Wikipedia talk:Systemic bias/Archive 1

Essay
Shouldn't this be explicitly marked as an essay, or tagged as part of the project, or something? All on its own like this it looks far too much like an article. Verbal chat  20:12, 4 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Added essay; Systematic bias can tag it as theirs if they would like, I am not sure how. - 2/0 (cont.) 22:37, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

Restatement of problem
As I have stated in the past, this page makes the grave error of identifying the "average Wikipedian" and blaming him (yes, "him," not him or her) for "perspective bias in articles on many subjects" -- while ignoring the obvious fact that the extent of perspective bias in a subject's coverage attributable to demographics is strictly due to the demographics of the editors that form the majority around a given article or topic, not the demographics of Wikipedia as a whole. Blackworm (talk) 06:21, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

Honest class dilemma
"Since Wikipedia editors are self-selecting for social class (only a relatively small proportion of the world's population has the necessary access to computers, the Internet, and enough leisure time to edit Wikipedia articles), articles about or involving issues of interest to the underclasses are unlikely to be created or, if created, are unlikely to survive a deletion review on grounds of notability."

Or, in other words, "If the billions of poor people and the millions of geographically relatively poor people want it, and the upper quartile doesn't, it ain't on this wiki." I for one am proud this discrepancy was at least noted, though my concerns are generally on government actions to combat poverty, both within wealthy country and in poorer countries, and Wikipedia does a good job of those.

I'm reminded if you want something, do it--unless a sysop says hell no. But, oh, I'm forumming again. 74.240.224.193 (talk) 06:16, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

"European Point of View"
I don't see anything on the "European POV", in that I think that many things are written as if the Europeans just got off the boat in the New World..."New World" is a term that reflects this bias. I don't think it's a "Northern Hemisphere" perspective that I'm discussing, but the "Columbus discovered America" concept. Technicalities aside, how can he have discovered it for anyone but himself, and the Europeans? The Taino people were already there. -- Anyway, I see that kind of bias in the History of the Grand Canyon area. Hires an editor (talk) 04:03, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

Problem of raising interest
While most of the arguments put forward in this article are certainly well founded, there is one overriding problem: there is little point in writing articles, however factual, if no one wants to read them. I have been quite a strong contributor to WP over the years but am now ever more conscious of the number of accesses an article is liable to attract.

I have indeed been trying to fill some gaps, particularly in regard to culture in smaller countries, more specifically Luxembourg and Denmark. Unless an article can average at least 20 accesses a day, it seems to me to be pretty useless. So I have tried to find topics and individuals of fairly wide potential interest, not just to a PhD student who happens, for example, to be researching 18th century theology in Jutland! So what we want is what we get.

Maybe there are some ways to influence people's interests. For example, a good article or a good picture featured on WPs main page is likely to bring in between 500 and 5,000 unexpected visitors - at least for a day or two. Links from more popular sites dealing with tourism, news, sports or even cookery may well pay off too. And links to and from other language versions seem to work as well, even if they are just to or from a section of an article. Of course, if you are working with culture, you really hit the jackpot if a major museum or gallery suddenly decides to put on an exhibition about a hitherto little known artist. Hundreds rush to the article in Wikipedia and if there has been an error, you will see it repeated in so many press reviews that it soon becomes a fact impossible to refute.

So that's the way of the world. Any real change in what raises people's interest is wishful thinking. So I tend to write for a potential readership and not to maintain a theoretical balance. Don't we all? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ipigott (talk • contribs)


 * The above comment was not "unsigned". It was moved from an article where signature is not allowed. - Ipigott (talk) 18:28, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

(NOTE: I moved it from the article page. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 17:55, 13 October 2010 (UTC))


 * I am surprised to see that this has been moved to the talk page without any explanation. I had considered placing my concerns on the talk page initially but saw a clear message at the top of the page which said:


 * This page is supported by the Countering systemic bias WikiProject, which provides a central location to counter systemic bias on Wikipedia. Please participate by editing the article (my emphasis), and help us improve articles to good and 1.0 standards, or visit the wikiproject page for more details


 * This led me to place my contribution on the main article page. Especially when articles are preceded by "Wikipedia:", it seems to me as if they are somewhere between a true WP article and a talk page. But perhaps I should make my comments a little less personal before I put them back in the article if that is the problem. I suppose, BTW, that this is all part of the "Systemic bias"! And I do always sign my contributions to talk pages. - Ipigott (talk) 18:28, 13 October 2010 (UTC)


 * I have now reinserted a slightly modified version of my contribution on the project page where my arguments can be addressed. - Ipigott (talk) 18:59, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Another perspective
I've been posting thoughts related to systemic bias on and off for months, usually in various article talk pages when the subject involved demonstrates a need to. Here's another one - too many people who are firmly and squarely stuck in the present when either creating or contributing to pages. Just to give an example, I did a search for "Jonas Brothers," but was actually looking for the taxidermists. Not a single word anywhere that I could find. I did find something like a million pages about the boy band, though. When I refined my search for the taxidermists, I came up with one lone hit - for something else related to modern pop culture!

If you're first response is to tell me to do something about it, just go back to my earlier posting to this page, wherein I mention getting paid. If this is nothing more than a hobby, it would probably be foolish for me to treat it as more than that. After all, it was -25F here earlier this week, and my laptop probably wouldn't survive very long if I didn't maintain a roof over my head.RadioKAOS (talk) 03:58, 4 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Well...what's your point? ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 05:11, 4 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Uh, perhaps that I don't view this as a mirror of contemporary pop culture or media culture? That's the root of systemic bias in countless pages and categories, etc.RadioKAOS (talk) 09:56, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

More factors that are not mentioned
I noticed that most biased information tends to be seen in newsworthy articles that are linked from the Main Page. Editors are putting what so ever they want on those articles, regardless of how incorrect they are, because by the time anyone sees the information as incorrect, the damage has been done, and most people who will ever see the article already has, through the duration the Main Page links to it. One example is the Tuscon shootings. During the first few days it was linked from the Main Page, it clearly implied Palin had something to do with it. An unquestionably large amount of people saw it. Later on, it was made clear that was only informal nonsense, but by then the article's no longer on the Main Page, sent into the dark labyrinth among 3.5 million articles. Although those who complained about the bias were fooled into being satisfied with the fix when they later read the article, the bias succeeded in making Wikipedia look bad.

It also needs to be mentioned that sources among English speaking countries are considered to be more reliable, because Wikipedia editors generally know little about not-English sources, and are far more likely to dismiss them as incorrect of fringe theories when conflict takes place.

Government supporting sources are also considered to be much more reliable, even though they do not represent any government in the sense the government they're supporting to can easily deny any relations whenever the sources give incorrect information.

Yet another unmentioned factor to the bias is that vague articles can cause people to think different subjects synonymously. An article that describes evolutionists and radical social Darwinists synonymously, with sentences such as "they state that evolution is harmless despite using it as an excuse to murder millions" would be an imaginary example.

The last factor of bias that can be added is that articles about controversial subjects focuses too much on unrelated information about everyone with an opinion on it. This is hard to explain, but see it this way: ||Imaginary article about ideology Blahism Blahism is an ideology in which followers believe war should always be thought as wrong. Bob, a prominent follower stated: "even though war is somethings correct, we must never think of it as correct or else it's a slippery slope to think all war is correct." Bill, another follower stated: "yeah, duuude, totally agree." Bill is an radical anarchist who digs up graves to eat dead bodies, in order to create disorder, and agrees with Blahism because, according to his mother, it creates disorder.|| This factor of bias is that an article can imply that Blahism is disorderly and related to necrophagy simply by giving extra information on Bill. Everything has hideous supporters, no need to list them on specific topics. 173.183.79.81 (talk) 22:20, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

Discrimination against youth topics
I want to raise awareness about an ongoing trend of discrimination against youth-focused topics on WP. After introducing a series of articles from the field of youth studies, they have been routinely subjected to AfDs focused on the validity of the topics rather than the worthiness of the articles themselves. I want to call attention to this pattern of systemic bias against youth topics. The AfDs include adultism, ephebiphobia, fear of youth, and pedophobia. Other questionable AfDs include youth subculture, youngest mayors in the U.S., student voice, and the youth empowerment template. Note that oftentimes concern for these articles and templates are pointed at me directly, as in the 2nd youth empowerment TfD; however, this pattern of AfDs and TfDs ranges further than my direct editing. • Freechild talk 03:14, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

gender gap on WP
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/31/business/media/31link.html?_r=2&partner=rss&emc=rss

http://encyclopedia.farlex.com/Gender+disparity

Wikipedia has no information on gender gap, not even in WikiProject Countering systemic bias or in Systemic bias. Those don't even have the words "gender" or women"! There isn't even a red wikilink in Global_Gender_Gap_Report.

The disambiguation page "gender gap" needs to be made into an article, and the redirects Gender disparity and Gender differences need to be made into disambigs or redirects to the new article on gender gap. --Espoo (talk) 04:54, 15 August 2011 (UTC)
 * I added a paragraph about the gender gap and some refs. --Sonicyouth86 (talk) 18:46, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

Roller derby
Roller derby articles have been mentioned on the Wikimedia Foundation's Gendergap mailing list as a potential subject of systemic gender bias. I recently noticed one had been reported as deleted, and when I asked that it be userfied I noticed that it was a very borderline deletion at best. I have since placed the deleted article in the WP:INCUBATOR at and added eleven new sources, including from BBC News, a Cambridge radio station, a government calendar entry, the team's current practice facility location, their official scores for their 2011 bouts, the team logo, and several external links in addition to the Stars and Stripes and Cambridge News sources which were already in the article meeting the notability criteria when it was deleted. The WP:DRV at Deletion review/Log/2011 October 26 has seemed at times like a surreal deletionist pile-on. Per the incubator's WP:GRADUATION instructions, any editor who has not yet edited the article may return it to userspace.

If you have not edited the Romsey Town Rollerbillies article, I ask that you please first read it at Article Incubator/Romsey Town Rollerbillies and then help assess it at Wikipedia talk:Article Incubator/Romsey Town Rollerbillies and return it to userspace if it meets the criteria. Dualus (talk) 00:30, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

systemic bias in wikipedia, Is wikipedia turning into the "American television watchers' encyclopedia"
Is wikipedia turning into the "American television watchers' encyclopedia"

Requested move closed by editor who has clear bias and conflict of interest: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:The_Big_Bang_Theory#Requested_move — Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.94.204.129 (talk) 04:46, 14 March 2012 (UTC)
 * WP:TITLE is pretty clear in this case. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 04:54, 14 March 2012 (UTC)
 * then, shouldn`t the title follow from Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(television)#Episodic_television65.94.204.129 (talk) 05:07, 14 March 2012 (UTC)
 * No, and stop forum shopping. Parsecboy (talk) 18:16, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

Anti-Christian bias
There is an assumption than materialism and/or atheism is correct, and that Christianity is wrong or at best an aberration. The notion is that Creationism is somehow suspect - while natural evolution is not (along with similar views towards the theory of evolution, and how it's taught in US public schools); the viewpoint (exalted by PETA that people "are" animals as over against the convenience of classifying them with "other mammals" only in a biological context; the idea that the first few chapters of the Bible are a "myth" as opposed to the idea that modern scholars prefer to classify it as a myth; etc.

To justify all of this - not as an exception to NPOV for some pressing reason - but as somehow not violating neutrality at all; is one of the major flaws of Wikipedi's systemic bias. It stands out more than the other factors, because at least contributors have always made an effort to overcome their white-collar, Northern hemisphere backgrounds and appreciate the perspectives of other places and classes.

Rather than making an effort to accommodate non-materialist views, every effort has been made to marginalize them, as if even mentioning an idea that 4 times as many people in the general public have than Wikipedians generally have would give it undue weight. Surely we can document how prevalent or rare a view is without feeling that even the mere mention of it would make readers think it was more widely held than it is. No one objects to our flat earth article on that grounds. --Uncle Ed (talk) 20:42, 22 May 2012 (UTC)


 * I've reverted your edit, because the inclusion of "majority Christian country" has nothing to do with pro or anti Christian bias. The fact is that a large chunk of Wikipedians are from countries which are or have been either majority Christian or have had some Christian influence on their history and social structures: countries like the United States, the United Kingdom, other Western European countries. When I went to school, I was taught Catholicism from a young age because I happen to be in a country that is historically Christian. Systemic bias isn't about whether we treat creationism fairly (I think we treat it more than fairly, personally, given its status as a fringe scientific theory), it's not about NPOV at all: if you want to debate NPOV, WP:NPOV is that way.
 * Systemic bias means simply this: as someone born in a historically Christian country, with an established Anglican church and a school system where the vast majority of children will be educated either in Anglicanism or Catholicism, and a society where Christianity is the majority religion, if I were starting a new Wikipedia from scratch, I'd be able to write a much better article on the Gospel of John than I could on the Kangyur. Why? 'Cos I was raised in Britain and not Tibet.
 * Even if Wikipedia were to handle neutrality, fringe etc. exactly as you think it ought to, and Wikipedia were to shed what you perceive to be anti-Christian bias, we would probably still have a systemic bias issue over the relative development of articles. —Tom Morris (talk) 10:14, 23 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Agree with Tom about this not being a systemic bias issue: I want to address the POV allegation. Creationism is a lot more than "somewhat suspect". Any attempt to give creationism an equivalent status to evolution-by-natural-selection goes against roomfuls of scientific evidence and is clear POV. Your complaint seems not to be against Wikipedia but against the academic consensus that Wikipedia aspires to be based on. If consensus among modern scholars is that something is a myth, then that's what an up-to-date encyclopedia should say, isn't it? The opinions of the general public are irrelevant for this: an encyclopedia that just summed up the beliefs of the general public, according to the proportion of people who believe them, would be extremely "democratic" but useless for reference. Humans are classified along with other mammals because we are mammals according to the definition, not merely for "convenience". This isn't a controversial view in science, or limited to a pressure group such as PETA. You need to change the academic consensus on these matters before asking Wikipedia to change. MartinPoulter (talk) 11:35, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

Left-wing hatred anyone?
Isn't this really a case of veiled anti-Christian and anti-white propaganda? Was not the Internet created by this diabolical sub-group? And was Wikipedia itself not founded by evil white men of this sub-group (Wales/Sanger/Stallman)?

By definition, everyone editing Wikipedia is technically inclined (or you could not use a computer), formally educated (were not raised by wolves), and an English speaker (you have to understand English to browse, much less edit content on any site on the Web - unless you read machine code - and if you did, you'd have to have been taught by someone who was taught by someone who spoke English).

I get it. Reverse racism has come to Wikipedia. Tough cookies, because nothing competitive to the aforementioned technology is going to be created by someone who is (1) female, (2) knob-headed, (3) uneducated, (4) mute, (5) non-white, (6) really young or really old, (7) from a non-Christian country, (8) from an undeveloped nation, (9) from the Southern Hemisphere, and (10) unlikely to be employed as a white collar (knowledge) worker.

Wikipedia is not a meat-world children's book. It was created by technocrats for people with access to a computer. It is the modern Library at Alexandria, and it is built by the knowledgeable for the knowledgeable. Cobblestonej (talk) 12:19, 9 July 2010 (UTC)


 * You are arguing against straw men. There is nothing anti-Christian or anti-White because no one has said anything negative about Christians or White people. The statement "The perspective of non-White people is not equally represented on Wikipedia" does not in any way imply the statement "White people are bad." Yes, those editing Wikipedia are technical, educated, English speakers. That is precisely the point. That is why the perspective of those who do not fit that demographic are underrepresented. Your argument "it is built by the knowledgeable for the knowledgeable" appears to imply that knowledge is something exclusively held by a single demographic, and that no other demographic has any knowledge worth knowing or sharing. I would argue that such an attitude is antithetical to Wikipedia's raison d'etre. 81.170.147.129 (talk) 16:15, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

There is no such thing as "reverse racism." Are you kidding me? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.91.133.165 (talk) 17:18, 6 July 2011 (UTC)
 * See the article on reverse racism, although I completely disagree with the OP. Double sharp (talk) 11:45, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

Other Wikipedia's
This article doesn't discuss the other Wikipedia's. That there are not so many editors from non-Anglophone countries on the English Wikipedia shouldn't come as a surprise as the English Wikipedia is primarily aimed at an audience in the natively English-speaking world. Non-native English speakers would still be more likely to look at and edit on the Wikipedia in their mother tongue. SpeakFree (talk)(contribs) 16:20, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Maybe this is true for some East Asian and European language Wikipedias with a great number of articles, and of good content. Nevertheles, despite Portuguese Wikipedia being not bad, and my English being still barely acceptable now (very poor until mid 2012 and a crap until late 2011), I feel more comfortable here for a variety of reasons.
 * First, the culture here is more open, and new users have considerably more freedom to do whatever they want as long it is not disruptive and/or explicitly againt policy. Not that people there are rude, but it is not appropriate to explain here anyway, I may commit a serious generalization.
 * Second, I learn more not only this language that is increasingly important in the job market of my own country, but also it adds to the fact that English Wikipedia has much more content, and of better quality, than other Wikipedias. And while learning English and facts important to English-speaking people, I am acquiring information from a culture other than that of my own. I will do a crazy analogy, if you do not get it: as you must already know, most information in society flow from people with whom you do not have an intimate relationships, as the worldview and knowledge of people with whom you have deep bonds and share a life greatly overlaps with that of yours (I forgot the name they gave to it). A similar situation would be drawn here, learning in the perspective of foreigners is something way more interesting.
 * I imagine that there can be a lot of editors like me, and a share many times greater of readers. I even read somewhere else that one of the greatest concerns of Portuguese Wikipedia is that the English one is attracting more fellow Brazilians than that of our native language, go figure out. Lguipontes (talk) 03:17, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

A revision to Wikipedia:Systemic Bias which appears to be an example of systemic bias
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia%3ASystemic_bias&diff=516463439&oldid=516438857 < I think that this revision is an example of systemic bias. Folklore and religion (especially Eastern ones) is under-represented on the English Wikipedia, or the Anglophone Internet for that matter. Would it not be best to leave that point, but also add "(see )" on the end? Just so that the point can be considered by editors. In some cultures, where writing is not common, vital and often reliable information about ethnic history, survival, and ways of life, are passed on purely by stories told to children and apprentices (my father experienced this passing of knowledge first hand, where a friend of his was pointing out all the edible, medicinal plants in the field they were walking across in Southern Africa. Some of those species are probably used in modern medicine in some way or another today). With no scientific institutes, books, or ways of recording information (apart from embedding it in their culture), this type of storytelling is the only reliable source. How do we represent that in Wikipedia? Do we simply leave out all the Aborigines, African natives, and recently contacted tribes, simply because their way of recording information is incompatible with our ways? --BurritoBazooka (talk) 02:57, 15 November 2012 (UTC)
 * The edit you pointed to doesn't have anything to do with oral history or cultural biases. The removed content was complaining that the supernatural is not taken as seriously as science, and it shouldn't be.  Oreo Priest  talk 03:43, 15 November 2012 (UTC)
 * You don't understand what I was saying - to them, supernatural and natural are one in the same. --BurritoBazooka (talk) 18:19, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

Countering systemic bias
Here you can find an example of the applicability of countering the systemic bias to real life. 84.52.101.196 (talk) 02:15, 6 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Heh. Some zealots even went as far as removing this very comment above. Seek for neutrality at it's extreme! 78.25.121.20 (talk) 05:34, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

Can someone please offer an opinion?
About the Bill of Rights. Thanks. USchick (talk) 23:01, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

Yes
That's why western people always are making systematic vandalism.Ovsek (talk) 20:01, 2 June 2013 (UTC)
 * I had to laugh but looking at your talk page, I can see you've been a naughty editor. Constructive edits are the way to change the viewpoints that you think are biased. ''CarolMooreDC - talkie talkie &#x1f5fd; 20:47, 2 June 2013 (UTC)

I am not bias or dont do vandalism.I insist India was British colony,they ignore and say it was India.It was British-Indian army,not Indian army(though officially it was Indian army,but government was British).They try to ignore Indian revolutionaries,I oppose.I do from neutral point,as well as I am a student.See "Indian army in WW2" talk page's Indian national Army and Image section,you can know more.

You can again look,"Home Front During WW2" article's History.See what I added and how an user wanted to misguide that?

They(not all) want to prove Indians supported Britain,and try toignore Indian oppostion to British.Ovsek (talk) 15:40, 3 June 2013 (UTC)


 * OK, this is the article about this topic. Where you need to go is Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Countering_systemic_bias. Looking at your talk page I can see name of the problem articles -- India in World War II and Indian Army - so you might link to them there and describe the problems, without the rhetoric :-)  It can be very difficult dealing with people with a strong POV, or even ones that just want better references to improve Wikipedia, so you have to be patient and look for good references. ''CarolMooreDC - talkie talkie &#x1f5fd; 18:22, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for suggestions.Ovsek (talk) 14:32, 4 June 2013 (UTC)
 * See also Wikipedia_talk:Noticeboard_for_India-related_topics --Tito Dutta (talk • contributions • email) 15:10, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

Tito Dutta do discussion.Ovsek (talk) 04:29, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

Hopeless
I am a fairly active editor who does not believe in NPOV, and think that the systemic bias addressed here is inevitable and cannot by definition be remedied. My ontological position is intersubjectivity; that knowledge is socially constructed. Scientific articles have the potential of approaching neutrality since there is a worldwide community on those topics. There is also a basis for giving due weight to published, peer-reviewed sources in the face of popular opposition, the most obvious example being biological evolution. Is there a neutral point of view in other fields?

On pop culture topics, neutrality is hopeless, so the article on someone such as Lady Gaga appears to have been written by a press agent or die-hard fan (who else would spend that much time?) My personal interest is in the visual arts, and it is obvious that few academics with a full understanding of the topics spend much time working on them. The main article on Fine art is a stub compared to the one on The Art of Video Games, a single museum exhibit with dubious notability.

I try working on the those articles that interest me, just to exercise my brain, but am not a trained art historian or philosopher, not even a trained artist but mainly self-taught. What I am is a social scientist, and am using those skills not to present original research, but to find and cite sources that pass academic standards. This means my Google searches are usually filtered by adding site:.edu or site:.org. I am over 60 and retired, but take classes at the local university which gives me free access to peer-reviewed journals. I tend to cite journals and books from the library rather than online sources. One of my projects has been the article Native American mascot controversy. My training is a hindrance to "neutral" editing of arts topics, since the problem of the The Two Cultures has not disappeared; what a scientist takes as evidence is not the same as that in the humanities. Compare, for example, Denis Dutton's "The Art Instinct" to the standard text of Aesthetics. FigureArtist (talk) 15:30, 5 June 2013 (UTC)


 * Per above, Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Countering_systemic_bias is where we discuss dealing with problem on Wikipedia. There are a lot of intertwined policies and it can take time to figure them out. I've been editing a week short of 7 years and still forget/ get confused (being over 65 doesn't help - but it's great mind exercise!) Another place to ask for guidance and find like minded people is wikiprojects. Check out Category:WikiProjects to browse, including the art wikiproject, and also GLAM which has get togethers with professionals at museums, etc. around the country. ''CarolMooreDC - talkie talkie &#x1f5fd; 15:57, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

Propose move or split to Cultural bias
I observe that the title doesn't give away what this essay is about. "Systemic bias" is not the same as "cultural bias". Lets see what happened? Firstly:


 * Systemic bias is the inherent tendency of a process to favor particular outcomes. The term is a neologism that generally refers to human systems including institutions; the analogous problem in non-human systems (such as measurement instruments or mathematical models used to estimate physical quantities) is often called systematic bias, and leads to systematic error in measurements or estimates.


 * Cultural bias is the phenomenon of interpreting and judging phenomena by standards inherent to one's own culture. The phenomenon is sometimes considered a problem central to social and human sciences, such as economics, psychology, anthropology, and sociology. Some practitioners of the aforementioned fields have attempted to develop methods and theories to compensate for or a culture make assumptions about conventions, including conventions of language, notation, proof and evidence.

The worse part of using the one to describe the other is that it creates wikipedia jargon. If we are going to describe editor behavior we should do it in terms anyone can understand. When that isn't possible we should use terms that cant be mistaken for something else. It is more obvious that Cultural bias can happen without the person noticing how biased he is.

I was curious where/when we started to pretend "culture" is the same as "systemic". This essay/wikiproject is/was either about cultural bias or it is about systemic bias. Either of the 2 had to come first....

It seems to originate all the way back to 2004 when the page was called WP:CROSSBOW. That was an effort to identify the bias on wikipedia. Here is a posting where the author suggests most Sysemic bias is Cultural bias. CROSSBOW While perhaps wrong it does appear to be a good way to identify some large groups. Cultural bias might not represent most types of bias, it is the only one that comes with good statistics.

Moving the page away from crossbow was a good idea. Funny Americans naming things after weapons. lol But the Crossbow was still aiming at Sexism, it is still on the page, identified as being an official bias one may have.

Anyway, a good title for the content here would be wp:Cultural bias and we should write a new essay on wp:systemic bias, one about systemic bias. Rather than an example of systemic bias? lol

84.106.26.81 (talk) 16:33, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

I found this on that page as well, I think it is good enough to recite here:


 * 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 &mdash; it is largely a result of self-selection &mdash; 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):


 * Africa and the 'third word' generally, in all of its aspects
 * Asia - particularly 'underdeveloped' countries
 * Humanities subjects (is this really underrepresented? -- Jmabel 22:16, Sep 23, 2004 (UTC))
 * Art and Design subjects (is this really underrepresented? -- Jmabel 22:16, Sep 23, 2004 (UTC))
 * Female oriented/dominated subjects - Feminism, Women authors, Nursing, Fashion
 * Foreign literature (particularly writers whose work is unavailable or not widely available in English)
 * Agricultural and horticultural studies
 * Non-white figures in the U.S., UK, etc.
 * Subjects which would normally be longer in other encyclopaedias (is this really worth distinguishing as a separate category?) -- Jmabel 18:18, Sep 23, 2004 (UTC))

end cite 84.106.26.81 (talk) 18:17, 7 June 2013 (UTC)


 * Oppose: First both articles are so poorly sourced that quoting them is pretty meaningless. (And their relation to this Wikipedia project page perhaps tenuous.) Obviously cultural bias is one of the main examples of systemic bias, but it is only one of many "systems" of thought inducing bias. Improve both articles and this talk page, in light of the WikiProject Countering systemic bias and you will be helping all of them. ''CarolMooreDC - talkie talkie &#x1f5fd; 02:41, 8 June 2013 (UTC)


 * Oppose per CarolMooreDC.  Oreo Priest  talk 06:15, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

Creepy photo. Where's the best place to discuss?
Where is the best place to discuss this?

Image:Tahquitz 1.jpg is currently a part of the Kiss article. There are two issues with it:


 * 1) There are issues with personality rights / lack of a model release (unresolved since Oct 2010)
 * 2) Regardless of the author's intent, the leaves in the foreground suggest non-consensual voyeurism.  Even if the author got permission from the photographees, the photo still suggests lack of consent.

The second issue would still be a problem even if the first issue were resolved. Because this aspect of the image is unfixable, I'm asking that the image be removed from the Kiss article.

The issue with this picture has been discussed a few times already: [1] [2]

Is there a good place to discuss things that might discourage people from editing due to a perceived atmosphere of sexism? --Hirsutism (talk) 18:17, 8 June 2013 (UTC)


 * Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Countering_systemic_bias or Wikiproject feminism. Though this photo is tame compared to some of them! ''CarolMooreDC - talkie talkie &#x1f5fd; 12:32, 11 June 2013 (UTC)


 * No, the first question the CSB project asks is "What is being omitted, what are we not covering?" In this case the answer would be "nothing" so please don't direct this there.  I just have to laugh at anyone who is offended that photo! Til Eulenspiegel /talk/ 14:10, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

Medicine not mentioned
The essay doesn't mention medical topics. While some tropical diseases may be missing, the bigger problem is with those not considered to be typically Western or third world diseases. Take for example pancreatitis which mentions ''Eighty percent of cases of pancreatitis are caused by alcohol and gallstones. Gallstones are the single most common etiology of acute pancreatitis. Alcohol is the single most common etiology of chronic pancreatitis''. All six references are from the US and UK. I doubt that this is valid in countries like Pakistan and the Middle East. The alcohol is an obvious clue, and when differences are obvious, few wil be misled. Unfortunately, it's the obvious systemic bias that is corrected first and foremost, while the information most likely to mislead will survive the longest. Ssscienccce (talk) 13:48, 26 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Sounds like you have a point. Mention it!  Oreo Priest  talk 23:17, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

Free time
"Wikipedians are people that have enough free time to participate in the project. The points of view of editors focused on other activities, such as earning a living or caring for others, are underrepresented." This sentence isn't really appropriate for the following reasons: So the above needs to be appropriately rewritten.
 * 1) There is no such thing as "free time", especially in places like the one where I live, I could use this time in pursuit of other gainful pursuits; professional, social, community, etc. I choose to spend time here, I spend time here as a conscious choice like someone may spend money to buy a book another to buy flowers a third to watch a movie a fourth may invest the money in shares a fifth may put it in a bank account.
 * 2) I could estimate the opportunity cost of each edit I've made to about 1 USD, it means my volunteering has cost me over 10000 dollars, (I don't say it is worth that much to the project, it is what it has cost me in terms of opportunity lost)
 * 3) There is also a health cost, I mean I could walk, go to the gym, rest my eyes and back, and spend the energy in other gainful pursuits, I'm instead choosing to be a volunteer here.

Yogesh Khandke (talk) 14:43, 10 August 2013 (UTC)


 * Your objection to the phrase "free time" is not all that obvious, but perhaps the equivalent "spare time" would be more technically accurate? People can only get on wikipedia if they have the time to spare for that. That's what the "free" in "free" time is supposed to convey, but perhaps it is too ambiguous, and changing it to "spare time" would resolve it. Til Eulenspiegel /talk/ 17:05, 10 August 2013 (UTC)
 * I mean there is no such time as spare time. I say "We spare time for Wikipedia" as against "We edit Wikipedia in our spare time" I hope that makes my views clearer. Yogesh Khandke (talk) 17:08, 10 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Please see the article on leisure for a definition of "free time". The point is, folks like you and I have sufficient time to "pursue other gainful pursuits; professional, social, community, etc.", and we (like pretty much everyone editing Wikipedia) choose to spend that time on Wikipedia. Other people do not have time to "pursue other gainful pursuits" because they are working multiple jobs to make ends meet, caring for others, etc., as in, they're spending all of their time on maintaining life necessities—and "professional, social, community" activities and Wikipedia editing most certainly are not life necessities. Because Wikipedia is only edited by people who have such time, systemic bias inevitably results. The fact that an editor who has such time chooses to prioritize editing Wikipedia over pursuing other activities is of no relevance to that reality. –Prototime (talk · contribs) 17:14, 10 August 2013 (UTC)
 * You're right in a way Prototime, but still don't see my point. Hypothetically I may not be able to put my kid to college because I spent my time on Wikipedia when another was working a longer day, or I may not be able to take that expensive life saving treatment because I spent my time on Wikipedia when another was working to save for a rainy day. Yogesh Khandke (talk) 17:22, 10 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Perhaps true, but those concerns are speculative and hypothetical, clearly not enough to deter people like us from editing. Would you continue to edit if you knew doing so you cause you to die or prevent you from putting your kid through college? I suspect not, and that's the type of situation many non-editors find themselves in. People who, because of their life circumstances, know editing Wikipedia will cause them such harm simply won't edit Wikipedia. Thus, Wikipedia is dominated by editors whose harm from editing Wikipedia is only remote or hypothetical, and that common characteristic among Wikipedians contributes to systemic bias. –Prototime (talk · contribs) 19:45, 10 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Yes and no. We are two persons with a small but important difference in our perspectives. Thanks for caring to comment. PS: Most people know that "Tobacco kills", for some it is a hypothetical probable outcome, some die in their prematurely, others have their health adversely affected badly enough to functionally affect them, others die without a significant impact from tobacco abuse, but nevertheless even their lives are shortened. It is a cliche, but "time is money". Yogesh Khandke (talk) 16:04, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Vital articles/Expanded
I encourage all members of this project to participate in the process of determining which articles are vital. Currently it is extremely biased towards the US and topics of interest to Americans in almost all of its subsections.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 23:32, 7 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Currently the list of "Vital people" includes 2 South Americans (Frida Kahlo and Simon Bolivar) and three Africans (Ibn Batutta, and two Egyptian rulers) out of 134. They are currently trying to remove Kahlo and add a European man.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 17:44, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

Any actual WP authority to back up this essay, especially rel the dominant culture bias? If not could s.o. add to WP policy
Ami-centrism and to a lesser extent that of a couple other English-language only countries is a serious problem in WP and IMO an embarrassment to the community. I cannot find any actual authority at WP:NPOV. Could s.o. more informed and more articulate than I (maybe one of the authors of this essay?) maybe add a specific section to that policy that addresses this (or point it out to me if it already exists). The Ami-centrism is epidemic at WP IMO. (You read goofy shi. all the time like film reviews referring to a country's film awards as "the American Oscars" and people trying to delete articles based on their subject being based in a country whose primary tongue is not English where often sources are not available mainly in English.Paavo273 (talk) 18:44, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

Example of systemic bias
Very good essay. Here's an example of systemic bias by omission, though I'm not sure if it belongs in the essay or, if so, where. Until recently there was no article on what is believed to be the most serious vehicular accident in U.S. history--the death of 32 Mexican migrant workers in California in 1963. Yet there were articles on less serious accidents, one claiming incorrectly to be the most serious accident in U.S. history. It seems that when you have minority people involved, and the pre-Internet era, it is almost guaranteed that the subject will get short shrift. Coretheapple (talk) 16:17, 9 March 2014 (UTC)


 * Yep. HiLo48 (talk) 21:46, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

Female editors
This article is on the BBC site today.  Lugnuts  Dick Laurent is dead 07:38, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

Interspecies bias
Regarding interspecies bias, it is important to respect the rights of other animals. We are not the only ones to live on this planet, other innocent creatures share it with us. We must respect their rights, even if they cannot read or write Wikipedia articles (similar to some humans). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 220.245.49.25 (talk) 08:10, 22 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Unfortunately, even if you were to include reliable sources that this is the case, this is an essay that describes consensus from Wikipedia's POV, and should only add information that supports Wikipedia's consensus on the matters. What is Wikipedia consensus? Well, it's when people come to agreement that something be X way. A good amount of people have done this over the action of systematic bias in a number of aspects, but not for animals. However, the good thing is that consensus can change, and I welcome you that you have made bold edits, but in the action of an essay, any controversial or substantial addendums should be discussed on the talk page. I see that you've already done this. I welcome you to gain consensus using dialogue and reasons for why it should be added. Thank you. Tutelary (talk) 10:30, 22 May 2014 (UTC)

Majority Christian country?
I'm not sure about this one. I don't know about America but at least in Europe I would say probably in many countries the majority are not actively religious in any way, making this identifier redundant. See Postchristianity.--XKQ7 (talk) 22:16, 14 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Practising Christians (i.e. church attending) are almost certainly a minority of the overall population in the UK, for example.--XKQ7 (talk) 12:43, 15 May 2012 (UTC)
 * I think it represents having a Christian history and culture. For example, the Czech Republic is mostly atheist, but there are definite Catholic elements in their culture. Tezero (talk) 17:16, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

Ironically, this essay engages in systemic bias use of "America" when what is meant is "US"
See American (word). This essay should (A) convert instances of "American" to "in the US" (etc); (B) should add a paragraph addressing appropriated regionalisms of this sort. Are there other examples in the world? NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 12:49, 6 March 2014 (UTC)


 * I agree with you, but I have learnt from experience that many within the USA don't, and won't, and feel very strongly about it. And that's part of our systemic bias too. HiLo48 (talk) 15:53, 6 March 2014 (UTC)


 * And even as the American (word) article you pointed to indicates, the word American is usually associated with the United States. So if there is any bias with regard to that, it's a widespread, prominent bias. Flyer22 (talk) 17:19, 6 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Yeah, it's not necessarily our fault. For example, I know that the Czech and Japanese common names for the country, among many others, are cognate to simply "America". Tezero (talk) 17:28, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

hmmm.... fallacy re Canadian Aboriginal peoples methinks; important systemic biases as yet omitted
Re a current discussion on the systemic bias on WP:IPNA on the talkpage there, I came here and adjusted "First Nations" to "Aboriginal peoples in Canada", a term which includes the Metis and Inuit; that's a minor misunderstanding and not the reason for this comment though. This is, and something more of more importance:
 * ''minority demographic groups have disproportionately less access to information technology, schooling, and education than majority groups. This includes African Americans and Latinos in the U.S., the Aboriginal peoples in Canada, the Aborigines of Australia

Uh, no.....actually aboriginal communities in Canada, other than remote ones and some very poor ones where computer/technology penetration (other than smartphones et al.) is not advanced, is actually very advanced in a lot of the native spectrum, particularly among youth. Even with remote communities in the North and the mountains, because of satellite service, internet penetration in households and among individuals is fairly high; especially among youth; but also among elders. Poverty is a barrier to many, however, but overall access to technology is not all that much of an issue due to community centres and such, and the reality that academia and government services are now well-staffed by natives and highly-educated and media-influential natives are very common in Canadian society, though yes, schooling remains an issue, as a famous campaign re a now-deceased school youth leader and the campaign named for her from Attawapiskat reminds us.

But internet/technology access is secondary to the reality that government/corporate/academic sources are more numerous and accessible, particularly online, than native-viewpoint sources, many of which are only in band libraries or in the oral tradition, or in local programs in schoosl and communities; this has played negatively against natives in RMs and CfDs, where some have even called their interests "parochial" and "sources" and "common name" "rules" ("there are no rules", actually...) have been used to entrench archaic and/or derisive names as titles. Further, content in many articles is cliche and/or high-schoolish, or based in outdated sources, or influenced as with tar sannds- related articles by massive amounts of corporate publications and academic publications using corporate propagated agendas, including "oil sands" as the term used here. There's more of this kind of thing, but that's just one example. As long as wikipedia coverage of natives is dominated by colonialist sources and views, archaic and otherwise, it will ahve no credibility with natives and participation by them will not grow; instead we have people who know nothing about them making sweeping decisions without any grasp of the issues or realities. Early on in Wikipedia there was an attempt, now derided ("we can't take Skookum1's word for it", one wiki-snob went off), to be welcoming, and sensitive to native views and native preferences on language used about them; that has been tossed out the window and efforst to correct the changes railroaded and equivocated by "uninvolved" editors invoking guidelines as if they were rules, guidelines that were rewritten to favour the bad ideas, in fact....by those actually fighting to prevent needed changes/reversions. So systemic bias isn't just in academia/government/corporate/news media - it's in the wikipedia bureaucracy.Skookum1 (talk) 16:46, 8 August 2014 (UTC)
 * The systemic bias is not only about internet access, but also about the systemic qualities of the world including academia, the way that peoples lives make them particularly likely to take an interest in wikipedia or not, and many other factors, including wikpedia bureaucracy. Apart from that, the fact that some indigenous communities have good internet access, does not change the fact that the vast majority does not. Best regards from the wiki snob who would never take your word for anything.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 16:55, 8 August 2014 (UTC)
 * You're worse than a snob. In fact, you're worse than Kwami and without doubt one of the nastiest and most hypocritical wiki-WP:DICKs I've as yet encountered in all my years on Wikipedia, including political SPAs hell-bent for bullshit.  Your farcical ANI against me was full of lies and distortions, your unprovoked assaults against me on Camuacha (sp?) and on the Nuxalk talkpage (cowardly deleted, though you should have been blocked for both those incidents), and your assaults on me hear are proof that your opinions are worthless and just ravings; the pointlessness and irrelevance of your comments above are just more snobbery and put-down.  You're a bore, and yes "we can't take Maunus' word for f-all".Skookum1 (talk) 12:58, 9 August 2014 (UTC)

Discussion of this essay at Talk:Malaysia Airlines Flight 17
My understanding of the NPOV policy is that article POV coverage is supposed to be proportionate to the POVs expressed in the bulk of reliable sources. Well, apparently not, because this essay is being cited over at Talk:Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 for assertions that, since most English-speaking RS have a "pro-Western" viewpoint, we should give equal time to the state-controlled Russian media and/or conspiracy theory sites to counter the "systemic bias" found in places like the New York Times and the Washington Post. My requests: (1) is this essay really intended to be used as a stick by editors that want to disregard the NPOV policy, and (2) if not, can we please insert wording to make it clear that it is not to be misunderstood as overriding core content policy? Geogene (talk) 17:48, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

Citation formatting RfC
Please see Talk:Aspromonte goat for an RfC about the scope of WP:CITEVAR and whether it can be used to prevent changes to problematic ref IDs, such as cases where women researchers are disrespectfully referred to by short forms of their first names, as in  instead of    for an author named Barbara Rischkowski, in an article where a male author is referred to by surname. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  19:47, 21 November 2014 (UTC)

nationality of editor
I came here after looking on wikipedia for information about North Korea. While on that page I thought "I'll bet wikipedia is the last place on the internet to find unbiased information on North Korea" and that "almost every contributor is probably from the USA". Am I right? What about wikipedia's coverage of armed conflict? Am I going to get unbiased info on American led wars on Wikipedia? I know what to expect, but does the average wikipedia user know where and when to expect (wholesale)bias? Although I do like the "neutrality disputed" classification why not show the flag from the country of each editor? That way, although the bias is still present, users of Wikipedia can get an idea of whether they are perhaps being bombarded with just one perspective on an issue or subject by an army of brainwashed/patriotic/propagandist editors. 60.241.100.51 (talk) 01:49, 30 December 2014 (UTC)
 * There are
 * 1,978 Canadian Wikipedians, including/plus 56 Acadian Wikipedians and 84 Québécois Wikipedians.
 * There are 1004 British Wikipedians plus including 619+80 (in subcats) English Wikipedians, 375 375 Scottish Wikipedians, and 148 Welsh Wikipedians, plus 8 Category:Manx Wikipedians and one each from Jersey and Northern Ireland in subcats there, others are in Category:Ulster Scots Wikipedians.
 * Category:Irish Wikipedians contains 1,360 members in its main category. There are 1,652 Wikipedians and 15 New Zealand Wikipedians and 22 South African Wikipedians
 * 2,800 Indian Wikipedians not including what's in subcats.
 * 926 Chinese Wikipedians, with 75 more "overseas" and included in other categories; and 148 Taiwanese Wikipedians with 54 Wikipedians living in Taiwan. There are 148 Korean Wikipedians.
 * Interesting little "census" and I haven't covered various other "anglophony" countries yet; but Category:American Wikipedians has 4,218 members, with 317 more in subcats. Upshot is no, the Americans are not even a majority, and though their influence is great and their POV/worldview/language is often pervasive in some areas, they are balanced and in fact outnumbered collectively by Canadian, Indian, British, Irish, Australian/NZ and other groups of Wikipedians.  And I haven't bothered counted European or other Asian Wikipedians yet.Skookum1 (talk) 06:32, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

Another perspective on systemic bias
I don't know if this is covered on another page. This page barely touches upon it. People who are capable of doing real research generally like to get paid for doing so. Consequently, at least in the subject areas I tend to contribute to, page content is exclusively or almost exclusively the result of Google searches. This sometimes makes me wonder why I should bother with Wikipedia. This problem particularly manifests itself when it comes to certain historical matters. RadioKAOS (talk) 06:18, 14 May 2010 (UTC)


 * I'm going to put in two cents here. I'm a real researcher. I don't expect to get paid for my research, not in my field, but if I put time into writing something in Wikipedia I don't like it to get deleted because it's not based on "reliable sources". It also makes me wonder why I should bother with Wikipedia.


 * I think Wikipedia's policy of "no original research" is mistaken. It impoverishes Wikipedia, in my opinion. deisenbe (talk) 20:14, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Created article "Systemic bias in Wikipedia"
It uses, in its entirety, the contents of this essay. Delete it or correct it if you want to.

And I got rid of the redirect page that sent "Systemic bias in Wikipedia" to Wikipedia#Systemic bias. deisenbe (talk) 01:07, 28 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I've restored the redirect for now. I don't see a need nor do I have a strong objection to turning this into an article but copy/pasting it is not the way to go. There looks to be some pushback in the thread above, so probably best to wait until a consensus to move becomes clear. If that's the case, move is what we would want to do, rather than copy/paste, to retain article history. --&mdash;  Rhododendrites talk  \\ 01:31, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

Shouldn't this be elevated to the status of article?
I can see no reason not to. deisenbe (talk) 00:48, 28 January 2015 (UTC)


 * No, Deisenbe; it's a WP:Essay. WP:Essays and WP:Policies and guidelines are not elevated to articles. Flyer22 (talk) 00:52, 28 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Of course it's a WP:Essay. I know that. My point is, what shortcomings does it have that would make it unsuitable to being turned into an article? I.E. create an article and paste this Essay into it. With the regular supervision processes that creating an article involves.


 * It doesn't get much attention here as an essay, not the attention it deserves. There is no article on WP's Systemic Bias, and in my opinion, there should be one.deisenbe (talk) 00:56, 28 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Deisenbe, you're a WP:Newbie who still makes a lot of WP:Newbie mistakes, including using this entire essay's content to create an article on that topic. So it would not have been surprising to me if you didn't know that the page is a WP:Essay. Flyer22 (talk) 01:15, 28 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Also, while we're on the topic of duplicating content, try not to violate WP:Content fork any time in the future. Flyer22 (talk) 01:18, 28 January 2015 (UTC)


 * I have been a Wikipedia editor since 2005 and have made several thousand edits and created 23 articles, not counting this one. I don't think you should call me a newbie. User:Flyer22, please stop patronizing me.


 * I do not believe I have violated WP:Content fork. If you believe I have, please explain. deisenbe (talk) 01:24, 28 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Read what WP:Newbie means. You have only recently been very actively editing Wikipedia. Unless you were editing as an IP, you barely edited Wikipedia until 2014; your contribution history shows that you edited sporadically in the years you've been a Wikipedian. And, as a result, there are a great many things you do not know about editing Wikipedia, which is why I and others have to keep correcting you on matters. For example, thinking that porn videos are suitable references is not the behavior of a very experienced Wikipedia editor. You also don't WP:Indent consistently; I corrected your "00:56, 28 January 2015 (UTC)" WP:Indentation above. But you've gotten better at remembering to sign your posts. You barely know any of Wikipedia's policies and guidelines, and there is nothing wrong with me pointing that out. Why don't you start learning those policies and guidelines? If you don't want to improve in your Wikipedia editing, that is clearly your choice. But don't call it patronizing when an editor points out your obvious inexperience with regard to how Wikipedia is supposed to work.


 * Furthermore, as you already know, seen here and here, the topic of "Systemic bias in Wikipedia" is already covered in two Wikipedia articles. Not every topic needs its own Wikipedia article or is best served that way. Do indeed read WP:Content fork. Read WP:Spinout as well. I did not state that you violated WP:Content fork; I pointed you to it because if you are wiling to duplicate an entire Wikipedia essay by making it into a Wikipedia article, it's easy for me to see that you would likely violate WP:Content fork at some point. Flyer22 (talk) 01:43, 28 January 2015 (UTC)


 * I am moving this interchange with Flyer 22 to User_talk:Flyer22. deisenbe (talk) 15:04, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

Victory Day and Schuman Day
Odd that the front page records a European holiday and ignores the Russian holiday. Given that the events in Russia today are noteworthy from the standpoint of international politics, that Wikipedia readers aren't tipped off about a potentially important observance seems an oversight. That a competing international organization's holiday is mentioned is especially suspect when it comes to questions of bias. 221.212.126.212 (talk) 09:21, 9 May 2015 (UTC)

WP:GLOBAL / wp:global
ANNOYING!!!!! Ok, who loses their redirect? (I double posted this, guess where) Fountains of Bryn Mawr (talk) 18:35, 8 August 2016 (UTC)

RFC regarding neutrality in alt-med against unorthodox scientific claims
There's a systemic bias in Wikipedia in all alt-med articles, but most markedly in ones mentioned below: Talk:Myofascial meridians

This question has really perplexed me. When there's competing policies at work, shouldn't common wisdom prevail? I've received enormous pushback on this. The source standards put forth in WP:MEDRS are the strictest anywhere and it's hampered WP's coverage of medical topics. - Technophant (talk) 21:39, 20 July 2014 (UTC)
 * I wish all topics had similarly strict sourcing standards as MEDRS. In medical articles it is absolutely necessary to follow the strictest possible criteria of sourcing because people's lives are on the line, as many people rely on wikipedia for medical information and decisions. So yes there needs to be a strict and consistent representation of which medical treatments have scientific support and which havent. So in short, no. User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 23:56, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

I'm way late to this item, but have recently gone thru a RFC for Rolfing and seen examples -- for what is basically a microscopic niche of massage therapy, there seems a strong desire to dump on it starting in the lead (" It is recognized as a pseudoscience,[8][9] and has been characterized as quackery") on very light basis -- basically an Australian health care removal of 17 natural health practices on basis of insufficient or inconclusive evidence, and two skeptic publications (skepdic and quackwatch) -- and to otherwise demonize it. Seems like once something is labeled as alt or pseudoscience it becomes a mandate to run amok and to not observe normal reporting standards. Markbassett (talk) 00:03, 7 September 2016 (UTC)

Articles of interest to women vs. articles about women
"Pinup girl" is cited as an example of the kind of article that tends to interest men more than women. Women, meanwhile, are supposed to be interested in articles about "Women in engineering" and "Pregnancy in art". Bleh. We don't expect men to be interested in every biography of every man, or in articles about prostate cancer, or jock itch. Don't get me wrong, I'm grateful to all the suffragists and female CEOs and pioneering women in boring STEM fields and all the other relentlessly energetic and squeaky-clean women who have broken down the barriers and all that, but I don't want to spend all my Wikipedia-editing time writing biographies of them. Like everyone else I have my own special interests, some of which have nothing to do with gender. And some of which are frivolous. The equivalent of "Pinup girl" for me would probably be "Curly-Haired Jewish Guys From the 1970s" and would include Paul Michael Glaser and Lou Reed. Not Susan B. Anthony. Rosekelleher (talk) 04:50, 19 February 2016 (UTC)


 * To be honest, I don't understand why a woman (outside of an activist) would be interested in "Women in engineering" anymore than I would be interested in an article focusing on "Men in engineering". I know several female engineers (one being my sister) and they're far more interested in contributions to their profession, than the contributors chromosomes.
 * Another female friend has an interest in pin-up models of the 40's and 50's, and goes to great lengths to recreate the scenes herself in photos. I haven't asked her, but I'm pretty sure any interest she might have in "Pregnancy in art" would be negligible.   2001:56A:F567:3700:D9A0:2729:376:D853 (talk) 05:07, 28 June 2016 (UTC)


 * I'm thinking that articles like "Women in engineering" or "Men in nursing" aren't problematic. Partly, its that just not much of a topic or theme in themselves.  The article cannot keep on listing names, that is more a "List of" article and just gets too big plus misses some (e.g. Carly Fiorina has an article but isn't on a women in list).   Also, these aren't necessarily individuals moving the 'gender in' topic by running the programs or something, it often seems if the person was a serial killer or something else noteworthy outside the field that drives whether they're in Wikipedia.   I'd be inclined to keep the historically significant (Susan B. Anthony) as articles and a catefory of 'women in', but to not have the 'gender in' as an article by itself.  Markbassett (talk) 00:23, 7 September 2016 (UTC)

Request for comments - Talk:List of last surviving World War I veterans by country
I'd really appreciate comments from members of this project on a discussion I've been having with another user at Talk:List of last surviving World War I veterans by country. The user seems to think that Wikipedia should not consider colonies to be separate from the imperial power.—Brigade Piron (talk) 13:53, 27 September 2016 (UTC)

Black history in red?
Is there an equivalent of the "Women in Red" list for black history topics somewhere? --MopTop (talk) 16:42, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

Not Really Bias...
Of course the English-speaking section is dominated by English speakers. People who can't speak English can't contribute. English-speakers (especially those who are proficient at English) are disproportionately from English-speaking countries, due to the fact that English-speaking countries teach and use English as the native language.

Similarly, Korean language pages are mostly only written by Korean speakers--most of whom are Koreans--and Russian language pages are dominated by Russian speakers, etc, etc.

It is true that English is the language with the most pages on Wikipedia, probably because Wikipedia originated in an English-speaking country, in the same way that Baidu's Baike is mostly only in Chinese. However, Wikipedia at least makes an effort to be international. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.54.149.138 (talk) 18:57, 14 February 2017 (UTC)

"Women are underrepresented"
This section seems to contain a lot of silly stereotypes. As a male, my interests supposedly include hot rods and babysitter porn. Meanwhile, the history of ballet is apparently of particular relevance to women. Are there not better examples available? Kombucha (talk) 14:44, 22 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Now, with all redlinks on that section became blue, we need new examples on the systemic bias against women. Hanif Al Husaini (talk) 08:18, 20 May 2017 (UTC)

I think the section about those without internet access being underrepresented needs to be changed.
The title implies that only people with internet access being able to edit Wikipedia is an issue. However, the substance of the section seems to be talking about substandard or outdated internet access, not the lack of internet access. Thereby, i feel like the title of the section is a bit misleading. --Rainythunderstorm (talk) 10:40, 7 August 2017 (UTC)

Having a gendered category only when there's an article behind it
Please see Wikipedia talk:Categorization

It is not a !voting proposal or RfC, but a discussion draft, and has already had some constructive feedback (e.g. leading with "ghettoization" of articles was a distraction, as were suggesting statistical differences and reasons for them without providing sources). Seeking input on the overall idea. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ &gt;ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ&lt;  05:01, 3 January 2018 (UTC)

Referring to ships as "she"
Please see Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style. This is a perennial discussion that never seems to reach consensus. Notice of this round of discussion was sort of spammed to various ship- and military-related projects and pages (i.e., places of strong concentration of fans of using "she" for ships, and of male editors in particular), so I'm notifying some other wikiprojects and such that are apt to have wider views and demographics, for balance. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  09:35, 23 November 2019 (UTC)

Lack of commercial content
Put in a bullet point in the bias section on this topic. I think that it could be expanded to a new section, since it would imply a significant change in the number of articles on businesses and their products. I think this needs discussed before editing the project page.

Currently most WP:LISTED companies are not in Wikipedia. This equivalent to not having articles on most major cities (geography) or most universities (education). In a typical developed country for every 1 million businesses there will be about 250 listed businesses, the proportion of listed companies is much smaller in undeveloped countries. The number of listed companies is somewhere between the number of Cities and Towns within the country all of which have articles. One of the reasons for this is because of the need to battle against editing by persons with conflicts of interest means that a large number of editors had become biased against commercial topics because of the widespread abuse of the area. So that even in the case of WP:LISTED most are not on Wikipedia and the number of missing significant unlisted commercial organisations is even greater.

The outcome of this discussion, would need to also be discussed on WP:LISTED to look at making the policy clearer. RonaldDuncan (talk) 17:18, 9 December 2019 (UTC)


 * I would be interested in how you would overcome the inevitable COI problems, and how you would choose businesses for inclusion. HiLo48 (talk) 22:26, 9 December 2019 (UTC)
 * I think the first stage would be put the global 1,000 companies in as Vital Articles. The move down to try and get coverage for all the companies in the major stock indexes, and eventually extend to all listed companies.  Having covered off the listed companies, then look at the various categories of significant private companies.  Listed company entries might be stubs, with just the company which market it is listed on and details of when it listed.  All listed companies have to post an entry document which is normally 100's of pages that is verified by lawyers, both for the company and their brokers.  They are really really boring documents so there is normally no COI puff about how absolutely wonderful the company is, more pages of risks to investors and detailed performance in the years before listing, that has all be verified since otherwise they are liable to investors for any errors or omissions.RonaldDuncan (talk) 18:04, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

Pointing out systematic bias without getting personal
I'm trying to point out that some editors may inadvertently let preconceived notions of a particular topic play into content and deletion discussions, but when I do I get accused of being WP:PERSONAL or WP:UNCIVIL. Is there a better way to bring this up in discussions?--Prisencolin (talk) 16:04, 17 July 2020 (UTC)

Rfc: Soft censoring of Ex-Muslim Articles
Hi,

Request for comment discussion has been initiated @ Talk:List of former Muslims and has reference to this article there in.

Those interested can express their views there in.

Thanks

Bookku (talk) 09:12, 24 August 2020 (UTC)

Date in maps
The pictures that show maps with the "Population of Internet users by country (ITU figures, 2012)" and "Internet usage by percentage of each country's population (2012)" have been updated multiple times since they were added to the article and do not appear to show data from 2012 anymore, however the people who last updated the images did not specify from which year the new data is. Oqwert (talk) 01:25, 11 December 2020 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard has an RFC
Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard has an RFC for possible consensus. A discussion is taking place. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments on the discussion page. Thank you. Boud (talk) 14:02, 26 June 2021 (UTC)

A note on NSPORT systematic bias
See here; discusses how NSPORTS furthers Systematic bias by effectively encouraging editors to create articles about men over articles about women, by making it easier to create articles on the former than on the latter. BilledMammal (talk) 13:52, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

Christian perspectives in articles about other religions
to answer your question in this revert summary, I think your third sentence answers your first question. I added the content in question precisely to avoid this essay giving off the impression that all articles on religious topics should weight things toward the largest religions, as that would be systemic bias. An article on a Jewish text of little relevance in Christianity should not have 1,300 words on its significance in Christianity and 300 on its significance in Judaism. You're welcome to disagree with that perspective, but I don't think that your disagreement would be consistent with this essay, which takes the opinionated stance that Wikipedia's goals are "inhibited by systemic bias created by the shared social and cultural characteristics of most editors, and it results in an imbalanced coverage of subjects and perspectives on the encyclopedia." Putting more focus on what Christians think of a Jewish topic is "imbalanced coverage".

And, why is it especially an issue with Christian POVs? Because, again, this is an essay on systemic bias. The majority of English Wikipedia editors come from countries where Christianity is the predominant religion. Someone adding 1,300 words on Buddhist perspectives on the Zohar would be bias, but not systemic bias. It's also not something that tends to happen. For instance, I'm sure there are some Buddhist perspective on the Zohar, but in 20 years of that article existing no one's taken the time to add them. That should tell you why Christian perspectives are "especially" prone to causing bias. Just like white perspectives are more than black perspectives, male perspectives more than female perspectives, cisgender perspectives more than transgender perspectives—the point of this essay. -- Tamzin  [ cetacean needed ] (she/they) 20:00, 13 April 2022 (UTC)
 * It's fine if you don't want to respond to the above, of course, but if you don't plan to, I'd like to restore the material I added. --  Tamzin  [ cetacean needed ] (she/they) 03:30, 16 April 2022 (UTC)

"Average Wikipedian"
I just noticed that the data that the Average Wikipedian demographics is cited to over a decade old and concerns the German Wikipedia. Has there been any recent sources of information about the demographics of who edits the English Wikipedia? The growing dominance of editors who use mobile devices might have changed these characteristics which are basically presented as facts for this language Wikipedia. Liz Read! Talk! 20:53, 5 December 2022 (UTC)


 * I added some peer-reviewed research published in 2013 that I found at the meta Gender gap page. With appropriate attribution, these may be helpful sources: Community Insights/2018 Report; Community Insights/Community Insights 2020 Report (via the Gender Gap Research page). Beccaynr (talk) 21:21, 5 December 2022 (UTC)


 * I added a 2010 source, though it cites the same 2005 survey. That survey definitely doesn't concern only the German Wikipedia though. The survey was conducted by Universität Würzburg, but it did cover the English edition. would you consider striking that statement about the survey only concerning the German Wikipedia? It might cause confusion.
 * More recent studies would be great, I agree.Larataguera (talk) 22:41, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

Average Wikipedian 2.
Point number 5 is an English speaker (native or non-native)

No shit sherlock. Pretty sure you have to understand the language of the Wikipedia edition you're working on in order for your contributions to be sensible. Synotia (moan) 15:17, 3 February 2023 (UTC)

CHOPSY and Academic bias
Please comment on WP:Academic bias, which is systemic by design on wikipedia, and strongly defended by its proponents as a necessary way of combatting pseudo-science and fringe theories.

I have drafted an essay in response alleging systemic bias in Western Civilization itself, in the church, in academia, and in mainstream news and politics, to argue that CHOPSY is not always "Neutral".

Also earlier sections may be relevant: Especially the bottom three sections are relevant in discerning how CHOPSY (and the way it is applied here), may or may not be implicated in a systemic-bias that I alleged to exist on Wikipedia against non-native speakers of english, Asians, Africans, Arabs, and a peculiar case of bias against Jews. This is still only a draft, and I don't intend to publish it outside my user space, as it represents my own view that I wish other to consider and respond to for a year or three before trying to form any consensus around it.

I would appreciate feedback both on the existing CHOPSY bias and my essay in response, and suggestions on how we can all improve in collaborating on this WP:Encyclopedia

Regards, Jaredscribe (talk) 09:46, 3 April 2023 (UTC)