Oct 2004 (UTC)
That's a good point. People seem to come to the United States and go to Brazil, that's a very subtle point but profoundly POV as you point out.Pedant

Fortnightly

As ChrisG predicted, there hasn't been enough editing and voting to sustain a weekly change in To Do list subjects. Unless anyone objects, the vote will be fortnightly, on the 1st and 15th. Next changeover: November 1st. - Xed 19:38, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Good idea. I already found myself editing some articles that were voted for last week, and I didn't vote yet because I was not ready to look for new targets already. The articles can get more time and attention this way. - Mark Dingemanse (talk) 20:03, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Agreed, a week is far too short. If I pick up on an article, I will tend to cary on working on it until I feel I can do no more, regardless of timespan. Filiocht 07:53, Oct 27, 2004 (UTC)

Similar Project

User:927 added Wikiproject Body, Cognition and Senses to the 'Similar Projects' listing. A quick glance at the link tells that this project is a somewhat idosyncratic enterprise of hard banned user User:EntmootsOfTrolls. It certainly shares with CSB the purpose of countering systemic bias in Wikipedia, only I don't know to what end; and I must must say that the comments on the project talk page do make me doubt its relevance. Removing it right away, without discussion, would be unfair and careless. So what do other people think? - Mark Dingemanse (talk) 21:19, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I think it should be removed. Filiocht 07:52, Oct 27, 2004 (UTC)
I removed it. - Mark Dingemanse (talk) 23:12, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Note of interest

Purely as a note of interest, while speaking to journalist Simon Waldman for a piece in The Guardian, editor-in-chief of Encyclopaedia Britannica Dale Hoiberg comments on the systematic bias of Wikipedia with the words, "People write on things they're interested in, and so many subjects don't get covered; and news events get covered in great detail. The entry on Hurricane Frances is five times the length of that on Chinese art, and the entry on Coronation Street is twice as long as the article on Tony Blair." The full story may be found here. I can only hope this attack serves as an incentive for this WikiProject. --[[User:OldakQuill|Oldak Quill]] 10:45, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Aditional to this, as a direct reaction Chinese art is now on WP:COTW. Filiocht 10:55, Oct 27, 2004 (UTC)
I've already emailed Mr Waldman about his article and this project. Xed 11:02, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)

CSB article on FAC

I have listed H.D. (from Wikipedia:WikiProject Countering systemic bias/Open tasks) on WP:FAC. Please consider voting on it, for or against. Filiocht 11:47, Oct 27, 2004 (UTC)

Long and complicated

I've noticed that the other Collaboration of the Week projects are much, much shorter. Can someone put the participants and Open Task list on another page? i don't know how to. - Xed 18:26, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Ive moved Participants and attmpted to move the Open tasks. The template needs to be edited to link to the new pages- and I don't know how to do thatnixie 02:26, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Xed, why not just move the COTW to a seperate page? This one is the only project that tries to have the COTW on the same page as all the other discussions. The Irish, Australian, UK, US, Southern US, Gaming and Entertainment COTWs are all on their own seperate pages, so why shouldn't this one be? Ambi 14:42, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Works for me. seconded.Pedant

comment out of order.

I put this comment out of order, because it more closely relates to the sections immediately above it, click this link for my comment above Pedant 12:51, 2004 Oct 31 (UTC)