[WikiEN-l] cancelation of the deletion review of the satanism userbox

Sat Jun 3 21:28:38 UTC 2006

On Sat, Jun 03, 2006 at 07:34:48PM +0200, Steve Bennett wrote:
> The majority of Americans are fundamentalist christians. The greater
> majority are christians of any denomination.

Hmm.  I'm curious what you mean by "fundamentalist Christians" in that
claim.  Do you mean people who answer "Yes" when asked, "Are you a
fundamentalist Christian"?  Do you mean people who claim to have certain
beliefs which you label "fundamentalist Christian"?  Do you mean anyone
whose beliefs are more "fundamentalist Christian" than yours?  Do you
mean people who engage in religious practices which you regard as
"fundamentalist Christian"?  Or, perhaps, people who are formal members
of organizations (such as churches) which label themselves such?

> It would be interesting to know why christians are underrepresented at
> Wikipedia, if indeed that is the case.

The explanation could be as simple as this:  Statistically, people who
are more highly educated are less likely than the population average to
describe themselves as Christians.  Among Christians, they are more
likely to be adherents to more liturgical or "high church" groups than
to fundamentalist groups.

Many non-Christians in the U.S. (and other English-speaking countries)
are immigrants from Asian nations where Christianity is not the dominant
religion.  In order to be a legal immigrant you more or less have to be
seeking a job abroad; this usually requires a certain degree of higher
education.

People who are more highly educated are more likely to have Internet
access; to find the idea of encyclopedias interesting; to have the free
time to participate in a volunteer project; to think positively of
free-content enterprises; and to prefer Wikipedia's universalist notion
of neutrality rather than preferring explicit recognition of a shared
(nationalist or religious, e.g.) point of view.