Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Countering systemic bias/Archive 2

message: What about creating a template like the COTW template, but that specifically tags an article as being under active development by this wikiproject? -- Solitude 07:06, Oct 5, 2004 (UTC)
: I think that is a great idea as it also would serve to bring contributors to the project. In fact something similiar got created in response to this this village pump discussion. Currently Template:Importantstub is up for deletion. So I think we ought to save it from deletion and amend so it refers to this wikiproject. Its not quite what you are talking about, but perhaps we need a stub template and work in progress template :ChrisG 07:28, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Template:Importantstub is still up for discussion and not deleted; I've just added my KEEP vote. I agree with Chris on the above; and maybe any rewording could replace the word "important" so as to give less offence to some of the current "delete" voters? Some circumlocution such as "improving the representativeness and comprehensiveness of Wikipedia". Preferably a little shorter than that. (:-) Robin Patterson 02:12, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Structures 

message: I still say that the real key to this is recruitment. I have a lot of ideas of how we could work on recruiting more African-Americans into Wikipedia in general and this project in particular, but frankly not a clue about outreach to people from sub-Saharan Africa. But let me say: if we can't get a clear consensus that African-American topics are part of what's at issue, I'm not going to try to convince an African-American Studies undergrad that he or she has to learn all about Tanzania to be useful to this project when his/her own community is less covered than that of science fiction fandom. 
Xed, I have no problem with you wanting to focus on the developing world. But unless and until we can get clear consensus that there is also an underrepresentation both in Wikipedia's participant pool and it's topic coverage for women and ethnic minorities in the developed world, I think many of those women and ethnic minorities will — entirely appropriately — view Wikipedia and this project as hostile territory. -- Jmabel 01:19, Oct 7, 2004 (UTC)
:Well I'm an ethnic minority, and I don't feel that I should write or think only about topics which are somehow connected to my genetic makeup. If fact, I cringe when people imply I should. Nor do I feel I am limited in subject matter by the shape of my genitals. People are surprisingly flexible. I don't feel I have to be protected from other subjects lest they frighten me. Also, the phrase 'ethnic minority' is not synonymous with just people of African descent who live in the US or UK. Now I've got that off my chest.... I agree that there is under-representation of women and ethnic minorities (though some minorities are probably over-represented), it's just a question of priorities. Recruiting more African-Americans into Wikipedia would be a good move. I hope the design below shows how amenable I am to your ideas.---Xed 02:02, 7 Oct 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Recruitment

message: One thing not really mentioned on the project page, and probably also harder to address, is the number of Wikipedia articles that only talks about the situation in the U.S., sometimes without even mentioning this. Public relations talks almost exclusively on U.S. examples and figures. Media_bias makes an attempt to discuss bias in general, then mainly concerns itself with the U.S. liberal vs. conservative bias discussion. Perspectives from the developing world could be very valuable here, not to mention a discussion on the situation in Russia. Much the same could be said about Freedom of speech. 
Other articles manage to draw their examples from several countries, but still limit themselves more or less exclusively to the developed world. For good examples of this, see Lawyer and Breakfast (although the latter actually mentions a Muslim practice in the very last sentence).
Perhaps even more serious a shortcoming, Rape suffers from an extremely Western perspective. It starts by discussing 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. There is not even a single mention of the practice of rape as a war crime!
Also, Adoption is strikingly Western in its perspective, not even mentioning the effect that widespread adoption from developing countries has had on the economy and social structure of these countries.
I'm not sure what to call this more subtle effect of systemic bias or how to bring it up on the project page. Should it go into a separate list, and if so, what should the title be? Does it need a discussion of its own? Alarm 01:41, 7 Oct 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I think this is a major issue, and should be a major part of CSB. Most general subjects suffer from this effect. The US liberal vs conservative schism seems to permeate too many political articles, despite having very little meaning elsewhere. A list could be called "Internally biased articles" or something like that. If we end up going with the template design above then articles like Lawyer etc should really have a mark next to them, like ¡, to show that the bias is internal, with an explanation at the bottom of the table.  ----Xed 03:17, 7 Oct 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  General subjects that suffer from a U.S. or developed country perspective 

message: I think COTW should be voted on. But I think the rest of the articles on the todo list should just be cycled through from the list created in open tasks. Its more important to work out how often they should be cycled (weekly?) and who is responsible for the update. Maybe we should vote on who does that; and they should do that until they get voted out if people don't like the way they choose the articles. :ChrisG 16:03, 7 Oct 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I'd strongly prefer voting on the items to someone single-handedly picking them. But my understanding was actually that all of these items were Collaborations of the Week - I'm not sure we should vote on a single COTW as well. On the other hand, I think 10 new items each week, which is what is currently stated, runs the risk of being a bit too much. At least until we know what improvement rate to expect from listed items. On the other hand participation might benefit from a wide choice. My suggestion would be to choose 5 new articles each week and to let them stay on for two weeks. I'd also say maximum one new item from each section per week (i.e. maximum two at the same time), to ensure a wide enough choice to encourage participation. Alarm 16:20, 7 Oct 2004 (UTC)

text: Ok, now I've actually read what is said on the project page about this ;-) . I understand that it would be rather silly to vote on both COTW and todo list topics. I'd agree with some kind of model that puts the topics with the most COTW votes on the todo list. Regarding the topics connected to carousel countries, I'm actually quite happy if someone with some knowledge of the specific country picks two suitable choices. If two or more people turn out to have conflicting opinions on what is suitable, we could always arrange a vote when that happens. Alarm 22:43, 7 Oct 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: There surely are some problems with this method, but for now I'm happy to go with it. Have added explanation in voting section. --- Xed 22:57, 7 Oct 2004 (UTC)

text: I can see some problems with this approach, but that is probably true of any other model as well. I just want to clarify that, by my last comment, I did not really envision a strict, formal rule that the 10 topics with the very highest number of COTW votes should be put on the todo list. I'm happy with the "soft" wording on the project page as it is. I guess we'll have to see what happens and adjust the model as we go along. Alarm 09:16, 8 Oct 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Voting mechanism

message: I think its fine in terms of length; its a complicated project to run and needs some detailed explanation. Obviously it could be polished and improved. However, I think the todo list should be above the toc, re: discussion above, because it gives a quick overview of the project. :ChrisG 16:03, 7 Oct 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed. People will probably misunderstand what we're doing if we don't explain it well enough. The "manifesto" seems relevant as an analysis of what's wrong and a background for understanding what to look for. If there is a majority for pruning, I'd suggest moving the full text to a subpage where there is room for a deeper analysis. Alarm 16:20, 7 Oct 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Content on project page

message: I think we should restrict the number of key topics to about ten. This will force us to think hard about what the key issues are. Otherwise we will end up with a list of about 30 sections in a few weeks. The sections that don't make the cut should be listed as a section of its own. :ChrisG 17:06, 7 Oct 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Number of key topics

message: Can I ask to which event in Benin's history this term is referring?  Is it Benin's part in Nigeria's Civil War?  Because as far as I can make out (from NI's World Guide 2004 and from googling) there is no single event called the "Benin Civil War"? -- Graham  ☺ | Talk 20:31, 7 Oct 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: My mistake I think. Maybe I was thinking of Guinea-Bissau--Xed 22:07, 7 Oct 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Benin Civil War 

message: In my brainstorming a couple ideas at Meta on the potential United States Wikimedia Chapter, I proposed an outreach program to encourage contribution from minority languages.  I made an example with some thoughts at this page, devoted to Cherokee.  The same idea could be useful for this project, if someone wants to.
Also, I know a bit about African music and am wondering how the articles in the "country carousel" were chosen, because music of Burkina Faso is likely a bad choice.  In contrast to most African countries, Burkina Faso has never had much of a recording industry; popular music is almost all imported.  The article should be focusing on the folk music of the numerous ethnic groups in the country, and substantially expanding it will require using ethnomusicological journals that only a specialist is likely to be able to access and understand... A well-meaning contributor really couldn't help out there without a solid, specific knowledge base and access to obscure resources.  Music of Benin would be a much better choice if you want a "music of" article in the carousel, since I'm sure it would be easier to research. Tuf-Kat 01:32, Oct 8, 2004 (UTC)
:The Burkino Faso music choice was just put there as an example, since the project has just started. You can nominate and vote on Music of Benin, or anything alse, at the bottom of the page--Xed 08:51, 8 Oct 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Two notes

message: 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)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: 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)

text:  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)
replies: text: 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)

text: 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)
thread_title: Expanding the to-do list here

message: Please vote yay or nay below on this proposal. ---Xed 18:50, 8 Oct 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: 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)
thread_title: Page size reduction vote

message: I thought these subjects need a note next to them, otherwise people would just think the article needs expanding. I've changed the template accordingly. A better solution is probably possible.--Xed 14:28, 8 Oct 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Limited geographic scope items on to-do list template