[WikiEN-l] "Exclusion" essay

Thu Jul 20 20:16:01 UTC 2006

On 20/07/06, Elisabeth Bauer <elian at djini.de> wrote:
> One hypothesis:
> Allowing too much "fancruft" in Wikipedia creates an imbalance in the community
> structure. There is a really large pool of 15 year old, computer savy kids (some
> may be older) who get easily attracted to writing wikipedia articles about f.e.
> star trek compared to a very small pool of for example experts on let's say
> homer. The latter group won't be as easily drawn into writing for wikipedia than
> the first. And they will be less and less willing to do so, if they find a
> community dominated by 15 year old star trek fans.

No group of valid editors and contributors should be treated as any
less worthy than any other group. Just because you are young Caucasian
techie doesn't mean you're less of an editor than a wizened African.
Every single person who wants to contribute should be welcomed with
open arms, whether they intend to improve our coverage of Star Trek or
the fine nuances of Bose-Einstein condensates at higher temperatures.

Now, I hear you crying out, how do we correct systemic bias if we
can't turn young Caucasian techies away and vilify their areas of
interest? Surely, the only way to lure in academic experts is to
construct a social vacuum, and suck them in that way?

Perhaps not. The current situation is that we are making editorial
calls on what popular culture is worthy of an article. I would rather
have enough popular culture contributors and articles (note - that's
-good- popular culture articles, not bad ones) to be able to say "yes,
that's too obscure, trans-delemerge it," than to be begging for
contributors in this field.

Now, the question is, how do we make Wikipedia just as attractive for
other demographic groups, so that we can also be saying "that nuance
of Bose-Einstein condensate is too obscure, trans-delemerge it."
Positive solutions (attracting new users) are preferable to negative
ones (taking a hard line on 15-year old Star Trek fans).

--Sam