Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/2015-11-18/Special report



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Thanks for the survey. I would imagine most candidates had issues with the wording of the questions, and would welcome detailed discussion - I know I did, and would. For example transparency is one of the subjects on which I have made not a few commitments - and yet I accept that (contrary to some previous practice) it is not a good idea for ArbCom to "out" people, any more than if anyone else is doing it. Therefore even my strong agreement with the question on all evidence being on-wiki is hedged around with exceptions.
All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 22:43, 21 November 2015 (UTC).[reply]
  • Yes, at least one of the people listed here has withdrawn from the race entirely, and another of those listed has (unofficially at least) withdrawn their response to the survey. Which questions were asked of the candidates, the long form, or the short form, or both? I would also like to see the discussions that led up to the formation of the questions, if those are available. If I understand the rationale for doing otherwise, it was to get the honest ("non herding") responses of the candidates, without them being able to see how other candidates were responding? But this assumes that none of the candidates were communicating with each other, and of course, tends to look non-transparent in terms of the election-outcome, when the good-faith intent behind the secrecy was just to avoid messing up the validity of the survey-outcome. I also wonder whether the off-wiki-email-approach was technologically simpler, for proceessing the survey-data, somehow? Methodologically flawed, though, or at least, flawed from the "social" perspective of damping drama with objectivity. 75.108.94.227 (talk) 23:34, 21 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

In the real world, my local newspaper serves a valuable role in summarizing events and local meetings that citizens are unable to personally attend. On wiki, The Signpost has a long tradition of identifying, collating, and summarizing real world activity related to Wikipedia; this is especially helpful since some such content is paywalled. In fact, I quote a 2012 signpost article on the importance of informal dispute mechanisms in my candidate statement. However, as the election RFC has provided a mechanism for the community to ask questions of candidates, it's unclear what "value added" a secretive email survey provides. I personally find the notion of a herd mentality ridiculous; as candidates we all have reasonably long track records on wiki, the electorate would spot pandering to the crowd instantly. (Also, while I'm not really a centuries old treelike creature living in a forest, I am also not a cow or bull.) In any event, when I received the signpost email I knew within 45 seconds I would not be participating, given the ridiculous bias of the question set. For the sake of clarity, I fully support the right of the signpost to ask what they want. NE Ent 23:55, 21 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]


  • I did not participate in this survey, despite what has been presented here. I submitted a preliminary response, but withdrew it after comments made by Signpost staff indicated that the Signpost's process for developing questions and evaluating responses was substandard. Despite publicly stating that the response was withdrawn, and notifying Signpost staff my email within their timeframe for responding, the Signpost has elected not only to publish the withdrawn response but to omit any mention of the fact that I had withdrawn it. The Signpost's behaviour shows a lack of journalistic competence, ethics, and integrity -- a conclusion reinforced by the fact that Tony D, who communicated with candidates on behalf of the Signpost, has accused one candidate critical of the survey of dishonesty and engaged in what an experienced editor described as a "gratuitous personal attack". I've worked in real-world politics over many years and have never seen an ostensibly journalistic enterprise engage in behaviour like this. It's disturbing if not outright disgusting. The Big Bad Wolfowitz (aka Hullaballoo) (talk) 23:59, 21 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
There was nothing "preliminary" about your response. And so you thought you'd withdraw to make some political point after all of the stats and interpretation had been done? No thanks—it's a huge amount of work to process, and we don't unravel and start again to suit the whims of candidates who then try to bargain with us (post online or I withdraw). Who is "Tony D"? Now, on the personal attacks, don't worry, we published in full expectation of them. Tony (talk) 00:30, 22 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Please do not misrepresent my statements or actions. I did not make any attempt to bargain with you. My statement was unequivocal; I stated quite clearly that "this survey was not properly thought out and is not likely to be appropriately presented". All you're achieving by attacking not only candidates but one of the election coordinators is to undermine your own credibility. The Big Bad Wolfowitz (aka Hullaballoo) (talk) 01:22, 22 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Certainly is neutral statistically. You're supposed to be running the election, not blasting out your personal opinions on related issues. Tony (talk) 00:30, 22 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Statistics compiled from flawed questions are not inherently neutral. To be concrete, here is question#F: "Case evidence should always be onwiki for the sake of transparency." If the candidate agrees to this poorly-posed question, they are saying arbcom should WP:DOX people, because arbcom accepts privacy-related information, and has access to checkuser evidence. Note the keyword 'always' in the question. Of course, if the candidate disagrees to this poorly-posed question, they are saying arbcom should be a secretive star chamber which encourages poison-pen evidence, right? Or maybe, they just disagree with the 'always' keyword... but how can anybody know that? The only suitable response is to refuse to answer the poorly-posed question, but in that case the candidate is *still* marked down as having answered something nonsensical, namely "neutral" as if they do not even care about the issues of transparency and privacy! The question itself is inherently non-neutral, because the candidate cannot give their actual answer, and whatever answer they do give is bound to be mis-interpreted by somebody in the arbcom electorate. That goes double, when the question is shortened to elide the transparency bit, and switches from 'always' to instead 'all' terminology, which is what is shown in the table: "All case evidence should be on-wiki." 75.108.94.227 (talk) 01:09, 22 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Really? If you say so. Tony (talk) 01:11, 22 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Yup, pretty clearly a question which cannot be answered meaningfully, and any numeric answer can easily be misinterpreted. Are you okay, then, Tony, with me removing question F from the columns in the table? Some people will have already read the information, of course, but better to fix it late than never. Or we could temporarily remove it, reformulate the question with a qualifier like "case evidence that does not violate WP:OUTING/WP:BLP/WP:NLT should..." phrasing instead of that which was originally used, and then add the revised info back in, once the 16 survey respondents had replied. 75.108.94.227 (talk) 01:21, 22 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
"Don’t know or can’t decide" is not "neutral": That's why those responses are marked in red. Does that not make the candidate's (preference not to give a) response transparent to the reader? Moreover, there are only six such responses in the entire table. Andreas JN466 01:28, 22 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Jayen466: An answer marked in red was for an omitted response, to which the signpost editors defaulted to a value of 4. A response of don't know/can't decide would mean that the candidate does not have an opinion on the issue. A neutral response would mean that the candidate has evaluated both sides of the question and determined there is equal enough strength to the sides that they would consider themselves in the middle of the road. When a candidate responded with a 4, they stated they were undecided on the issue. However, the signpost article portrays these editors as neutral on the issue. For example, Off-wiki outing is never acceptable. 11 positives (four strongly); 5 negatives (three strongly); 2 neutrals. In these statements, neutral should be replaced with undecided to properly reflect the candidates' stated positions. Mike V • Talk 01:43, 22 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
If a candidate didn't know or couldn't decide, they had the option of not leaving a response for that statement. Does this not seem reasonable? It seems natural not to attempt an answer if you don't know it, or can't decide on one for whatever reason, or have a problem with the way the question is phrased. The table makes those cases visible; a red 4 is the functional equivalent of a "don't know/can't decide/question doesn't make sense to me" response. I read the existing black 4s as a candidate saying, "Well, there are arguments on both sides and they roughly balance each other out; it depends, so I can neither agree nor disagree in general", and I read the red 4s as saying "I can't or won't comment on that statement (for whatever reason)". This is by no means anything specific to this survey; it's part and parcel of working with a Likert scale. If you look at the relevant literature, for example, you'll quickly notice that there are ongoing differences of opinion among researchers in the social sciences as to whether an explicit "don't know" option should be provided or not, whether it should be distinguished from neutral responses or not, etc., but these differences of opinion notwithstanding, the Likert scale in its various forms, including the one used here, is a standard tool in survey work. No one has gone about reinventing the wheel here. Andreas JN466 02:17, 22 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • So 17 candidates among 21 have answered by a Lickert grade to the sentence "I favour strong over light sanctions". And now, the voters should ask themselves what answer they were expecting from a next to be Arbitrator. For myself, I was expecting: this depends on the case. There is a time for medicine, there is a time for surgery. Do I really want Arbitrators that will be 'light' or 'strong' without considering the merits of the case they are arbitrating? By the way, I really appreciate the apology about being "in a jungle with bad connectivity": don't tell a journalist that his question is a random stuff because he will probably retaliate by a non random story. Pldx1 (talk) 01:32, 22 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Similar to many other candidates, although I support all possible discussion being held on-wiki, there are some issues (like a Wikipedian being stalked by a fellow Wikipedian irl) that simply cannot be discussed explicitly on-wiki, so my answers on questions of arbcom transparency are really 'Arbcom should be completely transparent except in cases where it can't possibly be transparent due to the details of the situations involved, or because they could be handled without drama in two emails or turn in to a full blown months long arb case." Obviously, we can't dox people. The question I chose not to answer I chose not to answer because I imagined either way would be held over my head, and in terms of harsh vs light sanctions, I geerally support light sanctions, but support strong, surgical, immediate sanctions where the details or nuance of the case require it. I had issues with a few other questions too, mainly because the available answers lacked nuance. I don't believe that a fast-moving generally transparent arbcom that tends towards light sanctions but can act with strong but humane force is an inherent contradiction. Kevin Gorman (talk) 01:58, 22 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
If you think that the due answer to a question is not a number, is it that difficult to answer NaN, instead of answering by a number ? Pldx1 (talk) 02:18, 22 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
The thought bluntly hadn't occurred to me, but you're probably right. The survey included room for 75 words per candidate where I voiced most of my last post, though it noted that not all commentary would be publshed. Kevin Gorman (talk) 02:30, 22 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I repurposed "4" as mu :) Opabinia regalis (talk) 04:58, 22 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

(EC)There's a grand tradition among candidates and politicians of blaming everything on the press. Sometimes they (intentionally ambiguous) are correct. I don't think it does any good though for candidates to blame the press - the press does what they have to do, the candidates should do what they have to do. The press, as seen in this case, tries to nail down the candidates' positions, and sometimes the candidates don't like it.

That said, I don't think that questions like A, B, C, D, H, I, K, and L give us a lot of information. But sometimes, you just have to guess what questions will draw people out and produce disagreement. I much prefer the questions later in the alphabet, the ones on the issues.

Hullabaloo - there's a rule for anybody who deals with the press: never give them anything in writing that you wouldn't want to see in print; or if you do, at least start the private sections with [This section not for quotation] and end with [You can quote me again after this]. If the journalist doesn't understand what info you give them is for publication and what isn't, it's not his or her fault - it's your problem - sometimes a very serious problem. Smallbones(smalltalk) 02:31, 22 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, Smallbones. The email clearly stated "on the record" at the top. On the propositions, it wasn't the Board's intention to aim solely for those that might draw differences among the candidates. It's useful to see consensus among them, too. On the value of the individual questions you specify, take L, for example ("Case procedures need streamlining"); of the four with ArbCom experience, one mildly disagreed, one was neutral, and two agreed; yet there was strong consensus overall, including three 7s. Tony (talk) 02:52, 22 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

"single-item questions pertaining to a construct are not reliable and should not be used in drawing conclusions."[1] NE Ent 03:56, 22 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

References

  1. ^ Gliem, Joseph A.; Gliem, Rosemary R. (2003). "Calculating, Interpreting, and Reporting Cronbach's Alpha Reliability Coefficient for Likert-Type Scales" (PDF).
Pardon my snobbery, but it's just an unpublished paper that was presented to a conference 12 years ago ... the 2003 Midwest Research to Practice Conference in Adult, Continuing, and Community Education. Tony (talk) 04:26, 22 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
"Despite some limitations, Cronbach's coefficient alpha remains the most widely used measure of scale reliability.". So, did you calculate one? NE Ent 11:47, 22 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Are you saying you would have happily responded to a questionnaire with about ten times as many questions as this one, because it would have given you more confidence in the statistical analysis? I'm afraid that would have been quite out of scope, both from the point of view of candidates' time, and the point of view of the Signpost's time. This was a very simple survey, as I'm sure readers can readily appreciate and allow for, and you along with one or two others didn't want to take part. I don't think there is more to it than that. Andreas JN466 15:04, 22 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Dark red = 1 (disagree), dark blue = 7 (agree), white = 4 (neutral/no response/mu).

I find this big table kind of hard to read, so here's a matrix/heatmap version, sorted by the standard deviation for each question. I left off Hullaballoo (who withdrew from the survey) and Samtar (who withdrew from the race). Opabinia regalis (talk) 04:58, 22 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Opabinia regalis: I love this graphic! Thanks for creating it. --Rosiestep (talk) 05:14, 22 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Many thanks to the Signpost for this analysis, and it looks like we're going to be in for a very interesting election cycle. While I've taken the time to read some of the candidate statements (and will be getting to their questions), this analysis really helps like it did for the Board election last May.

That said, I'm disappointed though that of the 22 candidates running, only one is not from the the Anglosphere. That to me is a travesty, and one that I hope the ArbCom will seek to address in future elections. --Sky Harbor (talk) 15:03, 22 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

  • You mean me, cause I live in Alabama? We can talk proper around here if we try. Drmies (talk) 17:51, 22 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    • @Drmies: Having talked with you a lot, I understand that you were trying to joke ... but Alabama, despite the cultural backwardness the name implies, has a very different outlook of the world than someone from (say) the Philippines. That said, Sky Harbor, the Anglosphere dominates everyone else when it comes to the number of first-language English speakers, so it stands to reason that the geographic diversity of those running will almost always be suboptimal. It's not ideal, but we're imprisoned by the language. Open to other opinions, though, especially if we can do more to encourage non-Anglosphere candidates to run. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 00:23, 23 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
      • Ed, you know I'm Dutch, right? I'm not sure User:Sky Harbor know. I don't think we're "imprisoned" by language--it stands to reason that those who are better at language x will have an easier time getting around in x-Wikipedia.

        In general, though, I think most Wikipedia readers and editors couldn't care less about these elections; I'm sure they are not sure about what ArbCom does, and if they are, I venture to guess that many of them think this is just another popularity contest between insiders. Drmies (talk) 01:43, 23 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

        • With all due respect, Drmies, Alabama (and the Netherlands, by extension) is still a world's way's away from the places where our efforts to improve geographical diversity in the movement's power structures are lacking. The fact is, it's really a chicken-or-egg scenario: users from developing countries, even those from countries where we have large English Wikipedian communities because of their exposure to English (like mine), don't feel compelled to run because they don't see any inherent motivation to do so, and we're rarely engaged with as it is when it comes to dealing with things of importance on the English Wikipedia. But at the same time, you have users from this part of the world who feel that the culture is stacked against them and that they are being driven out by those who look at things from a developed world view (ergo, most people on Wikipedia who are in positions of authority), and they can't do anything about it. If they do run, there's a snowball's chance in hell that they'll get elected.

          I should likewise point out though to Ed that we had at one point three ArbCom candidates from India in this election—two decided to pull out because there were other, "better" candidates. I don't think it bides well for the governance of the English Wikipedia, which by virtue of it being the first mover of our movement happens to also be the most international of all of them, if all the members of the ArbCom happen to look at things from only one world view while ignoring everything else. That said, I do think we're spoilt for choice regarding excellent candidates in this cycle, but if we're going to do something about making the project more inclusive and accepting of our movement's own diversity, I certainly would like to think that we can do more, because it seems to me that we're doing nowhere near enough. --Sky Harbor (talk) 02:52, 23 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, but there is no way in which the Netherlands is part of the Anglosphere, and Alabama and the NL of course have nothing to do with each other; there's no "by extension" there. Neither do I accept, without qualification, this developed world vs. the rest of the world view: on the Internet, in a community like Wikipedia where so much depends on the quality of one's writing, linguistic competency is one of the most important factors. Being good at English does not, of course, mean that one is good at being an admin or on ArbCom or something like that, but since all this communication takes place via writing, one should not be surprised to find that those who are good at English have better odds in such races. The good news? Anyone can learn English and get quite good at it, better than most native speakers if need be. So while you're right on the general point, not many representatives from non-English speaking countries are running, this forum isn't the best place to get anything done. If you want to increase the number of non-English people running for ArbCom, consider nominating such candidates for adminship since many think that's a kind of necessary step for running for ArbCom. Best, Drmies (talk) 03:07, 23 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
@Drmies: I did know that. I should have generalized to the west in general. :-) Regarding imprisoned, that's exactly what I meant—I'm sorry that I didn't state it clearly enough. And Sky Harbor, we agree, although I only see two candidates from India and neither of them have over 7,000 edits. Why do you think quality users from outside the global north don't feel the need to run? We do need more from the global south, but if the only editors nominating themselves don't have the resumes to win the election ... Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 06:27, 23 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
We should mention that there is at least one Antipodean running. While it is clearly part of the Anglosphere, unless Australia has moved to the other side of the equator, it would not be fair to consider it part of "the global north".
Additionally, the "Anglosphere" and "Global North" have, by virtue of mass migration, incredible variety in their cultures - to consider the cultures of Berlin, Birmingham, Dunedin, Durban, Melbourne, Paris, San Francisco and Saskatoon to be the same would be strange. I believe that there is sufficient variety in the lived experience & worldviews of a small group of persons from those places to provide a sufficiently varied, and balanced, set of views.
We should much prefer an ArbCom with a diverse set of views than a diverse set of identities for its own sake.
I do appreciate aspects of Sky Harbor's initial point; content remains, in places, incredibly US-centric, and, in places, supportive of a limited range of viewpoints. This is in part due to the wider community; in part due to the availability of English-language sources; but I cannot concur that it is because of the demographics of our final dispute resolution body. - Ryk72 'c.s.n.s.' 08:13, 23 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
@Ryk72: To refute one small point—Australia and New Zealand are part of the Global North under the WMF's definition (see right). On the rest of the point, Arbcom diversity is an ideal to strive towards. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 08:56, 23 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Ed, I stand corrected on the intended meaning of "the global north", and thank you for that correction.
For the main point, I am, of course, not opposed to an ethnically, or otherwise, diverse ArbCom, but do suggest that of the qualities we would wish an ideal ArbCom to possess, diverse would fall far behind clear, communicative, consistent, efficient, and (above all) effective.
I am strongly supportive of the representation of more diverse, more global viewpoints in our articles; and while I might personally consider that ArbCom should be judged not by the colour of their skin, or the shape of their genitals, but by the content of their character, I am happy that editors have a view that a diverse ArbCom is an end goal.
I would, however, ask "Why?".
By this, I do not mean to belittle the idea, but to better understand the perceived benefit to the project. - Ryk72 'c.s.n.s.' 10:00, 23 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
See also, the movement of Iceland into the western hemisphere, for troop-deployment purposes within the newly-redefined letter of the law. I believe User:Samtar was pegged as being from India, or maybe User:Salvadrim, by Sky Harbor? Also ping User:Iridescent, who had some specific thoughts about how to better deal with proportionality, and sees the voting-system as presently defined, being a hurdle thereto. Personally, I would be shocked if non-English-speaking people were not elected to the enWiki arbcom, which is how I originally took the "Anglosphere" bit of the comment. That very much includes candidates the ilk of User:Drmies... and by the way, all your Hollands are belong to us, doktor!  :-)     But as is becoming apparent, the point User:Sky Harbor is trying to make has more to do with first-world economic status, the hegemonic discourse, and that sort of thing, where the normal meanings of 'north' and 'Anglo' do not necessarily apply. It is certainly true that anyone can edit is more of a slogan we strive towards, than an on-the-ground truth in the trenches. Reasonable level of internet access, free time to devote to a website, and a decent skill level in reading wiki-reliable English-language sources, plus writing neutral boring plain just-the-facts English-language sentences... those are not a terribly high bar, but they are quite far from Anyone Can EditTM no matter how you slice the mango. 75.108.94.227 (talk) 15:12, 23 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict) Not from India here 75.108 :) I hail from Cornwall, UK samtar {t} 15:52, 23 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
To drive home the point that I am making here: a lot of decisions being made on the English Wikipedia that affect the entire community are done so from an obvious Global North/developed countries/Anglosphere lens, and more often than not those who do not come from that point of view are simply expected to blindly follow. The fact that oral citations didn't pass community scrutiny because of concerns of reliability, despite the fact that oral citations are arguably the only effective way to document certain kinds of information in the developing world, is an example of this bias. Or how some editors would nominate articles about developing country topics en masse for deletion because they supposedly don't meet the notability criteria—something that relies heavily on a printed record that for many countries simply doesn't exist to the extent it does in the developed world. A lot of the things we do on the English Wikipedia, and in the movement at large, is by and large decided by a majoritarian point of view that, while capable of expressing the sentiments of our largest communities, is incapable of encapsulating the other large communities of non-Anglosphere/developing world English Wikipedia editors that exist here as well.

That said, I have a hard time agreeing with Drmies and Ryk72 that being a good Wikipedian is enough, and that their character is enough for them to be given the respect they deserve by the community. We may have some semblance of equality of opportunity (all you need is to write well to catch people's attention, and that's enough), but in reality I'd like to contend that Wikipedians outside our core editing communities (which, in the context of the Wikimania discussion has since been framed to mean the U.S., Canada and Western Europe, plus Australia and New Zealand for our purposes) will have a harder time on the English Wikipedia. They may be editors, but that's it—very few editors from those outer regions actually get a stake in shaping the culture we want to build as a community (the "hegemonic discourse" that 75.108.94.227 points out). The ArbCom's composition may be a symptom rather than a cause, but I hope this serves as a wake-up call for English Wikipedians to recognize that we exist too. --Sky Harbor (talk) 15:48, 23 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

There are many legitimate criticisms that can be made of Arbcom elections, ranging from "the voting system used magnifies systemic bias" to "the demands placed upon those running are unreasonable and discourage the best potential candidates from applying", but "too many of the candidates on the elections for a position which requires deep experience of an exclusively English-language project live in English-speaking countries" is not one of them. Do you likewise complain that a disproportionate number of arbs on de-wikipedia live in Germany, Austria or Switzerland? (Coren, FayssalF, Kirill Lokshin, Mailer diablo, Salvio giuliano and YellowMonkey have all been long-serving arbs in the past, as well as others I've probably missed, so it's hardly as if the committee is an Anglosphere stitch-up.) ‑ iridescent 16:40, 23 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

( added afterwards by Pldx1 (talk) 17:38, 23 November 2015 (UTC): what follows is not a reply to User:Iridescent)[reply]
From a web source, Latin America accounts for 8.6% of the world population. So what? Should we require that 8.6% of the candidates belong to a "Latin America" category, i.e. 1.81 of them? Or should we require that 8.6% of the Arbcom body belong to the category, i.e. 1.29 of them ? Or should we count the heads and see how many registered users belong to the category? And then? Should we mimic the ratio among users, or apply an affirmative action factor? And perhaps augment the size of the elected body to minimize rounding problems? And deal with all these horrible questions about where is the boundary of the category? As soon as you think that people will act according to the categories you think they belongs to, you are not describing a cooperative process that can be ruled by arbitration. In other words, we should either abstain from categorizing or replace Arbcom by some Govcom (first choice being listed first). Pldx1 (talk) 16:47, 23 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
If that's a reply to me, you're seriously misrepresenting my words to the extent of reversing their meaning. I'm saying that English-language Wikipedia is inevitably going to have a disproportionate number of its members from English-speaking countries, and that "non-English-speaking editors are under-represented" is never going to be a legitimate complaint. ‑ iridescent 16:54, 23 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Iridescent, it is a legitimate complaint when in my comments I specifically mention English Wikipedia editors from countries that have large English Wikipedia communities, but are significantly underrepresented in the project's politics. Not once did I mention non-English speaking Wikipedians in my comments; I specifically refer to Wikipedians in places like South Asia (India, Pakistan, etc.), the Philippines (where I'm from), Malaysia and Singapore, South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya and the like, where there are large communities of English Wikipedia editors and can be reasonably deduced as being "English-speaking countries", but are nowhere near as being socio-politically influential on the English Wikipedia as are editors from the U.S., Canada, the UK, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand. --Sky Harbor (talk) 17:03, 23 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]