minor issue, but still a npov warning

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Anthere

14 Jan 2005 14 Jan '05

10:40 p.m.

Cassini Huygens is today the most updated article on the net. Congratulations. ------ This said, just a comment. During months, the Cassini-Huygens mission was only on ONE article, called http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassini-Huygens. The Huygens probe article was JUST a redirect. It obviously did not need an article. The content about the probe (only european) could very well be under an article about the craftship (american european, with of course, american name first). When the Huygens page was created, it was immediately made a redirect, with the argument : redirecting to Cassini probe, since Huygens is basically a subsystem of it. Sorry, there is no such thing that as a Cassini probe. There is a Huygens probe. And the Huygens probe landed, NOT the "Cassini" probe. Only yesterday, the article was split and the real probe authorized to have an existence on its own. It was not because it was a unit in itself, it was MERELY because the Cassini page was too big. I forgot, a good part of the Huygens article was about its critical flaw. The good points were in the Cassini article. The images of the landing were not on Huygens article, they were on Cassini article ------- It does not matter ? Well, I think it does. It makes far too much light on the american part of a project and forget the other involved. For me, it is the perfect example of how bias is lightly, oh ever so lightly, included in some articles. Without probably anyone noticing. I am sure it was not done on purpose at all. This is just a view of things so different between one culture and another. For european, this is a joint project but a european success. For american, according to what is implied by the article division, it is basically an american (and a bit european) success. -------- Does it matter really ? Well, I think it does. Go on google, and look at "Cassini-Huygens landing site". Look at results, Wikipedia IS there. now, look at "Huygens landing site" Look at results, right, Wikipedia is not in the first page. Only on the second, and only for Cassini. This is very very small thing ? I do not think so. Most people look at the first search page. They do not go further. It is Huygens which landed. Not Cassini. One look for a european probe and finds only an american mission. -------- The articles are great. But the bias is there. Google has it more true than us. Anthere

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Delirium

15 Jan 15 Jan

12:14 a.m.

Generally our articles on missions are on the missions themselves, their planning, accomplishments, and so on, with separate articles on the components describing the functioning of the components themselves. For example, the information on the first moon landing is on [[Apollo 11]], the name of the mission, while [[Apollo Lunar Module]], the craft that actually performed the landing, is an article on the craft itself (which of course does mention that it landed on the moon, but is not the primary article about the moon landing). It seems to make sense, along similar lines, to have [[Cassini-Huygens]] be the article about the mission, which was planned and executed largely as a joint mission, and then separate articles about [[Cassini]] and [[Huygens]] describing the detailed information about the craft. After all, there was no "Huygens mission" or "Cassini mission", but a "Cassini-Huygens mission" that used both craft. Huygens and Cassini themselves are merely pieces of equipment. -Mark

Anthere

1:02 a.m.

What you describe as an ideal and fair situation was exactly what was NOT done. And exactly what I comment on. Till yesterday, the information on landing and on the probe was entirely in the mission article. Even today, most of the information was still in the mission article, not on the landing one. To such a point there is currently no wikipedia reference on the net about the landing article. Wikipedia reference is on the mission article. What you explain makes sense. It was not what was done. There is no "mistake". The content is correct. There is only a light, very light, direction given to information and which information is displayed more proeminently. Delirium a écrit:

...

David Gerard

1:39 a.m.

Anthere (anthere9(a)yahoo.com) [050115 12:01]:

...

er, {{sofixit}}? - d.

Anthere

3:36 a.m.

David Gerard a écrit:

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Anthere (anthere9(a)yahoo.com) [050115 12:01]:

er, {{sofixit}}? - d.

Funny... Yeah, I fixed it. But my friends lost a bit of faith in our so called neutrality policy. You have to realise that many europeans were looking for news this evening. And many found our article I suppose. They are not editors. They did not fix it. They just *saw* a situation that appeared biaised to them. They were impressed by the report. They were not impressed by the neutrality.

Delirium

6:15 a.m.

Anthere wrote:

...

Till yesterday, the information on landing and on the probe was entirely in the mission article. Even today, most of the information was still in the mission article, not on the landing one. To such a point there is currently no wikipedia reference on the net about the landing article. Wikipedia reference is on the mission article.

Why would that be the right thing to do? The landing is merely one part if the mission---The [[Apollo 11]] page, by comparison, doesn't have one article on the trip *to* the moon, and a separate article on the moon landing. There's one article on the entire mission, trip and landing, and then separate articles on the equipment, like the lunar module. So, here, the landing should be in [[Cassini-Huygens]], unless we're talking about detailed information about how the landing was carried out by the probe or something like that. I don't see how this is American bias, either. The European Space Agency's own website containing the pictures of the landing has a title of "Cassini-Huygens", and is located here: http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Cassini-Huygens/index.html The ESA's gallery with the pictures is entitled "Cassini-Huygens images" (left sidebar on the above site). I just don't see *anyone*, including the ESA, using "Huygens" as a separate name for the landing, only as the name of the piece of equipment. So it would seem reasonable that we use the name that both NASA and the ESA use, which is "Cassini-Huygens". -Mark

Anthere

4:36 p.m.

Delirium a écrit:

...

Anthere wrote:

You cannot compare I think. Unless I am wrong, the Apollo II main mission was to go on the moon. So, the craft, the mission and the equipement may be confused in one reference. Also, it was set only by only one country. In this case, the Cassini mission is multiple, and releasing a probe is only one of its mission among others. Among its mission, there is a mission of carrying a probe. But there are other missions. So that makes sense to differenciate the mission of one craft, with the mission of one of the object it is carrying, because the goals of both parts were different. The engineers working on one part had for the goal to reach one place in the universe in good shape, the other engineers had the goal of landing titan and getting data. This is not the same mission, so it makes sense that there are not treated under the same name entirely, though obviously an article under mixed name is due. The second point, and the one which really makes me react is simply that both parts, even if of course the job was a common job, were not created by the same people, from the same nation. The probe landing is a HUGE success for the european space industry. In particular after recent failure. Huge means for all this industry new blood, more money etc... While repeated failure would mean basically strongly reducing space activity for Europe. You may find this minor issue. It is not. The mission is certainly a big success for both NASA and ESA. But it has a special meaning for Europe in particular. And if the probe landing had failed, it would have been amply advertised that the US mission was a success while the ESA mission was a disaster. So, honesty would be to fairly report a european success as a european success. Yesterday, in one of the article, there were some external links to pictures and report of the probe landing and picture labelled as [[cassini images]]. Sorry, if you feel that it is NPOV, you are either very blind, or very political. So,

...

here, the landing should be in [[Cassini-Huygens]], unless we're talking about detailed information about how the landing was carried out by the probe or something like that. I don't see how this is American bias, either. The European Space Agency's own website containing the pictures of the landing has a title of "Cassini-Huygens", and is located here: http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Cassini-Huygens/index.html The ESA's gallery with the pictures is entitled "Cassini-Huygens images" (left sidebar on the above site). I just don't see *anyone*, including the ESA, using "Huygens" as a separate

name for the landing, only as the name of the piece of

...

equipment.

http://www.google.fr/search?as_q=&num=10&hl=fr&btnG=Recherche+G… Google search on "Huygens probe" used as alone an expression : 164 000 results. Besides, what you say is just wrong. Look at http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Cassini-Huygens/ It is written in this page : 15 January 2005 Audio data collected by the Huygens Atmospheric Structure Instrument (HASI) etc... 14 January 2005 Europe reaches new frontier – Huygens lands on Titan 14 January 2005 Radio astronomers confirm Huygens entry in the atmosphere of Titan 14 January 2005 Huygens descent timeline 12 January 2005 Huygens trajectory spot on The word used on the ESA site for the landing IS Huygens. BBC report : http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4121515.stm Word used to refer to all landing events : Huygens probe Another source : http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/operations/huygens-mission.cfm What are the references for the landing : Huygens. NOT Huygens-Cassini. There is a good reason for this : this is the Huygens probe. So it would seem reasonable that we use the name that both

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NASA and the ESA use, which is "Cassini-Huygens". -Mark

It would be reasonable to use the word everyone use for the probe and the landing, and the only one fair in reporting the reality. The probe is called Huygens probe. And it is the probe which landed and took pictures. Not the Cassini.

Skyring

8:02 p.m.

On Sat, 15 Jan 2005 17:36:19 +0100, Anthere <anthere9(a)yahoo.com> wrote:

...

Delirium a écrit:

That's Apollo 11, not Apollo II. The mission after the initial lunar landing was Apollo 12, not Apollo III. The situation is comparable to a notional Apollo mission where the lander was made by and crewed by Europeans. In any case, well done, Americans and Europeans alike! Landing something on Titan and sending back sound and vision is an awesome feat. Of science, communication and co-operation. -- Peter in Canberra

Stan Shebs

2:03 a.m.

Anthere wrote:

...

I think you're working a bit too hard to find bias here. The Huygens probe had 1/2 of the original article created 2.5 years ago, and sizewise would have been fine to split even then, but somehow not one of 600+ million Europeans could be bothered to make the split, or to propose it on the talk page. The "bias" is that we work on what interests us. I've been digging figures of European history out of 1911EB lately, and half the time it's the first information about these in any language WP. We're just perennially short of people to do all the things we would like to get done. Stan

Anthere

3:34 a.m.

Stan Shebs a écrit:

...

No, I am not working too hard. I am trying to report a reality, that you may perceive as "too hard to find bias" However, what *really* is a measurement is the perception of our readers. Right ? Okay, this was reported to me by some french scientists. They know Wikipedia, and are often impressed by it. They were VERY impressed by the articles themselves. As I said, this was the most informative place aside from the couple of scientific reporting place. So, WE were a hit. They were amused however, of that situation. They are in no way anti-american, but they laughed at our non bias policy in this case. They know about the neutrality policy and are aware of how hard it is. The neutrality in this case, the so-called neutral report make them laugh their head of. You may perceive this as "hard work", now, what I say is that these guys are our readers. If we want to be perceived reasonably neutral, we just have to pay attention to this type of details. That's all what I would like to say. Consider it crap if you wish.

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The "bias" is that we work on what interests us. I've been digging figures of European history out of 1911EB lately, and half the time it's the first information about these in any language WP. We're just perennially short of people to do all the things we would like to get done. Stan

Stan Shebs

6:36 p.m.

Anthere wrote:

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Stan Shebs a écrit:

And you corrected them on this, right? This is absolutely nothing to do with NPOV, and it's unfair to hardworking editors to say that they're biased and not doing anything about it. What you report fits exactly into the worst stereotypes of the French; sneering at other people's work, but not taking any responsibility for having let this perceived problem go unmentioned for years. You said these scientists "know Wikipedia"; did you ask them why they didn't do anything about it themselves? I also note for instance that (as of several hours ago) the French wikipedia had a single article with Huygens as the second half. Are we supposed to take that to mean the Europeans are biased against themselves? There are enough real problems making WP unbiased and neutral; by taking a trivial point of organization never before discussed anywhere, and holding it up as something that matters, you're undercutting all the editors who put in real research and real discussion time on the issues that are genuinely important. Why should I bother spending two hours in the library to research a substantive question, when you're telling the world that WP is biased because some frontpage article doesn't cater enough to nationalistic pride? The whole attitude really troubles me. I've put in a lot of WP time over the past two years, and now it feels like it doesn't matter. Stan

Anthere

8:40 p.m.

Stan Shebs a écrit:

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And you corrected them on this, right? This is absolutely nothing to do with NPOV,

Then we just do not have the same perception of what is neutral, this is all. For me, naming things (like a polish city) may have to do with neutrality of report.

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and it's unfair to hardworking editors to say that they're biased and not doing anything about it.

This is an unfair comment, as I mentionned that the articles were great. What I report rather tends to fit in systemic bias of Wikipedia. There is a bias of the en wikipedia to have anglo success appears bigger than they may appear to african people for example, just as there is definitly a bias on the french wikipedia which makes France appear more important that other french speaking countries. We are all biaised, and little can be done about this. What you

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report fits exactly into the worst stereotypes of the French; sneering at other people's work, but not taking any responsibility for having let this perceived problem go unmentioned for years.

Hu ? Well, I let you responsability for saying this. In any cases, since it seems it is bad to let it unmentionned for years, I will take responsability for having this problem be mentionned.

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You said these scientists "know Wikipedia"; did you ask them why they didn't do anything about it themselves?

Some already ponctually corrected a couple of things. But generally, they do not believe in Wikipedia neutrality though they see the efforts to try to be neutral. You may not expect french people who really write a bad english to go correct all what is biaised in the english wikipedia. This is a good question : why did not they fix it ? It took me three months to dare edit the english wikipedia after I met it. I feared criticism of my english like hell; And still fear it very much, as there are regularly unpleasant comments made about it. Recently, I had to block 2 times an editor who was being extremely rude with non english people on meta. A place where international people ARE welcome. When editors rudely handle non english in a place such as meta, you might guess how nice these editors can be on the english wikipedia itself. Amongst french people, I am generally considered quite good in english. Still, editing in good english is difficult for me and takes a lot of time. Arguments which start on talk page and last dozens and dozens of screens put me off. It takes too much time to read it all and try to understand it all. Many french scientists read english, because nearly all science is in english, so of course, it is their main source of information. But most french scientists do not manage english well enough to become editors. It needs courage you may not realise. It needs efforts, and it needs to overcome the comment of some people who do not think we belong there. So, they look at the article, they may correct a typo, but do not go any further.

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I also note for instance that (as of several hours ago) the French wikipedia had a single article with Huygens as the second half. Are we supposed to take that to mean the Europeans are biased against themselves?

No, mostly there were no french editors motivated to edit this page. At least, these pages are poorly referenced by google. Now, what upset me deeply in this comment you made, is that when I comment on a point of the english wikipedia, you THROW ME IN THE FACE how bad the french people are themselves and how bad the french article is. Has it cross your mind that I really care about the english wikipedia because it is the best one, and yesterday it was a major source for ANYONE looking on the net for that topic, because it was one of the four sources coming up ? Has it cross your mind that I could care about a part of the whole project which I am supposed to represent right now, and would not wish to be just lowered only to my nationality and language project ?

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There are enough real problems making WP unbiased and neutral; by taking a trivial point of organization never before discussed anywhere,

It is not because something has never been discussed before that it does not exist. and holding it up as something that matters, you're

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undercutting all the editors who put in real research and real discussion time on the issues that are genuinely important. Why should I bother spending two hours in the library to research a substantive question, when you're telling the world that WP is biased because some frontpage article doesn't cater enough to nationalistic pride?

This is a good question. I do not think I told the whole world, this is just our personal ml. I do not think that I ever said such a thing in any of the public presentation of Wikipedia I made in the past 6 months. But yes, why would I even neglect my whole family and personal job as well as personal health by lack of sleep to try to take care of a project, and try to make it the best possible and the least biased possible, when you are telling me that my opinion has no importance whatsoever, is fantasm and only nationalistic pride ?

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The whole attitude really troubles me. I've put in a lot of WP time over the past two years, and now it feels like it doesn't matter. Sta n

You own attitude really troubles me as well. I have probably put as much work on wikipedia as you did for now three years, and it now feels like it does not matter either. I understand you guys can be upset because I report a little bias to you, which is likely to appear shocking to some of the world population. However, I did not criticized the job done, on the contrary I mentionned it was a very good article, I only pointed out to a problem. I can understand that some of you just do not see where the problem is and think I am just nut. That is okay, you can consider I am nut and that there is no bias here. I can accept that. This is exactly where the problems stand when we come to lack of neutrality. One editor considers one point of view and another will not necessarily see the same point of view at all. And this is exactly why we have edit wars, because the second will just not recognise the validity of the first one view and will just refuse that the other one could have a piece of truth in his hands. That is fine. What is not fine is to resort to personal comments on those having a perception that you do not share, and try to lower the possible validity of what they say by resorting of calling her "French". I feel quite upset by your comment. If you wish to close your eyes to internal comments, or to attack those of us who try to point out to what is not perfect, do not be suprised when there is criticism from public audience. I apologize to those who participated to the article if they feel I criticized their work. I did not.

Puddl Duk

9:41 p.m.

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We are all biased, and little can be done about this.

Communication is the only way, but by its nature tends to hurt people's feelings in cases like this. I applaud your courage, Anthere for raising the subject.

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They were amused however, of that situation. They are in no way anti-American, but they laughed

at > our non bias policy in this case.

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This hurts my feelings. Huygens is about 20% of the Cassini-Huygens mission, and has been well represented in the English article (going back to before the spacecraft and article separation).

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What you report fits exactly into the worst stereotypes of the French; sneering at other people's work, but not taking any responsibility for having let this perceived problem go unmentioned for years.

Language like this is not helpfull, Stan.

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nationalistic pride?

Not always a bad thing, now is the time to applaud Europe's fantastic success; space craft seperation, deploying multiple parachutes, ejecting heat shields, and functioning instruments working flawlessly after billions of miles and years of cryogenic hibernation. Well done, Europe, ESA and ASI! __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - 250MB free storage. Do more. Manage less. http://info.mail.yahoo.com/mail_250

Christiaan Briggs

10:45 p.m.

On 15 Jan 2005, at 9:41 pm, Puddl Duk wrote:

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We are all biased, and little can be done about this.

Communication is the only way

That and systematically recruiting certain people so as to balance the demographics. Christiaan

Puddl Duk

10:59 p.m.

--- Christiaan Briggs <christiaan(a)last-straw.net> wrote:

...

On 15 Jan 2005, at 9:41 pm, Puddl Duk wrote:

> We are all biased, and little can be done about

this.

Communication is the only way

That and systematically recruiting certain people so as to balance the demographics. Christiaan

Yes, and we need to work together and give eachother feed back, directly or indirectly. being nice helps too. being mean is usually counter productive. 'Point of views' in one's mind are shaped with communal information. Communication is the only way to approach a common reality. __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - Helps protect you from nasty viruses. http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail

Puddl Duk

11:07 p.m.

--- Puddl Duk <puddlduk(a)yahoo.com> wrote:

...

--- Christiaan Briggs <christiaan(a)last-straw.net> wrote:

On 15 Jan 2005, at 9:41 pm, Puddl Duk wrote:

> We are all biased, and little can be done about

this.

Communication is the only way

That and systematically recruiting certain people

as to balance the demographics. Christiaan

'Balanced' demographics will lead to different points of views, but what should that balance be? __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? The all-new My Yahoo! - Get yours free! http://my.yahoo.com

Christiaan Briggs

16 Jan 16 Jan

12:49 a.m.

Puddl Duk wrote:

...

'Balanced' demographics will lead to different points of views, but what should that balance be?

Puddl Duk

1:07 a.m.

...

... certain demographics are disproportionately represented and that there are things we can do to counter this. Christiaan

Does that include making post sumaries like; "(rv, put it this way they've been around in peace for a '''lot''' longer than your petulant menace of a country)" http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Iraqi_resistance&action=histo… __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? The all-new My Yahoo! - Get yours free! http://my.yahoo.com

Christiaan Briggs

1:39 a.m.

Puddl Duk wrote:

...

... certain demographics are disproportionately represented and that there are things we can do to counter this. Christiaan

Yes, I have a sore point for petulant Americans who think that history started in 1492. Christiaan

Puddl Duk

7:27 a.m.

...

> ... certain demographics are disproportionately

represented and that

there are things we can do to counter this. Christiaan

Does that include making post sumaries like; "(rv, put it this way they've been around in peace

for a '''lot'''

longer than your petulant menace of a country)" http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php? title=Iraqi_resistance&action=history

Yes, I have a sore point for petulant Americans who think that history started in 1492. Christiaan

Anthere, I agree with you that there is bias in en.wikipedia. __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Meet the all-new My Yahoo! - Try it today! http://my.yahoo.com

Rick

8:33 p.m.

Are you talking about Wikiepdia as a whole, or the English language Wikipedia in particular? I think your own bias is showing. RickK Christiaan Briggs <christiaan(a)last-straw.net> wrote: Puddl Duk wrote:

...

'Balanced' demographics will lead to different points of views, but what should that balance be?

All humans on Earth springs to mind. I wouldn't go looking to far for your answer though, the point is one major reason for systemic bias on Wikipedia is that certain demographics are disproportionately represented and that there are things we can do to counter this. Christiaan _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l(a)Wikipedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Meet the all-new My Yahoo! � Try it today!

slimvirgin＠gmail.com

9:25 p.m.

New subject: Failed edits may in fact have worked

Apologies if the rest of you already know this. When I try to save an edit, the page often appears not to load, and I get a message saying that the server didn't respond. For example: "Sorry- we have a problem... The wikimedia web server didn't return any response to your request . . . Generated Sun, 16 Jan 2005 21:08:30 GMT by maurus.wikimedia.org (squid/2.5.STABLE4-20040219.wp20050114.icpfix.nortt.S7) In the last couple of days, instead of continuing to try to save, I've opened a second browser window, gone to the page, and on every occasion, the edit has in fact been saved. I thought I'd pass this on in case it's of use to anyone. It may mean that the recent increase in requests-per-second is in part caused by editors continuing to try to save edits that only appear to have failed. This adds to the load, which slows things down even further. But I'm talking way beyond my technical knowledge here, so I'll cut out any further analysis. :-) Slim

Rick

11:58 p.m.

New subject: Failed edits may in fact have worked

I've encountered the same problem. When I get the error message, I do a revert and try Save again, and get an Edit conflict message. When I Cancel, I see that my edit has actually been saved. RickK slimvirgin(a)gmail.com wrote: Apologies if the rest of you already know this. When I try to save an edit, the page often appears not to load, and I get a message saying that the server didn't respond. For example: "Sorry- we have a problem... The wikimedia web server didn't return any response to your request . . . Generated Sun, 16 Jan 2005 21:08:30 GMT by maurus.wikimedia.org (squid/2.5.STABLE4-20040219.wp20050114.icpfix.nortt.S7) In the last couple of days, instead of continuing to try to save, I've opened a second browser window, gone to the page, and on every occasion, the edit has in fact been saved. I thought I'd pass this on in case it's of use to anyone. It may mean that the recent increase in requests-per-second is in part caused by editors continuing to try to save edits that only appear to have failed. This adds to the load, which slows things down even further. But I'm talking way beyond my technical knowledge here, so I'll cut out any further analysis. :-) Slim _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l(a)Wikipedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? The all-new My Yahoo! � What will yours do?

slimvirgin＠gmail.com

17 Jan 17 Jan

12:28 a.m.

New subject: Failed edits may in fact have worked

Rick, it was the edit conflict thing made me realize the edits were being saved too. Almost every edit I tried to save, if I didn't get "server not responding," I got "edit conflict," even on pages that no one else had edited for a thousand years. Eventually it clicked that I was in conflict with myself, so now I keep a second browser window open to check whether the failed edit is in fact there; usually it is, but not always, and I haven't been able to detect a pattern yet. It's a slow process, because waiting for the page to load in the second browser window can take awhile, but it's usually faster than sitting through multiple time-outs. Slim On Sun, 16 Jan 2005 15:58:26 -0800 (PST), Rick <giantsrick13(a)yahoo.com> wrote:

...

I've encountered the same problem. When I get the error message, I do a revert and try Save again, and get an Edit conflict message. When I Cancel, I see that my edit has actually been saved. RickK

Christiaan Briggs

16 Jan 16 Jan

10:24 p.m.

I'm talking about the English part but I imagine it applies to the whole. Yes of course my bias shows, I don't try to hide it. But bias is not the problem (everyone has bias), the issue is too many people with one kind of bias, aka a lack of diversity (compared with the english speaking population i.e.). Wikipedians are disproportionately white and male, disproportionately American, and disproportionately from white collar backgrounds. In my opinion one of the best ways to counter such systemic bias is to systematically recruit editors who are not white, male, American, or from a white collar background. I don't think this is a point worth arguing about or taking offense on, it's just worth getting on and dealing with it. Christiaan On 16 Jan 2005, at 8:33 pm, Rick wrote:

...

'Balanced' demographics will lead to different points of views, but what should that balance be?

Ray Saintonge

2:16 a.m.

Puddl Duk wrote:

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'Balanced' demographics will lead to different points of views, but what should that balance be?

If one presumes to know what that balance will be that too is an unbalanced POV. Ec

Stan Shebs

3:23 p.m.

Anthere wrote:

...

Stan Shebs a écrit:

And you corrected them on this, right? This is absolutely nothing to do with NPOV,

Then we just do not have the same perception of what is neutral, this is all. For me, naming things (like a polish city) may have to do with neutrality of report.

Except that this isn't even about naming, it's whether there is one article or two.

...

and it's unfair to hardworking editors to say that they're biased and not doing anything about it.

This is an unfair comment, as I mentionned that the articles were great. What I report rather tends to fit in systemic bias of Wikipedia.

But it's a very very bad thing to say to people who take issues of bias and npov seriously - sort of like driving down the street, saying "nice house" and then throwing a rock through the window. I know you didn't intend it that way, but you're a well-respected person (as witness the messages supporting you and against me), and a board member, so what you say carries a lot of weight. This is a public mailing list; all the messages are carefully archived forever, then carefully indexed by Google, and if past experience is any guide, there's a good chance that your initial message will be brought out as support for one side or another in an edit war. If you had said that about one of my articles, without prior private email or talk page note, I would have been mortally insulted, and very angry. Look to Jimbo as an example; he's been pretty careful about not taking sides on content.

...

What you

report fits exactly into the worst stereotypes of the French; sneering at other people's work, but not taking any responsibility for having let this perceived problem go unmentioned for years.

Hu ? Well, I let you responsability for saying this.

I thought hard about whether to include this, and I fear I was misinterpreted. I personally don't have this feeling; I love France, would go more often if I could, and since November I'm wondering if I could emigrate there. Again, because this is a public list, there are people reading your comments who would be willing to use them against WP in some way. (Lest anyone think this is paranoid, I work with the GNU project; 10 years ago people laughed at the suggestion that Microsoft would ever even notice open source, and now Bill Gates slams it in every interview he gives.) Every step up in Alexa, WP is going to be scrutinized more and more closely. Just think of how much airplay Larry Sanger's recent comments got; it was all over online sites, and so the first thing that many people heard about WP was "WP's cofounder thinks it's bad". Not fair perhaps, but that's what happens with public statements.

...

You said these scientists "know Wikipedia"; did you ask them why they didn't do anything about it themselves?

I did not myself say "fix it" - my expectation would have been that "doing something" included simply asking on the talk page. A question as simple as "why doesn't the Huygens probe have its own article?" is usually enough to spur a flurry of edits by knowledgeable people. Those of us who are serious about bias will drop everything else to look at that sort of thing and try to fix it. I think that's part of why your original comment hurts; I've sacrificed a bunch of time working on subjects that I personally don't enjoy, just to try to address other people's claims of bias.

...

It took me three months to dare edit the english wikipedia after I met it. I feared criticism of my english like hell; And still fear it very much, as there are regularly unpleasant comments made about it. Recently, I had to block 2 times an editor who was being extremely rude with non english people on meta. A place where international people ARE welcome. When editors rudely handle non english in a place such as meta, you might guess how nice these editors can be on the english wikipedia itself.

FWIW, I believe that all people should be welcome on all WPs. It's just unbelievably rude to criticize someone's command of a language, about at the level of commenting on body odor, and my experience is that the critics are not necessarily that competent themselves. The problem is that the person being criticized is not going to have an easy time making an official complaint and getting it heard. So I'd like to see meta's policy extended throughout WP; in the meantime, if a non-native speaker is being harassed, just let me know and I'll apply a few of those "harsh words" to the misbehaving editor.

...

Did I say the French article was "bad"? I think the one/two article choice is a trivial issue, and fr:'s organization is perfectly fine. But it seems like a double standard to announce to the whole world that en:'s article is evidence of systemic bias there, even though the same organization is being used in other language WPs without anybody seeming to be troubled by it.

...

What is not fine is to resort to personal comments on those having a perception that you do not share, and try to lower the possible validity of what they say by resorting of calling her "French". I feel quite upset by your comment. If you wish to close your eyes to internal comments, or to attack those of us who try to point out to what is not perfect, do not be suprised when there is criticism from public audience.

I'm sorry to have upset you, that was not my intent. I'm guessing that maybe you weren't completely aware of this list's visibility; it was an eye-opener for me the first time an argument on the net came up in a job interview, and since that time I'm (usually :-) ) pretty careful only to post things that I'm willing to stand behind for the rest of my life (check out Google Groups for things posted long ago by "ssc-vax!sts" that he maybe wishes he hadn't said...). Stan

Anthere

5:36 p.m.

Stan Shebs a écrit:

...

A lot of things

Nod. I recognise the validity and wiseness of all your comments. Seen in this way, your comments were fair and honest. Thanks for the explanation. You are correct that I may under estimate the visibility of this list and possible impact in certain situations where wp is criticized. (Boy, should not we have a private list then ? jk) Anthere

Rick

8:27 p.m.

What UTTER nonsense. This has nothing do with bias, just a difference of outlook. I CANNOT imagine how you can possibly consider this naming difference bias. And I am offended that you believe that there is some sort of conspiracy among English-speaking Wikipedians to downgrade the accomplishments of other people. How about cleaning up the French language Wikipedia before you start casting stones? RickK Anthere <anthere9(a)yahoo.com> wrote: Stan Shebs a �crit:

...

And you corrected them on this, right? This is absolutely nothing to do with NPOV,

Then we just do not have the same perception of what is neutral, this is all. For me, naming things (like a polish city) may have to do with neutrality of report.

...

and it's unfair to hardworking editors to say that they're biased and not doing anything about it.

Puddl Duk

9:25 p.m.

--- Rick <giantsrick13(a)yahoo.com> wrote:

...

Anthere is right, people tend to be more enthusiastic about their own countries' successes than the success of other countries. Its perfectly natural and requires constant vigilance to stave off. Accepting feed back is key, whether you agree with it or not. Anthere's posts were polite and articulate, not 'stone casting'.

...

Anthere <anthere9(a)yahoo.com> wrote: Stan Shebs a �crit:

And you corrected them on this, right? This is

absolutely nothing

to do with NPOV,

Then we just do not have the same perception of what is neutral, this is all. For me, naming things (like a polish city) may have to do with neutrality of report.

and it's unfair to hardworking editors to say that they're biased and not doing anything about

it. This is an unfair comment, as I mentionned that the articles were great. What I report rather tends to fit in systemic bias of Wikipedia. There is a bias of the en wikipedia to have anglo success appears bigger than they may appear to african people for example, just as there is definitly a bias on the french wikipedia which makes France appear more important that other french speaking countries. We are all biaised, and little can be done about this. --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - Easier than ever with enhanced search. Learn more. _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l(a)Wikipedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

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Ray Saintonge

17 Jan 17 Jan

1:19 a.m.

You can't expect to stir shit and keep your stick clean at the same time. In their exchange, neither Stan nor Anthere used the word "conspiracy", but you seemed enthusiastic to impute that motivation. You may very well find it impossible to imagine that bias intrudes into a good-faith dispute, so much so that you need to imagine bad faith and conspiracies just to make sense of it. Maybe the rest of us do not derive the same perverted pleasure as you out of being offended. What I saw in the most recent posts from the two principal participants was a tone that looked for understanding, not one intended to inflame passions. Systemic bias is anything but conspiratorial. This is quite different from overt bias. Those who practise systemic bias usually do so in the belief that their actions are perfectly moral. I have to believe a preacher's bigotted homophobic rants from the pulpit are uttered in good faith. Ec Rick wrote:

...

And you corrected them on this, right? This is absolutely nothing to do with NPOV,

Then we just do not have the same perception of what is neutral, this is all. For me, naming things (like a polish city) may have to do with neutrality of report.

and it's unfair to hardworking editors to say that they're biased and not doing anything about it.

csherlock＠ljh.com.au

6:04 a.m.

Anthere wrote:

...

Anthere, If you find people being rude to non-English people I think you need to let an admin know so we can leave a message on their talk page warning them not to make personal attacks. I have personally never seen this, but if I did the used doing this would get a stern warning from me. Ta bu shi da yu

Zoney

18 Jan 18 Jan

2:53 p.m.

On Mon, 17 Jan 2005 17:04:18 +1100, csherlock(a)ljh.com.au <csherlock(a)ljh.com.au> wrote:

...

Anthere wrote:

en.wikipedia suffers greatly from bias in parts. I say in parts, as obviously those topics receiving more of both US and European attention are usually edited for NPOV/compromise (or often unfortunately erupt into an edit war or bitter recriminations). It's a huge problem I think, and one of Wikipedia's biggest to overcome. And denying that it is there is absurd. And I'm not laying the blame solely with US wikipedians, far from it - US bias is just more apparant (to non-US editors) because there are more US editors than not (or than any other single category). I have no doubt there are a minority of articles biased against the US which have perhaps only received non-US editors. And speaking for myself I can for sure point out one or two Irish articles which have been biased by Irish editors for example. NPOV isn't a nonsense, it's an admirable goal, but it is highly fraudulent to pretend that having an NPOV policy makes us neutral. It doesn't. In fairness, we are probably only of *comparable* neutrality to dead-wood encyclopaedias - and I'm sorry, but I do think that US editors can't see this as much, as inherently more things will be US biased. Zoney -- ~()____) This message will self-destruct in 5 seconds...

N.T. Riche

15 Jan 15 Jan

6:49 a.m.

Yes, I agree there is an American Bias however I still think our policies in place are good enough to correct it User:Plato. Anthere <anthere9(a)yahoo.com> wrote: Cassini Huygens is today the most updated article on the net. Congratulations. ------ This said, just a comment. During months, the Cassini-Huygens mission was only on ONE article, called http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassini-Huygens. The Huygens probe article was JUST a redirect. It obviously did not need an article. The content about the probe (only european) could very well be under an article about the craftship (american european, with of course, american name first). When the Huygens page was created, it was immediately made a redirect, with the argument : redirecting to Cassini probe, since Huygens is basically a subsystem of it. Sorry, there is no such thing that as a Cassini probe. There is a Huygens probe. And the Huygens probe landed, NOT the "Cassini" probe. Only yesterday, the article was split and the real probe authorized to have an existence on its own. It was not because it was a unit in itself, it was MERELY because the Cassini page was too big. I forgot, a good part of the Huygens article was about its critical flaw. The good points were in the Cassini article. The images of the landing were not on Huygens article, they were on Cassini article ------- It does not matter ? Well, I think it does. It makes far too much light on the american part of a project and forget the other involved. For me, it is the perfect example of how bias is lightly, oh ever so lightly, included in some articles. Without probably anyone noticing. I am sure it was not done on purpose at all. This is just a view of things so different between one culture and another. For european, this is a joint project but a european success. For american, according to what is implied by the article division, it is basically an american (and a bit european) success. -------- Does it matter really ? Well, I think it does. Go on google, and look at "Cassini-Huygens landing site". Look at results, Wikipedia IS there. now, look at "Huygens landing site" Look at results, right, Wikipedia is not in the first page. Only on the second, and only for Cassini. This is very very small thing ? I do not think so. Most people look at the first search page. They do not go further. It is Huygens which landed. Not Cassini. One look for a european probe and finds only an american mission. -------- The articles are great. But the bias is there. Google has it more true than us. Anthere _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l(a)Wikipedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - Helps protect you from nasty viruses.

Bryan Derksen

7:13 a.m.

At 11:40 PM 1/14/2005 +0100, Anthere wrote:

...

For european, this is a joint project but a european success. For american, according to what is implied by the article division, it is basically an american (and a bit european) success.

I'm the one who created the original redirect from [[Huygens probe]] to Cassini. Back when I did that, the Cassini article was located at [[Cassini probe]] so that's where I redirected it to. Also, the article itself was at the time just a mildly-modified version of material I had copied directly from http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/database/MasterCatalog?sc=1997-061A and http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/ - both of them NASA websites, so naturally with an American perspective on things. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Cassini-Huygens&oldid=2550496 for those interested in seeing the article as it was at the time. I'm also the one who split the Huygens section off into its own article again a couple days back. Article size was the reason why I split it off when I did, so that's why I put it in the edit summary. There are other perfectly valid reasons to split the article, and if someone had split it up based on those other reasons I'd expect those other reasons to be in the edit summary instead. I don't see why it makes a difference, since we both agree that it should be split. I'm Canadian, BTW, which means I'm half European and half American but will deny being either. :)

...

Go on google, and look at "Cassini-Huygens landing site". Look at results, Wikipedia IS there. now, look at "Huygens landing site" Look at results, right, Wikipedia is not in the first page. Only on the second, and only for Cassini.

Google doesn't update its rankings instantaneously, so splitting the article won't have an effect for a while yet. You could have split it earlier if you wanted, I don't disagree with your reasoning and would have supported it if I'd noticed you doing it back then.

Anthere

4:38 p.m.

Bryan Derksen a écrit:

...

At 11:40 PM 1/14/2005 +0100, Anthere wrote:

For european, this is a joint project but a european success. For american, according to what is implied by the article division, it is basically an american (and a bit european) success.

Yes, thank you for this comment. I am totally certain of your good faith, and as I said, the articles were great and the update yesterday amazing. This was good to see. My comment does not want to lessen the quality, just to point out at how sometimes, naming issues are problematic. (I would not really put Canada in Europe, but you are welcome among us :-)) Cheers Ant

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participants (14)

Anthere
Bryan Derksen
Christiaan Briggs
csherlock＠ljh.com.au
David Gerard
Delirium
N.T. Riche
Puddl Duk
Ray Saintonge
Rick
Skyring
slimvirgin＠gmail.com
Stan Shebs
Zoney