[WikiEN-l] Making Wikipedia a multi-cultural encyclopedia

Mon Apr 14 14:07:54 UTC 2003

Hello to all wikipedians, I'm fairly new to wikipedia, I have
accumulated a number of suggestions which all can be summed in one
phrase: "Making wikipedia a multi-cultural encyclopedia".

Here are the main guidelines (This refers to English wikipedia only):
1.
The language of use in e-wikipedia should be called "International
English". I know this is a pretty vague concept (it is highly debated
and sometimes ridiculed on alt.usage.english, sometimes said to be a
computer jargon) for now, I will use the definition: "English written
for an audience without cultural references".

An alternative (but sometimes vague) definition of "International
English": "The English language, usually in its standard form, either
when used, taught, and studied as a lingua franca throughout the world,
or when taken as a whole and used in contrast with American English,
British English, South African English, etc." (London: Edward Arnold,
1982, ISBN 0340586451).

Practical implications:
Use of Latin, Greek, French (culture specific) etc. derived forms of
words and phrases should be minimized, this arose from a short debate I
had with Martin (MyRedDice) on whether to use "Formulae" or "Formulas".
(I still don't know how to pronounce "Formulae" in speech :) ..)

I have noticed that most wikipedia articles are pretty fine with this
rule (The extreme contrast would be Wikipedia written like a Shakespeare
play , or like 1911 Britannica..)

Note: This has nothing to do with American Vs British Vs Canadian etc.
english. British english is taught in India, I think in south america
and mexico, they use forms of American english. Here in Israel we learn
mostly American, but some british english..

2.
The articles should not assume the reader has a specific cultural
affiliation. This is very problematic in the current form. Most articles
assume the reader has personal familiarity with "Westren" (or even
American!) ideas or way of life and culture. For example, "Popular
Music" and related articles, does not even recognize the fact that local
popular music widely exists in china, arab popular music, india etc..

I will call this type of writing "Cultural Bias"

Another thing that confuses international readers (and sometimes makes
them mad, in my case), Is reader's supposedly familiarity with US
geography. For example, in the "Michael Jackson" article:
"Michael Joseph Jackson was born on in Gary, Indiana to Joseph.."

Where on earth is "Gary, Indiana"? in Bangladesh?
Imagine I would write: "Rotem Dan was born in Holon, Gush-dan
municipality" what would you understand by that?

I will call this type of writing "Geographical Bias".

3.
Prior knowledge, background, and education.
A lot of articles assume the reader is fairly (or even highly in the
scientific articles) educated and knowledgeable in the subject of the
article. For each article there should be an extensive background
paragraph(s), which specifically states what the article is about, it's
general field and it's uses in "Real life":

(a bit extreme) example: taken from "Reverse Osmosis":
The article starts like this:
"Membrane separation technology in the application for water supply
augmentation has been well recognised and is getting an important role
in water treatment. The family of membrane processes is now very
diverse. They are generally classified as microfiltration (MF),
ultrafiltration (UF), ..."

This is perfect gibberish to anyone not knowledgeable (or even expert!)
in the field. I've noticed most computer-related and social/exact
science articles are suffering from some degrees of it.

What does this have to do with "multi-cultural"?
In different places in the world, education is sometimes being conveyed
differently, or in a lower/higher level of detail then western
countries. In some places, high education (college/university) is not as
common (and affordable) as in western countries. Wikipedia writers
should understand this and be considerate, because these readers will
not be able to comprehend these articles if they are not given a full,
supportive background of the terms and fields.

I will call this type of writing an "Educational bias"

There are many more types of "Cultural Biases" which are not listed.
However, I am by no means whishing to make Wikipedia more "Politically
correct", I understand that most writers on e-Wikipedia are from English
speaking countries and western cultures (USA and UK especially),  this
should be changed. Until then, please be sensitive in what you write.
Realize you're writing to an international audience with diverse culture
and beliefs, varied education levels and understanding of the english
language.

Keep up the great work on the living Wikipedia organism
Rotem Dan, of Tel Aviv, Israel.