Some environments, based just on prestige, have big problems with toxicity (StackOverflow, Wikipedia) which I didn't see at all in some music trackers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Systemi...
(using a version of the article from ten years ago because everything is unnecessarily verbose on wikipedia now)
That an article like that exists is patently absurd in my view and kind of makes me a bit ill. Things like that is what led to this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9SiRNibD14
I really firmly believe that if you think there is a European (?) science and an African science and they are distinct and equally valid then either me or you do not belong on Wikipedia and I would actually like Wikipedia to clarify their mission in this light.
In my view Wikipedia should not be a repository of value judgements or specific values that one should adopt - perspectives on Christopher Columbus is important and should be included but in no manner should those perspectives be made out to be incontrovertible or something other than value judgements and perspectives from specific points of view. I think it is valuable to understand the European perspective and native american perspectives at the time and throughout the following centuries for events.
But I don't think Wikipedia should be telling me I must think what Columbus did was good or bad - Wikipedia should not be trying to teach me morality - and as long as it does not do that I don't see how there is any problem with what topics Wikipedia covers and who writes it.
I think the only problem comes in when you attempt to do something which is impossible - like incorporate something which is fundamentally specific to specific people (morality) into something which purports to be valid for everyone.
You might also be interested in reading https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Wikipedia#Self-censors...
One can understand a possible path that goes "xyz information source is biased", "xyz info source isn't suitable for abc group", and "xyz info source is specific to xyz people, we need our own abc source". However, that seems to require a few assumptions? And still isn't as negative as that youtube video linked.
Would appreciate if you could elucidate on your views.
[1] (please forgive the scare quotes)
> The average Wikipedian on the English Wikipedia is ... (some characteristics)
This builds to conclusion:
> The systemic bias of the English Wikipedia is permanent. As long as the demographic of English speaking Wikipedians is not identical to the world's demographic composition, the version of the world presented in the English Wikipedia will always be the Anglophone Wikipedian's version of the world.
I don't see how you get to that conclusion form the premise other than by thinking that reality is modified by personal characteristics.
If there is an Anglophone Wikipedian's version of the world which includes things like gravity and science - then it is not valid for Africa (as the woman in the video is expressing) as Africa is not the Anglophone world ... not sure what about this is not clear.
And it absolutely is as bad as that youtube video I linked - you think that poor unfortunate woman came up with that drivel on her own? She is not nearly dumb enough - no single person can be that stupid.
You need years of academic circle jerking and hand picking of the dumbest arguments from the dumbest people to come up with something that stupid.
But if I were to speculate, I guess it always propagates from the top. The point is, that the visible community you can speak of is not entirely randomly chosen from the user base, and the user base are people who just want to use the product, not to play corporate mechanics. If in the end the goals of the general public are somewhat aligned with the internal community of ladder-climbers, it works out fine. Otherwise it doesn't.
(And, by the way, ladder-climbers in most of these communities tend not to be the nicest people by default... Let's just say, they are Dwight. So if you let them do stuff that is not desirable for the general community, they will.)
I think StackOverflow philosophy is flawed by design, the main point of user frustration always was the fact that questions that they very much need to get answered are closed as "too broad", "opinion-based" or something of the sorts. Dwights love to exercise their power by noticing that something can be close "as not good fit for this site", and users who want that stuff to be discussed obviously hate that. That is something that could be fixed from the top, but the top specifically wanted it this way.
Wikipedia is similar to that, but users and Dwights stand even further apart, since general user doesn't even make an account to make an edit, doesn't look who makes the edits and doesn't know the internal playground. The main point of frustration here is a user, who knows his stuff well and wants to share the knowledge, but is being shut down by a Dwight, because the subject is "of low importance" to him. This infuriates the user even more, considering that there are thousands of articles about some fucking Harry Potter-universe pokemon or whatever, which, naturally, doesn't raise an issue with Dwights, because they are Dwights and they love this stuff. This is also something to be solved organizationally from the very top.
Music trackers are way more meritocratic. People, who eventually get to be moderators can be formalistic or not — it varies — but they generally just want a lot of music on the tracker in a well-organised manner — and this is exactly what general public wants! It's another question how they get motivated by the platform to contribute so much — and involvement sometimes seems to be much more hard work than on Wikipedia — but the point is that they really do contribute useful stuff.
Also, music trackers tend to be way more liberal (in a sense to allow freedom, not to be left-wing politically, ironically, quite the opposite is true nowadays). Nobody cares is somebody is rude, racist or whatever, if off-topic flamewar goes over the top — the whole thread goes down. Otherwise, you can post whatever you want and nobody gives a shit and isn't pressured by the media to do something about it. After all, unlike twitter, reddit or stackoverflow, they aren't traded on the stock market.