Printable Version of Topic

Posted by: tarantino

In response to the question "http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2010-November/062489.html" on the mailing list, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crazy_uncle says:

"http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2010-November/062494.html"

Posted by: Jon Awbrey

On the Internet no one can tell yer a Dawg.

Jon

Posted by: Milton Roe

What Fred should have done: just cite evidence.

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/volun.nr0.htm

Posted by: Abd

Someone from the Foundation should grab this guy with a shepherd's hook and pull him off the stage before he sticks his foot deeper into his mouth.

It's not about "politically correct." It is about blatant racism. "Black people," plainly considered as if they were alike, a unit, so that one will have the same feelings about all. Or even most.

And as if his experience with people in one neighborhood says much of anything about a people in general, and as if race were a reality, anyway.

The question was a tough one, in fact, and it would have been far smarter to say "I don't know, we should really look into that," or maybe "I have no way of telling if an editor is black or not," or anything that didn't reveal the utter stupidity lurking under the placid surface. On the other hand, I suppose we can be grateful that he was frank. Or Fred, as the case is.

I like black people too. Especially my daughter. When I was young, it was a common question, "Would you want your daughter to marry one of them?" People actually felt free to ask that. Times have changed, but racism still lurks underneath. I did not imagine, however, that one day, I'd have a double answer to give.

"My daughter is one of 'them, as you might think if you see her, but she is unlike anyone you know." As is, in fact, every individual, especially if we are talking about the social convention/illusion that is race.

And

"Well, if he's a nice guy...." (And I have two "white" daughters and one born in China.)

Or, today, it might be woman, I suppose. Times have, indeed, changed. Good thing, too. Fred, wake up, your old road is rapidly fadin'.

On the other hand, people with red hair....

Posted by: Abd

Problem is, the evidence doesn't support his answer.
That thing about "blacks don't volunteer" simply is not true. There is a reduced rate, in general, but editing Wikipedia is an activity that is common for youth, and, indeed, there may be a higher percentage of unemployed editing Wikipedia -- or unemployable! It's the kind of activity that one, if inclined, can fit into spare time, at one's own convenience.

Not that it necessarily stays that way once one is hooked.

No, I think the answer isn't so simple. And I have no idea what the racial balance of Wikipedia editors is. I'll say that I don't remember seeing anyone who "looked black" at WikiConference New York. Given how many people were there, there is something odd about that.

Maybe black people are smarter than white people. Culturally, of course!

(I.e., "black" is a cultural identity, strongly associated with cultural background in some contexts, such as American society, and very sloppily. Culture might make people quicker to recognize a scam and avoid it, whereas us white boys just fall right into it, drinking the free Kool-Aid, happily believing in the dream and free pizza. For a while, until it becomes entirely too obvious. Most of my friends, if I talk about the reality of Wikipedia, say, "What made you think it would be any different? Why did you bother?" Women, especially, I'd say, in my experience, think it's totally insane to engage with a bunch of disagreeable jerks. Why?)

(I come up with some feeble answers, like, "Because it's there." "I couldn't know for sure until I tried." But the reality is probably darker.)

Posted by: carbuncle

I hope someone mentions the lack of non-white penises on Wikimedia Commons.

Posted by: WikiWatch

One could argue that smart people avoid volunteering for Wikipedia

Posted by: It's the blimp, Frank

That would explain why so few of them edit Wikipedia.

I think that must have been the period where he met Chip Berlet, about which he later bragged on some arbcom discussion page.

Posted by: Abd

My point.

Posted by: taiwopanfob

Well, that's not exactly what Bauder said. But I know what you are getting at.

We can add some more numbers to the ones given by the source Milton cites:

http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/00000.html

White: 80% of population. Black: 13% of population.
White: 30% volunteer. Black: 22% volunteer.

Given 100 people chosen from the entire population, we can expect that there will be .80*.30*100 = 24 white volunteers and 0.13*0.22*100 = 3 black volunteers. So in a room full of volunteers things are going to look rather lop-sided. Mind you, this ~8:1 ratio doesn't look as bad when compared to the normal population, it's ~6:1. Would it be noticeable to anyone actually present? Could you tell, by eye alone, if you were in a room of people chosen randomly from the population in general and one chosen from volunteers?

My prediction -- completely baseless though it may be -- is that these aggregate statistics are concealing an uglier dynamic: as you go from organization to organization, the white:black ratio is going to swing from one extreme to the other. N:epsilon here and delta:M there, with a thinly populated middle. (Would it be symmetric though?)

If this view is right, then Wikipedia is probably one of many N:epsilon volunteer ghettos. It also suggests that there is little Wikipedia can do about it, as this is all completely external to the project, the result of hundreds of years of social/economic baggage. The bullshit identity politics hasn't really helped at all.

Posted by: tarantino

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/volun.t01.htm, black women volunteer nearly as often as white men. Hispanics are are also separated out in the results, though they may be black, white, brown or blue.

Posted by: thekohser

I'll bet http://www.examiner.com/wiki-edits-in-national/leading-wikipedian-explains-why-blacks-don-t-volunteer is going to have a field day with this.

Posted by: It's the blimp, Frank

"Genitalia" is misspelled.

edit: Also, "Media" is plural.

Posted by: CharlotteWebb

Actually, one runs a non-negligible risk of being blocked for editing while black. I think situations like may discourage users from identifying as black (excepting those who are http://wikipediareview.com/index.php?act=findpost&pid=193706).

Also, P.C. speaks about P.C.:

The foregoing is certainly a better answer than Fred gave.

Posted by: thekohser

Sleep deprived.

Posted by: TungstenCarbide

Brilliant. Elegant in its simplicity. Easy to read. Says a lot with very few words. Adb and Ottova should both read and study this article.

Posted by: Milton Roe

True. But Hispanics are underrepresented on WP also. As are women.

Though this study separates out differences in sex, ethnicity, and education, it doesn't say what happens when all three factors, which are doubtless synergistic, are working against you. That happens in volunteering and it happens especially on Wikipedia, where the nature of the internet and the social interaction drives off the women who are the core of volunteeer efforts everywhere ELSE in the world. So the whole thing is basically predictable.

The only question is WHY the influences of ethnicity and education work against volunteering (either in life or on the net). Perhaps education is a proxy for free time (much like the idea that life is a shit sandwich). Perhaps ethnicity is here functioning only as a proxy for socioeconomic status (something Bauder said, basically). We can't even begin to sort all this out except with a study large enough to run a multivariate analysis to control for proxy associations that we suspect. Of course, such data never give you the proxy associations you DON'T expect.

I think it's accepted that ethnicity determines a lot about how people spend their spare time. For example, to get personal like Bauder, I've talked about some of my visual addictions: Burning Man and scuba diving. African-Americans are rare at the first, and nearly non-existent at the second-- far more rare than on the ski slopes. I remember maybe ONE African American passenger-diver in my whole ten years doing it, and that was in California waters. In the Caribbean, Japanese are more common than African-Americans, except among dive-masters (the professional sport divers who making a living by lead groups off the boat to show them the local underwater attractions; in the Caribbean these are likier to be black or Hispanic than Caucasian).

So what's up with this? Scuba is NOT that expensive a sport. Expenses in the Caribbean are very middle-class, especially if you rent equipment. I have to conclude that this is one of those things that happens because it starts out socioeconomic and then just feeds on itself. Once upon a time it was golf and tennis that were white man's games; no more. Scuba's also on the list of things that Americans haven't come to "class-terms" with, even though the time for it is long past.

Posted by: Somey

Yeah, he definitely should have stopped on the "medium" answer.

I mean, it isn't just that they tend to be smarter about such things... I mean, who could possibly blame black people, especially in the US, for wanting to get paid for their work? Unless you have no concept of history whatsoever, of course...

Amazing.

Posted by: Peter Damian

Posted by: A Horse With No Name

Hmmm...this part of the conversation deserves further consideration. Can we get some photos, please?



Well, there are also "black people" in Europe, the Caribbean, Latin America, Africa and Australia. Is Fred talking about African Americans, or every demographic in the African diaspora?

Posted by: Abd

They are seven and nine years old, respectively. I'd love to put up photos, but ... times have changed. Sorry. They are, however, spectacularly beautiful, people rave over them. Smart, talented, etc., etc. Kind and considerate, and the Ethiopian smiles like the sunrise, something that she did inherit from her people, I visited the region, and she was raised by them for her first three years.

Can you tell that I'm a proud papa?

The Asian girl was raised by me from 10 months old, so the African may have gotten the better deal.... but, well, you win some and lose some. There are some advantages both ways.

Ah. I have two other daughters. Adults, ages 40 and 35. One is very happily married, the younger one just came back from India, she's divorced. Good luck. I will not provide any details at all about my grandchildren, except that there are five going on six. I am "exposed" to the possibility of great granchildren, but probably not quite yet!
figuring out what Bauder is talking about is not a fruitful enterprise, since I think he has not really thought about all this. The tipoff is his continual reference to "black people" as if they were some monolithic entity. At worst. At best, he qualifies it a little, i.e., "those who harm themselves by thinking of reading as 'white.'" (something like that.)

It is still stereotypical thinking. There can be some value to that, but what Bauder is betraying is his underlying attitudes. Example: his assumption that successful blacks are not inclined to volunteer. The reality is that they do, (using demographic definitions of "black") but they volunteer elsewhere, on average.

This whole "don't volunteer" argument was completely bogus, as shown by the statistics. The ratio, even with what may understate some kinds of volunteer work, was 28% for "white" and 20% for "black." So ... that could not explain the vast under-representation of apparent black participation.

However, there is another assumption that some are making: that participation in wikiconferences is a cross-section of Wikipedia editors. It may be highly warped. Otherwise, how the hell do we know what racial grouping editors belong to? You know my "race" only because I've disclosed it, it's common that it is assumed that I'm black -- Lomax is not an uncommon black family name in the U.S. -- or that I'm Muslim by birth -- which would not say anything about "race," since Muslims could be Asian, Arab, Bosnian, etcl, or Nigerian, etc.

The explanations will be cultural, I'm sure, and have to do with Wikipedia and wikicultural qualities, similarly to the greatly reduced numbers of women who participate.

It would be highly advisable for Bauder to apologize, for the WMF to distance themselves from those remarks. They don't have to crucify him. Unless he refuses to apologize.

This will go over great in India.

Posted by: Abd

MODS! please delete this extra post.

Posted by: Eva Destruction

I imagine http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:FACEBOOK are a representative cross-section of Wikipedia, and do show a higher proportion of white editors than would be expected, even allowing for disproportionate numbers of editors from Britain and Ireland (both with a population about 95% white). The only high-profile Wikipedia editor I can think of who self-identifies as African-American is TonyTheTiger (T-C-L-K-R-D) . There are systemic reasons black editors are unlikely to identify as such on Wikipedia—ED generally targets them until they resign in disgust—but there are still startlingly few.

Posted by: Milton Roe

What if he'd said "Black MEN don't volunteer, and since it's mostly males who edit wikipedia, that doesn't leave meny African American editors."

Posted by: Kelly Martin

There's a difference between volunteering to do something for the greater benefit of a community of which one is a member (even if that community is "humankind as a whole"), and "volunteering" to do something because it amuses you. I wager that most of the people "volunteering" at Wikipedia are doing it because it amuses them to do so; that is, the motivation is self-centered (for the primary benefit of the self) instead of outward (for the primary benefit of others). Essentially, for most Wikipedians, Wikipedia is a hobby, not a volunteer activity.

Posted by: Ottava

Who is Ottova?



By the way, didn't Somey et al spend their time criticizing me for posting mostly one liners?

Posted by: thekohser

That is an excellent point, absolutely true.

Posted by: jayvdb

I agree. Also, because Wikipedia is not well regulated or understood (etc.), people may feel their time is better given to other community service where the link between effort and impact is more direct.

Posted by: Zoloft

I volunteer at the food bank. In the past I've volunteered for MDA and the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. I've attended American Red Cross fundraisers. I participated in local charity drives in my mostly-white community. 'Blacks don't volunteer' is BS. Bauder must not do much charity work.

Posted by: jayvdb

Or he might do charity work which is 'white' in nature.

Posted by: privatemusings

(bit of a side comment - but if you're around, Carbuncle, could I have permission to publish this image on commons, I'd like to start work on a satirical wiki-rag a la onion / private eye, to complement the signpost - p'raps it'd be a good fit? Either ways, if it's ok with you, I'll upload it over there so I could use it.......)

Posted by: carbuncle

You are of course welcome to use it for any purpose which you see fit.

Posted by: SB_Johnny

Posted by: Milton Roe

What if doing something for "humankind as a whole" or even some identifiable schlub in a bad hole, is what amuses me? Or satisfies me? Or allows me to enjoy life? It's hard for me to enjoy anything in life when somebody right in front of me, for reasons not their fault, isn't enjoying life in a way I can easily fix. That's a pretty basic human response, far apart from religion or anything else. It's sort of primal and not reducible to any simpler stuff, since it's probably all bound/wound up in family bonds and community bonds and being a social animal.

Plus, I'm not storing up treasures in Heaven. I don't believe in Heaven.

Posted by: Kelly Martin

Three points here. One, obviously the line between self-gratification and altruism is blurry. Two, the degree to which it's blurry varies from individual to individual. Three, in most people one or the other dominates in any particular action, and it's usually possible to separate the two.

Obviously there's such a thing as self-interested volunteerism: anybody who pitches in to help repair neighborhood community center is engaged in such activity. However, I still consider it genuine volunteerism when one's primary, proximal motivation is to benefit a broader group, even when self-interested motivations are also present. "Fixing someone else's problem that you can easily fix" without expecting compensation is, simply put, altruism, even if you do it because failing to do it makes you feel uneasy, or because doing it makes you feel better about yourself. (It can be argued that if you do not experience those responses, you're morally defective. There's a reason we call such people "heartless" and "callous" and, well, "inhuman".)

In the case of the average Wikipedian, the communal motivation is, I suspect, largely absent, or at least submerged; these people are doing it because they enjoy correcting typos or spelling (that's what drew me in originally), or because stalking vandals gives them an adrenaline rush, or because they want to be an admin because admins are cool, or because they want everyone else to see how terribly smart, erudite, or literate they are. They're not doing it "for that starving child in Africa"; that's at best a secondary motivation, or even a pretext. Yes, there are certainly some Wikipedians who honestly want to share their knowledge solely for the betterment of mankind, but I'm quite certain that they're the minority.

There are compulsive volunteerers: people who have made volunteering (or altruism generally) into a hobby. I've run into a few of them; some of them are very good at what they do, others are not. But I think there's relatively few of them on Wikipedia, if for no other reason that most of them are too busy serving with a dozen other community organizations to edit Wikipedia.

Posted by: TungstenCarbide

There's another point, Kelly. Volunteering makes a person feel better about themselves, much like caring for a house plant raises one's self-esteem, which doesn't fall under the self-gratification classification. When done as a group, volunteering benefits the community's self-image as well as the individual volunteer's, reinforcing the positive strictures of society. Let's face it, you take off the restrictions that society places on humans and we are not pleasant creatures, not compared to dogs anyway as Diogenes was fond of pointing out. Being civilized creatures takes constant work, and volunteering in your community helps polish some of the rough edges. It helps the recipients, the volunteers and the community as a whole. A healthy self-image is important for a species that goes to church on Sunday when not engaging in genocides.

That being said, wikipedia is a MMORPG or a diversion for most of the addicts there, not a volunteer activity.

Posted by: MZMcBride

Quite possible something like that already exists. Search around a bit.

Posted by: Cla68

Both you and Kelly made some really good points. My participation in Wikipedia is not primarily because of altruism, but because it allows me to explore the minutia of one of my hobbies (the Pacific War). I don't think I'm alone in that. If I was motivated by altruism, I would be spending less time with Wikipeida and trying harder to learn Japanese and then running for the local political assembly of the Japanese town where I live, as there are social issues in Japan which need resolving. Wikipedia is hobby or pasttime for most its regular contributors. Improving an article does not give a child in African improved immunity to cholera or tuburculosis. It does not give a bed or sufficient nutrition to an American child in the Mississippi Delta. It's a hobby. Contributors to the WMF need to realize that a percentage of their contributions go to funding a big-city, metropolitan lifestyle in San Francisco for the WMF staff, not to feeding Chinese peasants trying to farm polluted land or Cambodian farmers trying to clear land mines from their farm land.

Posted by: Gruntled

We may not always recognise altruism, or what an editor believes to be altruism, when we see it. Suppose someone firmly believes that he has the truth and the majority are fools, liars or whatever who don't know the truth or are trying to hide it. He will altruistically want to publicise the truth on WP and push aside those who would prevent him. We see not altruism but POV pushing. Similarly, someone may believe that a topic is vital and must be advertised via WP. We see fancruft. A large enough dose of AGF changes our perspective. (That's not to suggest for a minute that all POV pushers or fancruft specialists are altruists!)

Posted by: Milton Roe

Yes, but your hobby could be putting the wings off flies, too. What makes you choose some hobbies over others?

I happen to believe that along with empathy as a primary, all healthy people are born with cleanup impulses that (especially as they grow into adults) make them fix messes (of any kind). We clean. We clean our children, our floors, our cars, we clean and oil our firearms. The people who weren't at all concerned with such stuff didn't leave us their genes, since they were slobs and fuckups they never got a date or their children died.

This stuff is only OCD if it interferes with your life. OCD is abnormal amounts of a perfectly normal impulse. People who have NONE of this impulse are like children. They're also unemployable, since all jobs worth anything involve cleaning up one mess or another (whether on a hard drive, a network, or in Aisle 9).

Now, we've all cleaned up messes as volunteers. Beer cans and soft drink cups in a park that need to go in the trash. If you do that yourself, you don't say: "I'm doing this for Jesus, to earn my place in Heaven!" Nor do you tell yourself that you're on a quest for Humanity. You just think "What an eyesore-- some drunk person or some kid didn't clean up their mess, so some responsible adult has to do it for them..."

Okay, now suppose we see somebody ELSE pick up the soft drink cup at the park and trash it? Do we say: "What a dweeb! That guy must have NO LIFE. He's doing the city's JOB for them, without being PAID. What an idiot. I'll bet he lives in his mother's basement. It probably gives him a big sense of authority to do a city job, like he actually HAD a job.... "

You know, playing devil's advocate, that would really be unfair. As also, any smart remarks about how the guy probably thinks he's being a Great Altruist (like this is helping the starving in Africa-- not), when actually he's merely satisfying his sick obsessiveness about orderliness at the park, or maybe just wasting his valuable time. Or, if he's doing it with a friend, that maybe this is just a mask for a social activity, and gets him no points at all therefore, for being a good-guy.

See my point?

Mr. Trashy

Posted by: EricBarbour

Posted by: Kelly Martin

Indeed. Just as altruistic intent does not guarantee that an editor's contributions will be beneficial, neither does a lack of it guarantee that they'll be harmful. In fact, the dedicated hobbyists are often the best editors, as they have the potential for combining a wide scope of knowledge of a particular topic with a lack of pecuniary interest in forwarding any particular point of view, even though their editing is mainly driven by self-interest.

There's nothing wrong with contributing to Wikipedia nonaltruistically. However, I think it's important to recognize that a lot of Wikipedia's editors aren't volunteers, but instead customers, and I think it's wholly dishonest for Wikipedia to claim tax-exempt charity status when what it really is something closer in nature to my amateur radio club (a 501-c-4 non-profit): a group of people who pool resources to enable a pursuit in a common interest principally for their own (nonmaterial) benefit, rather than for the benefit of some broader community.

Posted by: Abd

Who is Adb?

Posted by: Milton Roe

Well, WR here is more like your radio club. The difference is that WP produces more of a product. It's like Habitat for Humanity: at the end of the day, no matter how much the volunteers enjoyed themselves, or how crappy the house is, there's still that house. How are you going to apprortion that part of the work that was fun and the part that was "common interest" vs. the part that was "community service"?

"You had too damn much fun on this project, so we're not letting you deduct the money you spent"
"Yeah, I had fun! I learned drywalling and met a better class of people, including my future wife..."
"Well, then you really, REALLY can't deduct it!!!"

Posted by: thekohser

Once again, Fred Bauder http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2011-June/066573.html on one of his favorite subjects, what the "Black folk" like and dislike:

Posted by: LessHorrid vanU

"Habitat for Humanity..."? How ironic.




I think it is more reprehensible than you imply; I sense that Southern Fried Fred is suggesting that "Black folk" are not sophisticated enough to be interested in editing an encyclopedia, but preferring the less mentally strenuous activity of commenting on fb and twitter.

Posted by: Milton Roe

They twitter about watermellon and McDonald's, too. "Facebook: I'm lovin' it." Oh, wait, that one's been used.

Fred, since we have such a dry vanilla WP, perhaps you could start a chocolate-dipped version. "Soulpedia"? Long as we straight where brothas hang, what yo candyass care what the sucka's called?

Posted by: Mathsci

Interesting that he made this statement after he appeared as an adjudicator on race matters on the Arbitration Enforcement noticeboard.

Posted by: EricBarbour

Oooh! That's a goooood one!

If Fred had said that on TV, radio, or in a newspaper or magazine article, people would be screaming for his head right now. On a stick.

But no, he said it on obscure, nerd-heavy Wikipedia. On one of their internal mailing lists, even. No one notices or cares.

I wonder if I should tell some civil-rights activists about this......

Posted by: HRIP7

Fred seems http://www.businessinsider.com/twitter-study-results-2010-4 http://www.businessinsider.com/everything-you-need-to-know-about-whos-using-twitter-2010-4 though.

Posted by: LessHorrid vanU

Those links, especially the first, point out the dynamics why a higher proportion of black Americans may be involved in Twitter than their representation in the general population may otherwise indicate, whereas Fred points out the "dry" nature of writing encyclopedia, which he infers is not attractive to the "Black folk". Now, there is a difference in how a set of information is being presented, and one of them speaks of an attitude that Black folk are less apt at certain situations. That attitude has a name. Prejudice.

Posted by: RMHED

Is Fred Bauder effectively saying "niggers are dumb" ?