How the Chinese Wikipedia Differs from the English 193
bulled writes "News.com is running a story on differences found in Wikipedia's Chinese site content, as compared to content on the same subjects from the English site. The article goes into a discussion about how the 'sanitized' information is so prevalent in Chinese education that it is seen as the 'truth'." From the article: "[Some] say the object should be to spread reliable information as widely as possible, and that, in any case, self-censorship is pointless because the government still frequently blocks access to Wikipedia for most Chinese Internet users. 'There is a lot of confusion about whether they should obey the neutral point of view or offer some compromises to the government,' said Isaac Mao, a well-known Chinese blogger and user of the encyclopedia. 'To the local Wikipedians, the first objective is to make it well known among Chinese, to get people to understand the principles of Wikipedia step by step, and not to get the thing blocked by the government.'"
We have our own socially effected censorship (Score:5, Interesting)
A career-ending offense exicts in this country too, but just on different subjects. Try publicly saying that whites are smarter than blacks, or that teenage girls should have have hands-on sex ed in junior high, or that ice floes are a good way of relieving the social security crunch, and see what happens to your career. ( The previous three ideas or - similar forms of them - have been considered obvious truisms in other places and times. I'm not expressing these opinions myself, just mentioning them as examples )
Try putting any of these on english Wikipedia, and see how long they last.
people prefer placid lies to ugly truths (Score:4, Interesting)
however, this self-censorship, whether by individuals or cliques, is a different subject matter than censorship by a government entity. one is organic, from below, for the purposes of protecting the ego. the other is artificial, from above, for the purposes of maintaining power
Re:Hah. You think you are better? (Score:3, Interesting)
Country #1 where people have free access to information and some choose to self censor that access?
Country #2 where the government censors information and unapproved distribution of censored information is a crime?
Before we get on the high horse here... (Score:1, Interesting)
How many homosexual rape HOWTO entrees are there? Just how detailed are the Wikipedia's meth cooking/ricin making manuals?
When was the last time our Govt declassified a blueprint for a nuclear warhead?
A detailed travel schedule and the layout of alarm circuits in dubbyas house perhaps? No?
What, those are all illegal in US, you say?
Well, in China, all politically subversive public speech is illegal.
We all have our reasons for outlawing certain things. Are China's laws just? Who knows...
Re:We have our own socially effected censorship (Score:4, Interesting)
or that teenage girls should have have hands-on sex ed in junior high
Well, the question is, hands-on whom? ;)
Re:Before we get on the high horse here... (Score:3, Interesting)
Well, apparently some twat thought the red dot looked like a laser sight, and dropped a dime on her. Imagine what they'd do today.
Re:Before we get on the high horse here... (Score:2, Interesting)
what, you mean nothing like this? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portland_cement#Prod
Irrelevant, as I've shown, there are very good reasons that those things are/aren't in Wikipedia (and not all of those things are illegal).
I am sure some Good Chinese is reciting Good reasons why the Tank Square isn't in the Chinese wiki.
The point being, certain things are not acceptable to certain communities (legal, moral, other reasons). But just because Texas tolerates beasteality but does not tolerate dildo use by consenting married couples does not make you and me a better/worse person.
Re:They shouldn't give in (Score:4, Interesting)
"June 4th Incident", also called "'89 Minyun" [short for Democratic Movement], , "'89 Xueyun" [short for Students' Movement], "June 4th Massacre", "June 4th Wave", "'89 Democratic Movement", "'89 Students' Movement", "Tiananmen Massacre", "Tiananmen Incident", etc, officially called "The Disturbance", "Counter-revolutionary riot", and in recent years "the Political Turmoil between Spring and Summer of 1989" by the PRC government, hereafter abbreviated to "64" [June 4th].
Tianamen (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Taboo, but the truth. (Score:3, Interesting)
Are students encouraged to become proficient in the use of primary sources? Yup
Just because a textbook might be censored (a better word for most of them would be "incomplete") doesn't mean you can discredit the entire educational system.
Is the English version any better? (Score:4, Interesting)
In the Chinese Wikipedia, the government's bias censors the text; in the English Wikipedia, editorial mobs are glad to use their own bias to censor it.
Amen to this sentiment (Score:4, Interesting)
That said, I have been successful in making some rather substantial changes in some articles explicitly by showing the paper tigers for which some of those POV biases can be seen. And given enough time and eyeballs, most of these problems do eventually get ironed out. But it takes time and much of what you see on Wikipedia is a work in progress.
In defense of the Chinese Wikipedia, they are a couple of years behind and a fair bit under-represented in comparison to the Chinese speaking population to what the English Wikipedia has going for it. That and "official actions" by the PRC that tends to discourage participation on Wikipedia. Those that do participate operate under a "Sword of Damocles [wikipedia.org] that could be lowered at any time by the PRC government. As I've pointed out myself on many occasions, it would be an incredibly inept Chinese government that would not know exactly who the major Wikipedia participants are, even those who don't necessarily live in China proper (like being a Chinese speaker in the USA, as an example). I'm talking the full names, addresses, and other identifying information about these people. The use of psuedonyms does not hide this information from the Chinese government.
There is justified concern in term of avoiding prison or even losing their life if they try to push too hard for the NPOV that the English Wikipedia enjoys. As for the U.S. government keeping track of its citizens, I'm sure that happens as well, but there would be a nearly instant and major outcry if there were such a similar crackdown within the USA. I'm sure the
Re:We have our own socially effected censorship (Score:5, Interesting)
The wiki article on "Race and Intelligence" has, at the top of an article, a graph of IQs of different races. Whites, on average, are shown as scoring higher than blacks.
The article discusses the amount (if any) of difference in the average intelligence of the different races and possible reasons why there would be a difference.
Truthiness (Score:2, Interesting)
Wikipedia is based on the principle of "relevance by consensus". While there is a requirement for providing references, there is no mechanism for objectively accepting or rejecting a reference or a theory. This leads in many cases to fringe theories of some interest group getting more attention than they should. The english wikipedia has the benefit of being international so that the diversity is larger and hence the process of reaching consensus is more complicated.
In China those same principles yield different results as the Chinese consensus on many political issues is not the same as the western/international consensus.
To be fair this plagues mostly the social sciences. Politics is largely based on opinion (and you can find whatever references you like, there are plenty of them) and history is has always been subjectively inclusive.
Re:Taboo, but the truth. (Score:5, Interesting)
I call it the "Fox censorship". No it ain't just Fox.
English not better (Score:4, Interesting)