A fact from Tumba-Ngiri-Maindombe appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 1 February 2012 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:
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Comparing an area in Africa to a European country or an American state is a classic example of systemic bias, and I'm surprised it wasnt picked up earlier. Also, using Maryland is the worst possible example for comparing area because its such a wonky shape. Why not use examples that are a 100% comparison, rather than half the size? Places like West Virginia or Ireland or Sri Lanka are a comparable size - why pick a place like Belgium that is less than half the size - is it to try to make the wetland seem larger? Mdw0 (talk) 00:12, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I didn't write that line myself, but a quick glance at the sources indicates that those are the places that were described. If you can find a comparable source comparing it Sri Lanka, I agree that that would be a worthwhile change. Cheers, Khazar (talk) 00:18, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Do we really need a source directly comparing it to Sri Lanka? Or is two different sources showing comparable area OK? The latter I could get in 5 minutes. Mdw0 (talk) 00:27, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Hmm. It's a borderline case, but it seems like that's a little bit like original research to make a comparison ourselves to a country we like better instead of relying on sources, even for a comparison this minor. I think I'd be more comfortable staying with the given information, but if you find a better source out there, obviously I'm all for it. I do think your point is a good one. -- Khazar (talk) 00:39, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
There is systemic bias in the range of topics covered by Wikipedia, the content of the article on each topic and the topics that readers choose to read. Adding an article on this topic presumably helps counter systemic bias, but the author's prejudices and those of the sources introduce bias into the content of the article. That is very hard to avoid. The area comparisons in this article try to make the subject accessible to the majority of readers. That would be why the sources made these comparisons. I am not sure if that is bias or realism, an attempt to counter the audience's systemic bias. Aymatth2 (talk) 13:25, 2 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
In that case do we as Wikipedians have a duty to counter systemic bias when we see it? Especially in a case like this where its easy to correct. I dont believe the choice of comparative areas was used to enhance access, it was done to promote drama. The areas chosen were less than half the size in an attempt to make the area of the wetland seem larger. Mdw0 (talk) 00:57, 7 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Wikipedians tend to use the term "systemic bias" in the sense that article topics and their depth of coverage are skewed towards the interests of their contributors, mostly prosperous but introverted young males in the US or UK. We can try to address this type of bias by writing or expanding articles on poorly-covered subjects like this one. There is also systemic bias at the consumption end - the audience is only interested in a narrow range of subjects. We can try to get readers interested in other subjects by promoting an article on the front page with a dramatic tagline that most of the predicted audience can relate to like "twice the size of Belgium". In this case results were underwhelming: 1815 page views.
Since almost all accesses from now on will be by people looking for information on the subject, I suppose there would be no harm in replacing the comparisons with ones like one eight of the size of the Kamchatka Peninsula or twice the size of Haiti, if you can find sources... Aymatth2 (talk) 02:49, 7 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
