The bảohouse is the journal of inspiration & change engineer bảo.thiên.ngô who loves to help comm­unities move towards an equitably enjoyed multicultural society.
Nov
24th
Sat

2012 Wikipedia Asian American Representative Selection

A few Wikipedia editors, in following consensus-driven practices in modifying a Wikipedia article, in this case, Asian American, to discern which portraits would best represent the Asian American article. The representative selection process is undergoing a selection process that ends December 18.

Currently, the article features these notable Asian Americans, while the selection process thread contains nominations for a new set of representatives:

Sadly, my knowledge of these notables are rather depressing. The discussion at the selection process thread raised concerns between the importance of fair representation against that of notability. Granted, all of these individuals pass the minimum Wikipedia standard for notability, but perhaps a more telling way of determining notability is the number of webpages their name is found in cyberspace discussions. Sessue Hayakawa, for example, only manages to score 241,000 results on Google, compared to Nadia Ali’s 9.4 million results. One might say, “Well that method skews towards people who are more recent.” While that is true, why is it that people still talk about Abraham Lincoln and Albert Einstein, even though they are long gone (especially Lincoln!)? Their notability comes from lasting repercussions that continues to this day. Media, educational institutions, and government play large roles in continuing the discussion of people long deceased. It’s a matter of whether their names has been somehow ingrained into the American culture.

Of course this raises the question of how do Asian Americans, with their contributions and legacies matched against other Americans, fare in terms of media portrayal?

• Comments • 16 notes
  1. peayeahknow reblogged this from fascinasians
  2. tracytheterrible reblogged this from fascinasians
  3. lunacoronis reblogged this from fascinasians
  4. genitalslurpees reblogged this from fascinasians
  5. fascinasians reblogged this from baohouse
  6. nomoretexasgovernorsforpresident reblogged this from 18mr
  7. 18mr reblogged this from baohouse and added:
    This is really interesting — especially because the Wikipedia process is very solid. Who else should be on this list?
  8. baohouse posted this