US-centricity

[Poetlister]

This is a thread for examples of how Wikipedians often see things just from a US perspective.

There is an article on the Lewis Carroll Society of North America (T-H-L), but not on the Lewis Carroll Society.

[Kumioko]

This has been an ongoing problem pretty much since the beginning of the projects.

[Bezdomni]

It's odd that you mention this just as I was beginning to wonder about the Canadian cabal. (arbcom, bureaucrats, clerks, spoonkeymonkeys, etc.) But yes, I've found the tunnel vision fascinating. The IT/N folks have consistently been reticent about posting anything about the protests in Sudan or Algeria. Sudan squeaked on for a couple days after al-Béchir dissolved the regional & national governments & declared a state of emergency, though I had to push a little to get that happen. Today, it's amazing to me that a million people can spill onto the streets in one day and that ITN people would play games to say it's nothing... "petering out", insufficiently updated... §§ One does suspect that the real problem may be that 2019 Algerian protests (T-H-L) is about Africa.

[Dysklyver]

Wikipedia has a strong US and Western Europe bias.

There are probably 3 or 4 million examples of it.

[Kumioko]

It's odd that you mention this just as I was beginning to wonder about the Canadian cabal. (arbcom, bureaucrats, clerks, spoonkeymonkeys, etc.) But yes, I've found the tunnel vision fascinating. The IT/N folks have consistently been reticent about posting anything about the protests in Sudan or Algeria. Sudan squeaked on for a couple days after al-Béchir dissolved the regional & national governments & declared a state of emergency, though I had to push a little to get that happen. Today, it's amazing to me that a million people can spill onto the streets in one day and that ITN people would play games to say it's nothing... "petering out", insufficiently updated... §§ One does suspect that the real problem may be that 2019 Algerian protests (T-H-L) is about Africa.

I think rather than say specifically US centric I think we could more accurately say its Western Culture-centric and include countries like Canada and England.

[Auggie]

This is something Europeans complain about when we don't conform to their Eurocentric worldview and follow their lame spelling conventions.

[Bezdomni]

& follow there lame spelling conventions.

(hi, Graaf)

[Auggie]

& follow there lame spelling conventions.

(hi, Graaf)

huh?

[Vigilant]

& follow there lame spelling conventions.

Perfect.
Absolutely perfect.

[Poetlister]

Undoubtedly there is a bias towards Western culture. I was raising the issue of a bias within that towards the USA rather than say the UK. Maybe we need a programme to address this.

[Bezdomni]

Sorry Auggie, I just got to thinking about Graaf and how he was treaded.

Language is funny. "président sortant" is neutral. "outgoing president" is not. Machine translations don't get this. I do wonder though at the remarkable translation of the aforementioned protest page that arrived on 9 March. (§)

As Graaf has said: in Egypt one must not criticize Moses, or the Pharaoh, or anyone else. It is activism and copy-leftist hijinkery to read entries on protests and spit them back out again as processed reads. Shame on me. And those encouraging such behavieur, by posting sub-optimalTM trads from other .wp, well...

[Dysklyver]

Sorry Auggie, I just got to thinking about Graaf and how he was treaded.

Language is funny. "président sortant" is neutral. "outgoing president" is not. Machine translations don't get this. I do wonder though at the remarkable translation of the aforementioned protest page that arrived on 9 March. (§)

As Graaf has said: in Egypt one must not criticize Moses, or the Pharaoh, or anyone else. It is activism and copy-leftist hijinkery to read entries on protests and spit them back out again as processed reads. Shame on me. And those encouraging such behavieur, by posting sub-optimalTM trads from other .wp, well...

Well each person here has their own peculiar brand of incomprehensibility.

[Poetlister]

Sorry Auggie, I just got to thinking about Graaf and how he was treaded.

Yes, the poor old chap has been trampled on quite a lot.

[Dysklyver]

Sorry Auggie, I just got to thinking about Graaf and how he was treaded.

Yes, the poor old chap has been trampled on quite a lot.

[Ming]

WP is driven by people's interests and obsessions, and given the sheer number of Americans, there's more likely to be someone who has those and therefore writes on a subject. In practice, real encyclopedias written in English have the same focus, if not for the same reason. The exceptions are those written about specific foreign subjects (e.g. an encyclopedic work on Japan).

[Kumioko]

WP is driven by people's interests and obsessions, and given the sheer number of Americans, there's more likely to be someone who has those and therefore writes on a subject. In practice, real encyclopedias written in English have the same focus, if not for the same reason. The exceptions are those written about specific foreign subjects (e.g. an encyclopedic work on Japan).

To be honest I would think that India and China would dominate the editors since each of those 2 cultures are basically 1/6th of the worlds population with more than 1 billion people in each and both are more than 3 times the population of the US with a pretty small population of about 380 million (which I am goosing a little over the census to be generous).

Chinese and Indian cultures are both thousands of years old, the American culture is only about 350. England is older obviously, but still much younger than either India or China. So to me the gross underrepresentation of these cultures is a factor of not only the availability of internet, but of interest in Wikipedia in general and likely also the toxic culture in Wikipedia. If they weren't treated negatively by the Westerners when they write articles about their cultures notable aspects (people, places and things), then we would likely see higher participation rates. as it is, the only ones who edit are those that either tolerate the abuse because they must in order to push their own POV or those who contribute to the toxic environment through abusive conduct or allowing that conduct to go on.

[Ming]

WP is driven by people's interests and obsessions, and given the sheer number of Americans, there's more likely to be someone who has those and therefore writes on a subject. In practice, real encyclopedias written in English have the same focus, if not for the same reason. The exceptions are those written about specific foreign subjects (e.g. an encyclopedic work on Japan).

To be honest I would think that India and China would dominate the editors since each of those 2 cultures are basically 1/6th of the worlds population with more than 1 billion people in each and both are more than 3 times the population of the US with a pretty small population of about 380 million (which I am goosing a little over the census to be generous).

They do not, however, contain enough of the world's internet-connected and English-writing population to overwhelm the British and North American contributors, except perhaps on some subjects in their own geographic range, and even then, in the case of the Chinese subjects, it's safe to bet that the contributors are mainly American Sinophiles because of the low level of English competence.

[Poetlister]

Relatively few people living in China speak English at all well. And of course the Chinese authorities are scarcely great fans of Wikipedia, so people may feel very discoursged sbout editing it.

[Johnny Au]

I am practically the only person maintaining WP:CSBOT (T-H-L)

I essentially own that page.

[Poetlister]

I am practically the only person maintaining WP:CSBOT (T-H-L)

I essentially own that page.

Does that give it a Canadian bias? Of course, absolute impartiality is very difficult. Whatever you do, some people may approve, but others will criticise.

[Kumioko]

I am practically the only person maintaining WP:CSBOT (T-H-L)

I essentially own that page.

That's true of a lot of areas of Wikipedia these days. Due to the severe shortages of editors a lot of the projects and pages have become wastelands where very few if any have an interest in participating.

That also leads to some of the problems. When you have a small group of editors dictating terms on the articles they own, that creates a lot of problems.

[Johnny Au]

Here's more US-centricity: Exploitation of women in mass media (T-H-L)

Almost all of the studies and examples are from the United States.

The United States holds the paradox of creating (and consuming) the most porn in the world and having the strongest opposition of porn in the world.

[Poetlister]

Here's more US-centricity: Exploitation of women in mass media (T-H-L)

Almost all of the studies and examples are from the United States.

The United States holds the paradox of creating (and consuming) the most porn in the world and having the strongest opposition of porn in the world.

As Walt Whitman said of America, "Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes." (That's also a good motto for Wikipedia.)

[Beeblebrox]

How about a deal? We'll stop putting NASCAR or March Madness on the front page if we never have to hear about The Boat Race (T-H-L) or cricket test matches again either.

[Poetlister]

How about a deal? We'll stop putting NASCAR or March Madness on the front page if we never have to hear about The Boat Race (T-H-L) or cricket test matches again either.

What do Americans have against test matches? After all, the first ever international cricket match was between the USA and Canada.

[orangepi]

How about a deal? We'll stop putting NASCAR or March Madness on the front page if we never have to hear about The Boat Race (T-H-L) or cricket test matches again either.

We're never going to stop hearing about the cricket.

I've previously suggested that we need separate American English and British English Wikipedias. I still think it's probably a good idea.

[Poetlister]

I've previously suggested that we need separate American English and British English Wikipedias. I still think it's probably a good idea.

It would mean that all those American admins would leave us alone.

[Midsize Jake]

I've previously suggested that we need separate American English and British English Wikipedias. I still think it's probably a good idea.

So how would this "Brwikxit" work? Would it be a "hard" or "soft" Brwikxit? How would they handle the Internet border between Northern Ireland ISPs and the RoI's ISPs? And if they couldn't agree on a Brwikxit deal, would they do a "no-deal" Brwikxit, or just change their minds and stick with the Americans? That could take years - nobody there would accept that, surely.

It would mean that all those American admins would leave us alone.

Don't bet on it - dozens of them would pretend to be British and go through the whole N00b->RfA process trajectory just to piss you guys off. Trust me on that one...

[Auggie]

Cricket is lame. Discuss.

[Poetlister]

Cricket is lame. Discuss.

Snow close of discussion as clearly a rejection of the proposition. Of course, the fact that this was even proposed shows the US-centricity of this forum.