Grants talk:IdeaLab/Location based editors

Strong oppose

• Strong oppose I think this goes against the principles of Wikimedia, to allow anyone to contribute.Leochato (talk)

@Rajan raj pandey: I strongly oppose this idea. This is the opposite of what Wikimedia needs.

• Under the proposal, content would never get updated if there is no local editor to approve the revisions, which would cause the overall quality of the project to go down.

• The proposal would encourage bias by allowing local editors to insert their own biases. Since the pages would be mostly written by local editors, foreign readers who just want to understand, for example, Kathmandu culture will be confused because the article was written from a local perspective. On English Wikipedia, we have the problem of systemic bias towards Anglosphere countries like the United States and the United Kingdom. We are trying to fix this problem through WikiProjects and awareness campaigns. But we generally see the pro-English systemic bias as a bad thing, not a good one.

• Plus, the proposal if implemented would violate the Wikimedia Terms of Use because it in effect makes local editors "own" the content.

• For the idea which are physically available , i can visit the place to collect the ideas wheras the idea which are not physically available i can take interview of the local or native people No, you can't do that. Wikipedia does not allow original research. Information in Wikipedia must be from publicly published sources.

• Such a policy will make non-local editors feel unwelcome, like a lower class of editors, after seeing the local editors with rights that foreign editors can never obtain.

For all these reasons, I Strongly oppose this idea. — Mr. Guye (talk) (contribs)  02:03, 23 July 2018 (UTC)

• Strong oppose This proposal is completely against the spirit of Wikipeda/Wikimedia. If favourises censorship and biased contributions. Moreover it is not practically applicable (e.g. who validates local contributors? can sources written by non-local scholars be considered?). Wikipedia is based on sources, that anyone can consult and use, not on the personal experience of the locals. --Ruthven (msg) 03:26, 23 July 2018 (UTC)
• Agreed, this is completely against the principles of Wikipedia, and further, this proposal seems ill-fleshed-out and more like a first draft than anything. Jjjjjjdddddd (talk) 07:49, 23 July 2018 (UTC)

• Strong oppose This is exactly the opposite of what Wikipedia and Wikimedia has stood for. Contributions should not be restricted as that would only encourage bias and people taking "ownership" of content. Ciridae (talk) 10:59, 24 July 2018 (UTC)

• COMMENT: Let's keep this friendly. The idea clearly won't be adopted, so a repetitive list of criticisms with adverbs won't be necessary. Great floors (talk) 13:24, 24 July 2018 (UTC)

• @Great floors: Everyone has been civil so far. Furthermore, "The idea clearly won't be adopted" is a really bad condition for someone to determine whether their will state their opinion. — Mr. Guye (talk) (contribs)  22:07, 26 July 2018 (UTC)

• The proposer was surely well-intentioned, but the proposal is obviously incompatible with Wikipedia's basic principles. It would be easy for many contributors to arrive here, leaving comment after comment about how strongly they oppose this idea. But that would be completely unnecessary and might give newer contributors the idea that WP is a harsh environment. So I wrote a reminder to stay friendly, no more. And subsequent comments were milder than the original ones. Nothing wrong with the original posts, but twenty or fifty such posts surely wouldn't be necessary. Being nice is how we will grow the community. Great floors (talk) 15:06, 27 July 2018 (UTC)

• Strong oppose Now what wikipedia is about - there are no specific metrics about how many 'non locals' actually edit in areas that they are not from... but the principle of this idea goes against what wikipedia is all about. :JarrahTree (talk) 06:01, 26 July 2018 (UTC)
• Strong oppose For all the reasons given above. MargaretRDonald (talk) 00:47, 27 July 2018 (UTC)
• Strong oppose That's very counterproductive --Louis H. G. (talk) 04:44, 27 July 2018 (UTC)

Knowledge about a thing and closeness to the thing

Not sure if this is a good idea. Some years back a contributor in Norway wrote a lot about Nepal, and under this proposal it seems like he would not be able to do so. There are several similar examples. I'm not saying that it is a bad idea to know where the editors are based, just that it has consequences if the location is used as a limiting or filtering factor for what a editor can write about.

One thing that could be interesting is to be able to address a question to users that live in a specific area, for example to ask them to photograph special geographic features. That although makes it necessary to communicate in several languages, and often in languages unfamiliar to the sender of the question. — Jeblad 07:35, 24 July 2018 (UTC)