QUOTE(Limey @ Thu 14th January 2010, 5:15pm)
Ladies and Gentleman of the Wikipedia Review, it is my great pleasure to introduce to you, my new blog:
On Wikipedia (named somewhat in honor of the classic On War). Along with coauthor, known as "Fact Man", I hope to present new and insightful views on Wikipedia. The blog begins with an introductory series entitled "Who's On Wikipedia?" by my co-author.
The highlights of the first two posts of "Who's on Wikipedia", for those of you too lazy to actually go read my new site:[list]
[*]80% of BLPs are of men
Goes along with more than half being minor sports figures. (Yes, I know women play football. Spare me.)
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[*]Roughly half of all Wikipedia biographies are of people from the US, UK, and Canada
You mean half of WP BLPs on en.wiki, the English language WP?
Well, these are the three countries with the largest number of primary English speakers who have access to the internet, yes? Again, not surprising. You'd find the same thing with any local thing, like streetnames (on the English WP, more streetnames will be those from English-speaking countries). The main damning fact here is that the fact that BLPs DO track spoken language means we ARE getting into the BLPs of parochially notable people, very much like local street names. That's what's not good.
QUOTE
[*]Sweden and Norway seem to be bizarrely overrepresented among WP BLPs
Are you sure you got past last names starting with "A"?