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This page is no longer "live". Please do not edit it further. Ongoing work is at Wikipedia:WikiProject countering systemic bias. -- Jmabel 21:02, Oct 4, 2004 (UTC)
note: i no longer contribute to Wikipedia, so it would be better if this page is moved to another location. see "xed comments" for my final ideas on this project below [Written by
User:Xed. [[User:Poccil|
Peter O. (
Talk)]] 02:34, Oct 4, 2004 (UTC)]
Committee Regarding Overcoming Serious Systemic Bias On Wikipedia
'Thinking outside the Wikibox' - User:Filiocht
This page is for people who have signed up to help create a beta version of a section which helps to reduce Wikipedia's inherent structural biases by providing easier access to 'less-travelled' articles.
==Woopsy
In order to figure out the biases of Wikipedia, a rough idea of the demographics of en Wikipedia is required. In Replies_to_common_objections#Systemic_bias, it states:
To me, the humanities issue seems less of of an issue than when the above was written. I contributed to to Wikipedia's own page, saying:
I could have pointed out that Wikipedians are not only computer literate, but also probably heavier internet users than most other people, and tend to get more of their information from the Web. Jmabel says:
All of these susbjects Jmabel notes are worth covering. However, the purpose of CROSSBOW is to give people a chance to cover less-travelled subjects. If anyone could provide more information on the demographics of en Wikipedia, please add to this section. -- Xed 12:39, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)
While I don't think anyone has done a survey, I believe that Wikipedia runs at least 4-1 male; I haven't encountered any self-identified African-Americans, although I presume there are a few; I haven't encountered any self-identified Native Americans, although I presume there are at least a few people with significant Native American ancestry (although perhaps not who heavily identify with that ancestry). Also, there seems to be an age-bulge in roughly 18-40; my personal view is that for an encyclopedia, the lack of any large number of people younger than that is no calamity (the ones with the skills do find us), but the lack of those of us older can be, especially on political topics. There is a strong resulting bias toward the politics of the moment ratner than a longer-term view. -- Jmabel 18:31, Sep 22, 2004 (UTC)
(to expand) The content of CROSSBOW would include links to Wikipedia articles which counter-act the effects of the systemic bias. -- Xed 12:39, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)
to add - method of choosing articles.
The more I think about it, the more I conclude that the Regional wikipedian notice board model is a big part of the way to go. There could be a Category:Special interest wikipedian notice boards with members including Wikipedia:Asia topics wikipedians' notice board, Wikipedia:Africa topics wikipedians' notice board, Wikipedia:Women's studies wikipedians' notice board, Wikipedia:Humanities topics wikipedians' notice board, and so on. A todo list on the project page, discussion on the talk page and a COTW subpage and away you go. Filiocht 14:06, 1 Oct 2004 (UTC)
(to expand) The design would be the same or similar to the boxes found on the Wikipedia:Community_Portal page. -- Xed 12:39, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)
I would suggest taking a serious look at a well-run WikiProject like Wikipedia:WikiProject Seattle or Wikipedia:WikiProject Philosophy. -- Jmabel 18:39, Sep 22, 2004 (UTC)
Does anyone see a reason not to structure this effort, at least initially, as a WikiProject? -- Jmabel 05:23, Sep 23, 2004 (UTC)
& I think Irish wikipedians' notice board is another pretty good model of how to do this, too. That or a Wikiproject. But please let's quickly lose this cliquish, obscure "CROSBOW" acronym and call this what it is: Countering systemic bias. We want people to be able to search on "systemic" or "bias" and find it easily. -- Jmabel 07:30, Sep 23, 2004 (UTC)
I'd like to urge everyone to consider that one way to address this, at least in part, is through Wikipedia:Translation into English. Do you read other languages well enough to translate? Sign up as a translator and/or take on some of the translation backlog. Do you read other languages a little, but not well enough to translate? Spend some of your time browsing foreign-language Wikipedias looking for material that needs translations and make translation requests. It's especially worth looking at other languages' featured articles. -- Jmabel 18:36, Sep 22, 2004 (UTC)
A draft manifesto for this project: feel free to edit in place. -- Jmabel 08:16, Sep 23, 2004 (UTC)
Wikipedia has a number of systemic biases, mostly deriving from the demographics of our participant base, the heavy bias towards online research, and the (generally commendable) tendency to "write what you know". Systemic bias is not to be confused with systematic bias. The latter just means "thoroughgoing bias". Systemic bias means that there are structural reasons why Wikipedia gives certain topics much better coverage than others.
As of this writing, Wikipedia is disproportionately white and male; disproportionately American; disproportionately written by people from white collar backgrounds. We do not think this is a result of a conspiracy — it is largely a result of self-selection — but it has effects not all of which are beneficial, and which need to be looked at and (in some cases) countered.
Wikipedia is biased toward over-inclusion of certain material pertaining to (for example) science fiction, contemporary youth culture, contemporary U.S. and UK culture in general, and anything already well covered in the English-language portion of the Internet. These excessive inclusions are relatively harmless: at worst, people look at some of these articles and say "this is silly, why is it in an encyclopedia?"
Of far greater (and more detrimental) consequence, these same biases lead to minimal or non-existent treatment of topics of great importance. One example is that, as of this writing, the Congo Civil War, possibly the largest war since World War II has claimed over 3 million lives, but one would be hard pressed to learn much about it from Wikipedia. In fact, there is more information on a fictional plant.
An example list of poor treatment due to this bias would include (in no particular order):
Systemic biases are not easily addressed. We will need a variety of strategies. Among those are:
Wikipedia is an evolving project. While some of its biases — e.g. a preference for online sources — are probably inherent, others — generally the demographic ones — need not be. However, they will not be overcome by wishful thinking. We need to devote active effort to these matters, rather than keep doing the same thing and expect different results.
Tools:
I think we should add relevant links to other wikiprojects to the relevant lists we create; to draw their attention to systemic bias within their projects. This project is about as much pointing out the lack to other wikipedians in their area of expertise and interest as doing all the work ourselves or finding other writers : ChrisG 21:48, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Models:
Creations:
I think an inevitable consequence of creating a successful project would be the creation of such projects. But lets get this project set up and working properly first. These are medium term aims.
: ChrisG 21:38, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Are there models for this? At the very least, we need to come up with a good contact letter.
We might be able to get much already-published material "donated" to Wikipedia. Does anyone have any experience with approaching people about releasing existing materials under GFDL?
I don't have any experience of GFDL, but here's another thought on recruitment. How about a 'pyramid' structure, involving librarians? I'm thinking of Africa - I know Tanzania a little - but it could be applied to other regions or subject areas. If we could find someone who was wiliing to be the Wikipedia champion for Africa - perhaps a senior librarian at a university - they could use their own networks to recruit other librarians from individual countries. These librarians could then find academics or students to contribute to and write entries - or write them themselves. Strikes me that this might be a good way of spreading the wikipedia meme providing that we can find a good champion to kick things off. Perhaps to reduce the reliance on single individuals we need more than one champion - e.g. for diffent regions of Africa. My starting point for suggesting this is that I think - having put ot a few feelers here in the UK - that general awareness of wikipedia amongst the public and academics is very low at present. Jerry cornelius 08:28, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Are there models/examples for this?
An excellent map of media bias can be seem here, courtesy of Ethan Zuckerman. He has also written an essay which deals with many relevant issues. -- Xed 02:04, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)
I suggest countries not on the Bottom 100 lists below should be ignored when choosing CROSSBOW subjects:
Bottom 10 for Newspaper circulation (per capita)]]
Bottom 10 for Internet users (per capita)]]
Bottom 10 for personal computers (per capita)]]
Bottom 100 -- Xed 02:04, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Monkeys will always be monkeys and time has moved on. We are, as usual, in epoch making times and all the words in the world will not make a jot of difference. Trust in the 'gods' you believe in and hope for the best.
Part of the proposed strategy is to get our existing participant base writing about topics they have not been writing about. In many cases, this will go against the maxim of "write what you know." I, for one, strongly suggest that when writing about an area where you are not expert, be uncommonly scrupulous about citing sources. It is sheer hell trying to reconcile conflicting versions of a story when you have no way to assess the provenance of the information. -- Jmabel 22:16, Sep 23, 2004 (UTC)
Part of the proposed strategy is to recruit people who have not yet been active in Wikipedia and are not typical of who has already been involved. If we succeed in this, expect conflict, not only on specific factual matters, but on our methods of doing things. I have no specific expectations, just going on my past experience in these things. Expect that we will need new infrastructures to support a new group of participants. Again, I have no specifics in mind, just don't expect this to be easy. -- Jmabel 22:16, Sep 23, 2004 (UTC)
Don't forget public domain resources:
Since I am no longer going to edit Wikipedia, I thought I'd better give a rough idea of how I see CROSSBOW working. Ethan Zuckerman has supplied me with a list of companies that he has calculated receive least attention: Benin Burkina Faso Burundi Cameroon Central African Republic Chad Comoros Congo Dem. Rep. Congo Rep. Cote d'Ivoire Ethiopia Gambia Georgia Guinea Guinea Bissau Kyrgyzstan Madagascar Malawi Mali Mozambique Myanmar Niger Papua New Guinea Suriname Tajikistan Tanzania Togo Turkmenistan Western Sahara
(29 countries)
I suggest the CROSSBOW section be made up of 5 columns, with 5 items in each column. This would be a box on the 'Community portal page'. (A link would go to a more detailed page like the Irish wikipedians' notice board)
Three of the columns should have as the first item one of the countries above. The remaining items in these columns should relate to this country, with items 2 and 3 being the History and Politics of that country. The next column would have the name of a popular language (other than english) used by Wikipedia (German, Spanish, Japanese etc), and below it 4 subjects which have more detailed entries in that language than in English. The fifth column would be.... I don't know.
So it would look roughly like:
Benin Burkina Faso Burundi German ? Politics of Politics of Politics of ? ? History of History of History of ? ? Person? Person? Person? ? ? Politician? Politician? Politician? ? ?
The countries would rotate every week, so that the next group of countries would be Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad. As would the 4th column language.-- Xed 02:08, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)
I see Xed has bowed out. I also gather that there was no consensus behind his notion that this project should be limited exclusively to areas where happen to have no expertise. So I'm back.
Earlier, I proposed three models:
I personally think the third possibility would be too ambitious for the short run, but I could go equally happily with either of the others. Can we try to get a quick "show of hands"? -- Jmabel 03:20, Oct 4, 2004 (UTC)
Just maintain a task list.
Make this a full-fledged WikiProject.
We are ready to start multiple WikiProjects.
feel free to add other possibilities above here
Comments
<copied from my talk page -- Jmabel 18:08, Oct 4, 2004 (UTC)>
I've produced a draft version of the Wikiproject main page here.. I would envisage keeping the CROSSBOW page as an archive. What do you think? : ChrisG 13:39, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)
<end copied from my talk page -- Jmabel 18:08, Oct 4, 2004 (UTC)>
I'd really like to get away from the name "CROSSBOW". It seems a very unlikely -- even counterproductive -- name for a project intended, among other things, to recruit non-Anglo and non-white contributors. A crossbow is an artifact most people associated with medieval Europe. Again, I'd like to see if we have consensus on this.
Keep the name CROSSBOW
Call it "Addressing Systemic Bias"
Call it "Countering Systemic Bias"
Call it something else with "Systemic Bias" in the name
feel free to add other possibilities above here
Comments
![]() | This page is currently inactive and is retained for
historical reference. Either the page is no longer relevant or consensus on its purpose has become unclear. To revive discussion, seek broader input via a forum such as the village pump. |
This page is no longer "live". Please do not edit it further. Ongoing work is at Wikipedia:WikiProject countering systemic bias. -- Jmabel 21:02, Oct 4, 2004 (UTC)
note: i no longer contribute to Wikipedia, so it would be better if this page is moved to another location. see "xed comments" for my final ideas on this project below [Written by
User:Xed. [[User:Poccil|
Peter O. (
Talk)]] 02:34, Oct 4, 2004 (UTC)]
Committee Regarding Overcoming Serious Systemic Bias On Wikipedia
'Thinking outside the Wikibox' - User:Filiocht
This page is for people who have signed up to help create a beta version of a section which helps to reduce Wikipedia's inherent structural biases by providing easier access to 'less-travelled' articles.
==Woopsy
In order to figure out the biases of Wikipedia, a rough idea of the demographics of en Wikipedia is required. In Replies_to_common_objections#Systemic_bias, it states:
To me, the humanities issue seems less of of an issue than when the above was written. I contributed to to Wikipedia's own page, saying:
I could have pointed out that Wikipedians are not only computer literate, but also probably heavier internet users than most other people, and tend to get more of their information from the Web. Jmabel says:
All of these susbjects Jmabel notes are worth covering. However, the purpose of CROSSBOW is to give people a chance to cover less-travelled subjects. If anyone could provide more information on the demographics of en Wikipedia, please add to this section. -- Xed 12:39, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)
While I don't think anyone has done a survey, I believe that Wikipedia runs at least 4-1 male; I haven't encountered any self-identified African-Americans, although I presume there are a few; I haven't encountered any self-identified Native Americans, although I presume there are at least a few people with significant Native American ancestry (although perhaps not who heavily identify with that ancestry). Also, there seems to be an age-bulge in roughly 18-40; my personal view is that for an encyclopedia, the lack of any large number of people younger than that is no calamity (the ones with the skills do find us), but the lack of those of us older can be, especially on political topics. There is a strong resulting bias toward the politics of the moment ratner than a longer-term view. -- Jmabel 18:31, Sep 22, 2004 (UTC)
(to expand) The content of CROSSBOW would include links to Wikipedia articles which counter-act the effects of the systemic bias. -- Xed 12:39, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)
to add - method of choosing articles.
The more I think about it, the more I conclude that the Regional wikipedian notice board model is a big part of the way to go. There could be a Category:Special interest wikipedian notice boards with members including Wikipedia:Asia topics wikipedians' notice board, Wikipedia:Africa topics wikipedians' notice board, Wikipedia:Women's studies wikipedians' notice board, Wikipedia:Humanities topics wikipedians' notice board, and so on. A todo list on the project page, discussion on the talk page and a COTW subpage and away you go. Filiocht 14:06, 1 Oct 2004 (UTC)
(to expand) The design would be the same or similar to the boxes found on the Wikipedia:Community_Portal page. -- Xed 12:39, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)
I would suggest taking a serious look at a well-run WikiProject like Wikipedia:WikiProject Seattle or Wikipedia:WikiProject Philosophy. -- Jmabel 18:39, Sep 22, 2004 (UTC)
Does anyone see a reason not to structure this effort, at least initially, as a WikiProject? -- Jmabel 05:23, Sep 23, 2004 (UTC)
& I think Irish wikipedians' notice board is another pretty good model of how to do this, too. That or a Wikiproject. But please let's quickly lose this cliquish, obscure "CROSBOW" acronym and call this what it is: Countering systemic bias. We want people to be able to search on "systemic" or "bias" and find it easily. -- Jmabel 07:30, Sep 23, 2004 (UTC)
I'd like to urge everyone to consider that one way to address this, at least in part, is through Wikipedia:Translation into English. Do you read other languages well enough to translate? Sign up as a translator and/or take on some of the translation backlog. Do you read other languages a little, but not well enough to translate? Spend some of your time browsing foreign-language Wikipedias looking for material that needs translations and make translation requests. It's especially worth looking at other languages' featured articles. -- Jmabel 18:36, Sep 22, 2004 (UTC)
A draft manifesto for this project: feel free to edit in place. -- Jmabel 08:16, Sep 23, 2004 (UTC)
Wikipedia has a number of systemic biases, mostly deriving from the demographics of our participant base, the heavy bias towards online research, and the (generally commendable) tendency to "write what you know". Systemic bias is not to be confused with systematic bias. The latter just means "thoroughgoing bias". Systemic bias means that there are structural reasons why Wikipedia gives certain topics much better coverage than others.
As of this writing, Wikipedia is disproportionately white and male; disproportionately American; disproportionately written by people from white collar backgrounds. We do not think this is a result of a conspiracy — it is largely a result of self-selection — but it has effects not all of which are beneficial, and which need to be looked at and (in some cases) countered.
Wikipedia is biased toward over-inclusion of certain material pertaining to (for example) science fiction, contemporary youth culture, contemporary U.S. and UK culture in general, and anything already well covered in the English-language portion of the Internet. These excessive inclusions are relatively harmless: at worst, people look at some of these articles and say "this is silly, why is it in an encyclopedia?"
Of far greater (and more detrimental) consequence, these same biases lead to minimal or non-existent treatment of topics of great importance. One example is that, as of this writing, the Congo Civil War, possibly the largest war since World War II has claimed over 3 million lives, but one would be hard pressed to learn much about it from Wikipedia. In fact, there is more information on a fictional plant.
An example list of poor treatment due to this bias would include (in no particular order):
Systemic biases are not easily addressed. We will need a variety of strategies. Among those are:
Wikipedia is an evolving project. While some of its biases — e.g. a preference for online sources — are probably inherent, others — generally the demographic ones — need not be. However, they will not be overcome by wishful thinking. We need to devote active effort to these matters, rather than keep doing the same thing and expect different results.
Tools:
I think we should add relevant links to other wikiprojects to the relevant lists we create; to draw their attention to systemic bias within their projects. This project is about as much pointing out the lack to other wikipedians in their area of expertise and interest as doing all the work ourselves or finding other writers : ChrisG 21:48, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Models:
Creations:
I think an inevitable consequence of creating a successful project would be the creation of such projects. But lets get this project set up and working properly first. These are medium term aims.
: ChrisG 21:38, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Are there models for this? At the very least, we need to come up with a good contact letter.
We might be able to get much already-published material "donated" to Wikipedia. Does anyone have any experience with approaching people about releasing existing materials under GFDL?
I don't have any experience of GFDL, but here's another thought on recruitment. How about a 'pyramid' structure, involving librarians? I'm thinking of Africa - I know Tanzania a little - but it could be applied to other regions or subject areas. If we could find someone who was wiliing to be the Wikipedia champion for Africa - perhaps a senior librarian at a university - they could use their own networks to recruit other librarians from individual countries. These librarians could then find academics or students to contribute to and write entries - or write them themselves. Strikes me that this might be a good way of spreading the wikipedia meme providing that we can find a good champion to kick things off. Perhaps to reduce the reliance on single individuals we need more than one champion - e.g. for diffent regions of Africa. My starting point for suggesting this is that I think - having put ot a few feelers here in the UK - that general awareness of wikipedia amongst the public and academics is very low at present. Jerry cornelius 08:28, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Are there models/examples for this?
An excellent map of media bias can be seem here, courtesy of Ethan Zuckerman. He has also written an essay which deals with many relevant issues. -- Xed 02:04, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)
I suggest countries not on the Bottom 100 lists below should be ignored when choosing CROSSBOW subjects:
Bottom 10 for Newspaper circulation (per capita)]]
Bottom 10 for Internet users (per capita)]]
Bottom 10 for personal computers (per capita)]]
Bottom 100 -- Xed 02:04, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Monkeys will always be monkeys and time has moved on. We are, as usual, in epoch making times and all the words in the world will not make a jot of difference. Trust in the 'gods' you believe in and hope for the best.
Part of the proposed strategy is to get our existing participant base writing about topics they have not been writing about. In many cases, this will go against the maxim of "write what you know." I, for one, strongly suggest that when writing about an area where you are not expert, be uncommonly scrupulous about citing sources. It is sheer hell trying to reconcile conflicting versions of a story when you have no way to assess the provenance of the information. -- Jmabel 22:16, Sep 23, 2004 (UTC)
Part of the proposed strategy is to recruit people who have not yet been active in Wikipedia and are not typical of who has already been involved. If we succeed in this, expect conflict, not only on specific factual matters, but on our methods of doing things. I have no specific expectations, just going on my past experience in these things. Expect that we will need new infrastructures to support a new group of participants. Again, I have no specifics in mind, just don't expect this to be easy. -- Jmabel 22:16, Sep 23, 2004 (UTC)
Don't forget public domain resources:
Since I am no longer going to edit Wikipedia, I thought I'd better give a rough idea of how I see CROSSBOW working. Ethan Zuckerman has supplied me with a list of companies that he has calculated receive least attention: Benin Burkina Faso Burundi Cameroon Central African Republic Chad Comoros Congo Dem. Rep. Congo Rep. Cote d'Ivoire Ethiopia Gambia Georgia Guinea Guinea Bissau Kyrgyzstan Madagascar Malawi Mali Mozambique Myanmar Niger Papua New Guinea Suriname Tajikistan Tanzania Togo Turkmenistan Western Sahara
(29 countries)
I suggest the CROSSBOW section be made up of 5 columns, with 5 items in each column. This would be a box on the 'Community portal page'. (A link would go to a more detailed page like the Irish wikipedians' notice board)
Three of the columns should have as the first item one of the countries above. The remaining items in these columns should relate to this country, with items 2 and 3 being the History and Politics of that country. The next column would have the name of a popular language (other than english) used by Wikipedia (German, Spanish, Japanese etc), and below it 4 subjects which have more detailed entries in that language than in English. The fifth column would be.... I don't know.
So it would look roughly like:
Benin Burkina Faso Burundi German ? Politics of Politics of Politics of ? ? History of History of History of ? ? Person? Person? Person? ? ? Politician? Politician? Politician? ? ?
The countries would rotate every week, so that the next group of countries would be Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad. As would the 4th column language.-- Xed 02:08, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)
I see Xed has bowed out. I also gather that there was no consensus behind his notion that this project should be limited exclusively to areas where happen to have no expertise. So I'm back.
Earlier, I proposed three models:
I personally think the third possibility would be too ambitious for the short run, but I could go equally happily with either of the others. Can we try to get a quick "show of hands"? -- Jmabel 03:20, Oct 4, 2004 (UTC)
Just maintain a task list.
Make this a full-fledged WikiProject.
We are ready to start multiple WikiProjects.
feel free to add other possibilities above here
Comments
<copied from my talk page -- Jmabel 18:08, Oct 4, 2004 (UTC)>
I've produced a draft version of the Wikiproject main page here.. I would envisage keeping the CROSSBOW page as an archive. What do you think? : ChrisG 13:39, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)
<end copied from my talk page -- Jmabel 18:08, Oct 4, 2004 (UTC)>
I'd really like to get away from the name "CROSSBOW". It seems a very unlikely -- even counterproductive -- name for a project intended, among other things, to recruit non-Anglo and non-white contributors. A crossbow is an artifact most people associated with medieval Europe. Again, I'd like to see if we have consensus on this.
Keep the name CROSSBOW
Call it "Addressing Systemic Bias"
Call it "Countering Systemic Bias"
Call it something else with "Systemic Bias" in the name
feel free to add other possibilities above here
Comments