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This is the talk page for discussing WikiProject Countering systemic bias and anything related to its purposes and tasks.

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Countering systemic bias NA‑class

This page is supported by the Countering systemic bias WikiProject, which provides a central location to counter systemic bias on Misplaced Pages. Please participate by editing the article, and help us improve articles to good and 1.0 standards, or visit the wikiproject page for more details.Countering systemic biasWikipedia:WikiProject Countering systemic biasTemplate:WikiProject Countering systemic biasCountering systemic bias NA This page does not require a rating on Misplaced Pages's content assessment scale.

Archives

Index 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20 21, 22, 23, 24

Discussion of various issues (including alternate designs for the to-do template). Village Pump discussion - 2004. Misplaced Pages:CROSSBOW - Old project. 2004. 3 - Template discussions. 4 - General discussions. 5 - Misc discussions, including reform of CSB. 6 - to June 2005. 7 - to mid-Feb 2006. 8 - to mid-June 2006. 9 - the rest of June 2006. 10 - July 2006. 11 - to late September 2007. 12 - through December 2008. 13 - through September 2009.

This page has archives. Sections older than 270 days may be automatically archived by Lowercase sigmabot III when more than 4 sections are present.

Cambodia's increasing economic prosperity

Hi

CamGSM has neutrality, notability and advertisement issues I'm questioning the validity of.

Neutrality: the sole data potentially perceived as non-neutral is that "CamGSM operates Cambodia’s leading mobile telecommunications network". My dispute's that this is factual information supported by a sourced scientific report on the Telecom, Mobile & Internet elements of Cambodia's economy, and is objective fact not subjective conjecture.

Notability: That the content details what's indisputably the largest commercial contract dealt in Cambodia's history, I think makes the content noteworthy.

Advertisement: I fail to see the advertising, opposed to the historical, nature of the content.

Appreciate any & all feedback,

Thanks

Adding a reply with a date stamp so this will archive. -- Khazar2 (talk) 11:42, 18 January 2013 (UTC)

Date pages

This has probably been discussed here before, but I notice that the date pages (January 1, January 2, etc.) are absolutely loaded with Yanks and Brits, with very few birth dates and death dates for non-EuroAmerican figures. If these were regular pages, I'd slap them with a globalization tag, but that seems too aggressive to do here.

For example, I just went through the list of Presidents and Prime Ministers of Mali, and not one had been logged into the date pages (though they are now). It seems to a shame to let those hub pages be so Eurocentric when they're meant to sum up the world. I don't know that it's worth investing a lot of effort in fixing all at once, but perhaps the editors here could start making it a point to include birth, death, and event dates on the date pages when writing about non-EuroAmerican topics? That way the problem might start to balance out over time. Cheers, Khazar (talk) 17:28, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

A bot could probably resolve that, working against a category of articles like the list of P&PM of Mali which you mention, if not the whole encyclopedia. Try asking for help on WP:BOTREQ. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 15:24, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

Interesting idea. I might bounce that off some people at the date pages first and see what they think. Thanks, Khazar2 (talk) 19:01, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

SB in footballer notability criteria?

I've raised an issue of potential SB on Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Jade Bailey (footballer): In short, we consider footballers to be notable if they play for a fully-professional league, but (in the UK at least) men's leagues are, and the equivalent women's leagues are not. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 15:16, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

I can understand the reasoning behind the notability guidance. Fully professional leagues will have more resources at their disposal and generally have a higher profile (i.e. TV/news coverage), as will their players. Misplaced Pages selects its content based on WP:GNG, which measures how well-known the subject is, or is likely to be. It's a 'chicken-and-egg' situation - if UK women's football gains a greater following it will attract more sponsorship and funding and be able to take on fully professional status, therefore becoming better known etc. Anecdotally, several of my football obsessed friends went to see the Women's GB football team play, but beforehand they couldn't name a single national player! It has a loyal but relatively tiny following in the UK. Sionk (talk) 22:34, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

I agree that the situation at the moment is far from ideal - we have elite female athletes deemed "non notable" while fourth or fifth rate male footballers get a free pass! The WP:FPL list is controversial because, by admission, some favoured (male) leagues remain there which are not "fully professional" at all. This gets debated every few months but it seems nothing gets done about it. The football project at French Misplaced Pages has a much less sexist notability guideline . Clavdia chauchat (talk) 12:14, 4 August 2012 (UTC)

The notion that playing in one particular league rather than another will automatically make a player notable is symptomatic, I think, of one of the downsides of wikiprojects setting their own notability guidelines. I would encourage the creation of articles on female athletes if they pass the GNG, regardless of whether or not they play in a league shortlisted by a small subset of wikipedians. Unfortunately, past experience with a different sports project makes me concerned that an article on a sportsperson who passes the GNG, but does not meet one of the project's own guidelines, would still get delete votes at an AFD when the project decides to have a spring-clean. bobrayner (talk) 13:44, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

CSB edit-a-thon @ UMass Amherst

Hi -- One announcement and a question: Announcement: An enterprising Misplaced Pages reader has initiated an edit-a-thon here @ UMass Amherst; we'll be holding it during Open Access Week at the UMass Du Bois Library, Thursday, Oct. 22, 2012, Eastern time. More info at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/Meetup/UMassAmherst/1 . The focus will be on underrepresented minorities and women in the arts, culture, science. Question: Have any other CSB-ers done meet-ups / so-fix-its / edit-a-thons, and have templates or other material that we could re-use? Thanks! --Lquilter (talk) 16:35, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

This might serve as a model . I believe User:SarahStierch had a hand in organizing it if you want to ask how it went. Khazar2 (talk) 17:26, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

Excellent, that's exactly the sort of thing I'm thinking of. Tx. --Lquilter (talk) 17:27, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

If you haven't seen it, you might also be interested in Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Women's History/Ada Lovelace Day 2012 Dsp13 (talk) 21:29, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

WikiProject Women in science

Sarah Stierch (talk) and Keilana| have started a new WikiProject, Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Women scientists. If you have any questions, feel free to ask one of us on our talk page. RockMagnetist (talk) 16:40, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

Third World Traveler: cleanup project

Dear WP:CSB; recently, the site "Third World Traveler" was identified as a potential source of copyright violations, and many citations that included URLs to Third World Traveler were deleted. This left many pages that pertain to the Third World, already a neglected bunch, with fewer citations. To help resolve the resulting issues, I created this page that lists all of the affected articles. Now you can help by checking out a few of these articles and maybe restoring a citation or better yet adding newer/better/fresher citations for some of these claims. Thanks! groupuscule (talk) 04:35, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

Thanks to you and Bob for your work on this. I'll try to tackle some of those on your list tomorrow. -- Khazar2 (talk) 04:43, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

I would agree that many of these articles will need a bit of attention, although not limited to repairing/replacing citations, as thirdworldtraveler sometimes seems to have been a source for controversial or fringey topics. Alas, this kind of attention is a lot more labour-intensive than just removing some links.

On another point, I would agree that much of our "third world" coverage is lacking, but not across the board. Relative to other aspects of the "third world", we already have a great deal of coverage of American/NATO intervention in other countries, israel-versus-palestine, controversial CIA activities, the Puerto Rican independence movement, various positions taken by Chomsky &c - the kind of areas where thirdworldtraveler was most cited. bobrayner (talk) 14:18, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

Eve

On Eve (disambiguation) User:Adjwilley made a revert that makes it sound as if Eve is only a Biblical figure. However she is also an Islamic and Baha'i figure. I would appreciate any feedback. Pass a Method talk 14:08, 9 February 2013 (UTC)

Looks like our article Eve starts with "according to the creation myth of Abrahamic religions", and otherwise includes Islamic and Baha'i. Simplest seems to be to use that sentence. --GRuban (talk) 18:27, 9 February 2013 (UTC)

IEG proposal aimed at addressing certain systemic biases in our coverage of philosophy

Hi all - I recently posted a draft of an individual engagement grant proposal aimed at improving the English Misplaced Pages's coverage of topics that lay at the intersection of women and philosophy through targeted academic outreach. If it's approved, I would be conducting the project along with Alex Madva and Katie Gasdaglis. I think the project has significant potential to go a long way towards addressing Misplaced Pages's under-representation of our targeted topic areas, and would create a scalable model of educational outreach to underrepresented disciplines that can be used in other fields. (It'd also have some direct effect on our demographic imbalances.)

A lot more details about our proposal are available on the meta page. If you would like to endorse the idea, comment, express concerns, &c, please do so on the page on meta. The public comment period for IEG proposals ends on February 22nd, three days from now. Thanks, Kevin Gorman (talk) 22:55, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

Is BIAS winning in 2013?

Folks, we need to rekindle the fine spirit that existed a few years ago of wanting to oppose BIAS vigilantly wherever it rears its ugly head, and wanting to keep articles even-handed and free of BIAS.

How could BIAS be winning in 2013? What does it take for BIAS to win? Well, all it takes is for those who are not narrow-minded to stop caring, give up, do nothing, and just let BIASES promote themselves as acceptable. With the current attitude going the direction it is, pretty soon it will become unacceptable to COMPLAIN about bias - and in fact this is already becoming the case. But it doesn't have to be. Sometimes it only takes a spark to accomplish a revolution in peoples' minds. BIAS is something Misplaced Pages can do without!

Unlike the bias of just a few years ago, which tried harder to disguise itself, the bias of 2013 parades openly. WMF and Jimbo very clearly set NPOV and "neutrality" as the non-negotiable goal posts in the beginning. So, the agents of BIAS have gradually realized this means they must "move the Mountain to Mohammed", i.e. they must now work on trying to redefine the English word "neutrality" until it means exactly what they want it to mean. They try endlessly to delude people that "neutrality" doesn't mean allowing both sides to be told evenly, no, they have spent years writing little paragraphs and rigging the system so that now "neutrality" means only allowing one side of the story to be told - the very antithesis of its actual meaning - and they can triumphantly crow and thump their little paragraphs that they wrote themselves that explain why "BIAS IS NEUTRAL" and nobody can argue.

Almost everything they touch, if it was neutral before, when they leave it reflects only the biases of the editors who do this. It becomes a hack piece telling you who is right, who is wrong, and what you are supposed to think about it. The wikipedia I remember from the past had beautiful articles where you could really learn something about the other guy's point of view - without having it crammed down your throat, along with a pile of smarmy legalese to explain why it has to be crammed down your throat.

I am seeing more and more articles fall by the wayside in this way. Is it because fair-minded people are just giving up? I am seeing more and more articles that gave insight on crucial points of view being deleted by deletionists who don't think you need to know about that, so they have taken it on themselves to regulate what subjects you are allowed to learn about. The resulting lack of coverage is the definition of SYSTEMIC BIAS, and wikipedia is now getting plagued by it. The straw that broke the camels back for me was when I saw this: Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Anti-Serb sentiment This deletion nomination is a pure example of Systemic bias in action. No pretense of neutrality being made here, everyone let's just vote on whether the Serbs deserve to have such an article like everyone else has, and hurry up before too many non-deletionists show up and ruin the fun. This isn't to complain about one case, I have already seen many things of this type, and many "non-favored" ethnic groups being targeted spitefully, and in the discussions, it's like they don't even have to account for promoting BIAS, on the contrary, you are expected to account for and apologize for NOT sharing their biases.

I really don't know what else could be suggested to better combat this trend. The only thing I can think of now is to try to reinvigorate this project, and I propose we rename it to Countering systemic bias noticeboard which is only slightly sexier than "Misplaced Pages talk:WikiProject Countering systemic bias". Well I've let off enough steam here, thanks for reading my rant, Til Eulenspiegel /talk/ 18:29, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

I'm no way experienced enough to suggest a solution. However, a major bias that is beginning to annoy me considerably is 'recentism', towards topics and people that have been covered online in the age of t'internet (i.e. last 10 years). While the average age of Wikipedeans is very low, it will be difficult to convince the majority to get a perspective on the pre-internet era. Sionk (talk) 19:26, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

I adapted my text above for use on my new User Page under construction. Here is another example I saw last week. It may be a minor issue, but I still believe it is a good example of exactly what WP:BIAS talks about regarding 'lack of coverage by omission', etc. As you can see at Talk:Fried fish, I was quickly and easily able to demonstrate with sources, that a certain variety added by an anon IP, known as "Lahori fish" or "Darul maha", is actually a regional style known all across Southern Asia, that happens to be named after Lahore, Pakistan where the recipe originates. However, it was removed anyway, because I was unable to demonstrate that anybody important had ever heard of Lahori fish. Til Eulenspiegel /talk/ 15:53, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

Naming conventions (clergy)

WP:Naming conventions (clergy) has been requested to be renamed, see WT:Naming conventions (clergy) -- 65.92.180.137 (talk) 11:22, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

Can someone please offer an opinion?

About the Bill of Rights. Thanks. USchick (talk) 23:01, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

Help needed with Indigenous peoples page

Help, please? This page is a mess, and I need a little technical help that will not end up closing off editing entirely. The first paragraph, for example, currently contains the sentence, "Please don't fall for the crap on this page" -- but I cannot even find the phrase while in editing mode, in order to delete it. There are numerous other issues as well -- some technical, some just plain messy from what looks like edit war fallout. The page is going to take a lot of work, and any help is appreciated. Mahalo! --Laualoha 19:15, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

I can't figure out what the issue is here, either. I also see the sentence displaying but also don't see it in editable text. I've left a note at Misplaced Pages:Village pump (technical) and at the help desk inquiring. Thanks for raising the issue on this one. -- Khazar2 (talk) 21:16, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

Apparently Cluebot had fixed this error but needed a manual purge. I still don't fully understand what happened, but it's resolved now. -- Khazar2 (talk) 21:59, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

Systemic bias, lack of coverage of scholarship on oral cultural traditions

There is a new article Moon-eyed people about a legendary people in Cherokee folklore that has received extensive coverage by academic scholars, however none of this is good enough for skeptics who lacking any sources at all backing up their skepticism, now want the article deleted as "non notable". See Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Moon-eyed people. I believe if successful this precedent will result in significant systemic bias, resulting from the lack of coverage and lack of ability to cover Native American topics -- because no amount of sources all saying the same thing is too much to be deemed as "suspect" in origin and therefore deletable by these editors. given the general difficulty in faithfully representing oral traditions and cultures in writing resulting in a lack of coverage and systemic bias, this one is quite well attested, yet it is facing the axe due to the unrelenting bias of some. Til Eulenspiegel /talk/ 13:54, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

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