"While Wikipedia isn't supposed to be the place to right great wrongs...", you're already headed in the wrong direction. Encouraging a subset of editors to write with a bias simply to balance out other bias is not praiseworthy.
"Maybe it's sacrificing principle for expediency..."Yes, it is. Chris Troutman (talk) 02:24, 28 April 2018 (UTC)
Think of the issue with sourcing this way: imagine a Wikipedian living in Kansas who wants to write articles on women artists of the 19th century. Said Wikipedia struggles with what resources they can find online (which is always hit-or-miss; as Indy beetle suggests, we need to create a shared collection of online resources so one Wikipedian isn't searching for resources another is familiar with), at the local public library (which may be out of date -- depressingly likely, if you know the situation with public services in that state), & from what books they can buy (I've found Amazon does not always have a given book, & if they do it may have a price tag well over $100). Then this Wikipedian discovers that there is a rich collection of the materials needed -- at a research library in Massachusetts. Or, even more frustrating but just as likely, in France. The Foundation currently offers no easy way for our imaginary Kansas Wikipedian to access that hypothetical collection. As I write this, it occurs to me that one important task the GLAM people could take on is to hold a series of workshops for Wikipedians explaining how to approach these research libraries & institutions & convince them to provide access. (Fun fact: in order to be able to use the collection at the British Library, one needs a letter of introduction from someone like a professor or a minister. I wonder how many Wikipedians would even be aware that many research libraries have requirements like that. And how many, when they learn of these requirements, might be discouraged because they don't know someone who would vouch for them.) -- llywrch (talk) 23:53, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
"problem of systemic bias"seems to assume that it is a problem whose solution is defined by its absence and not its difference, as if we could free our subjectivity from its subjectivity and bring objectivism to our objectives. It is from that assumption that I believe the notion of
"sacrificing principle for expediency"here even makes sense. If our principles are themselves biased, and necessarily so, then what exactly are we sacrificing when we encourage editors interested in that which our biases have marginalized to contribute in ways that are biased in favor of covering that which is marginalized? The principles themselves or the present biases therein? If the latter, then is that a sacrifice at all? Or is it just a difference of opinion? And if it is the former, then on what basis should a system with such basic flaws not be replaced? If we indeed must sacrifice principle for expediency, and that which we are expediting is believed to be the greater good that furthers the goals our principles are intended to serve, then it sounds to me that the problem is with the principles themselves and, thus, the system itself. Such a conclusion is perhaps a more damning indictment of Wikipedia's failure, and in a much more profound sense, than even the denial of its neutrality and the project's capacity to achieve it.Thanks for the article, Indy beetle. I agree with the sentiments you expressed in it and value your efforts at combatting some of the systemic biases found in this project. One of the most important steps in the pursuit of neutrality, even as a useful fiction, is cognizance of not just one's own biases but also those of the systems in which one operates. Whether that pursuit logically concludes in its annihilation, however, is beyond the scope and depth of this biased account. ―Nøkkenbuer (talk • contribs) 03:28, 24 May 2018 (UTC)
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