Return to Answer

Global coverage champion

This is a bit of a rubbish name, but let me explain what I mean, and perhaps someone can come up with a better one.

Stack Exchange is mostly conducted in English. For that reason, its coverage usually leans very heavily towards the preoccupations of people who, like myself, speak English.

To address this problem, we need more questions and answers about neglected (non-Anglophone) subjects. The Global Coverage Champions would be empowered to give a substantial rep bonus (hundreds or thousands of points) to users who ask and answer good questions on these topics.

SE is, of course, mainly technical sites. One imagines (though I could be wrong) that there is relatively little difference in the technical needs of people in Kenya, Peru, India, Canada or Italy. Python is Python, wherever you go.

It's a very different story on non-technical sites like History or Politics SE. The biggest tag is World War 2 - it has 1520 questions. For context, there are 126 questions about Africa. WW2 is an important subject, but it's not more important than the history of an entire continent since the beginning of time.

Another example: United States has 1478 questions. That's more than Russia, India, Japan and China combined. Again US history is an important topic, but is it more significant than the history of all those countries put together? Note that the precolonial Americas is not covered under this tag. Even if we include North America's entire history from European arrival to the present day, it's a far smaller expanse of time than the whole of Indian or Chinese history. And unlike African precolonial history, which was shamefully ignored by most academics until very recently, copious secondary sources (in languages other than English) exist which cover the history of the above four countries.

Politics SE is even more one-sided. It has 15,088 questions, and 6669 of these are tagged with United States! 1518 are tagged with United Kingdom.

Someone needs to reward users who can broaden the scope of these sites

This is not about penalising people who write on well-trodden topics. In no way am I suggesting that we need fewer questions about Anglophone countries and Anglophone preoccupations. I myself have written mostly about those topics.

What we need to do is generate more questions and answers about neglected topics. Someone needs to be empowered to give a substantial rep bonus (hundreds or thousands of points) to users who ask and answer good questions on these topics. If a post gets, say, a score of 5 or more and is not closed, the user should get points for writing it.

That person should solicit those questions and answers from, for example, non-English language stacks on SE. They should find out where speakers of Hindi, Japanese, Arabic or Swahili congregate across the internet and ask those people to submit questions here.

I've chosen nationality as the thing to focus on, but it's well known that SE, like much of the internet, has a diversity problem in more ways than one. If we try this and succeed, we can replicate the strategy for other diversity issues as well.

Global coverage champion

This is a bit of a rubbish name, but let me explain what I mean, and perhaps someone can come up with a better one.

Stack Exchange is mostly conducted in English. For that reason, its coverage usually leans very heavily towards the preoccupations of people who, like myself, speak English.

To address this problem, we need more questions and answers about neglected (non-Anglophone) subjects. The Global Coverage Champions would be empowered to give a substantial rep bonus (hundreds or thousands of points) to users who ask and answer good questions on these topics.

SE is, of course, mainly technical sites. One imagines (though I could be wrong) that there is relatively little difference in the technical needs of people in Kenya, Peru, India, Canada or Italy. Python is Python, wherever you go.

It's a very different story on non-technical sites like History or Politics SE. The biggest tag is World War 2 - it has 1520 questions. For context, there are 126 questions about Africa. WW2 is an important subject, but it's not more important than the history of an entire continent since the beginning of time.

Another example: United States has 1478 questions. That's more than Russia, India, Japan and China combined. Again US history is an important topic, but is it more significant than the history of all those countries put together? Note that the precolonial Americas is not covered under this tag. Even if we include North America's entire history from European arrival to the present day, it's a far smaller expanse of time than the whole of Indian or Chinese history. And unlike African precolonial history, which was shamefully ignored by most academics until very recently, copious secondary sources (in languages other than English) exist which cover the history of the above four countries.

Politics SE is even more one-sided. It has 15,088 questions, and 6669 of these are tagged with United States! 1518 are tagged with United Kingdom.

Someone needs to reward users who can broaden the scope of these sites

This is not about penalising people who write on well-trodden topics. In no way am I suggesting that we need fewer questions about Anglophone countries and Anglophone preoccupations. I myself have written mostly about those topics.

What we need to do is generate more questions and answers about neglected topics. Someone needs to be empowered to give a substantial rep bonus (hundreds or thousands of points) to users who ask and answer good questions on these topics. If a post gets, say, a score of 5 or more and is not closed, the user should get points for writing it.

The Global Coverage Champion should solicit those questions and answers from, for example, non-English language stacks on SE. They should find out where speakers of Hindi, Japanese, Arabic or Swahili congregate across the internet and ask those people to submit questions here.

I've chosen nationality as the thing to focus on, but it's well known that SE, like much of the internet, has a diversity problem in more ways than one. If we try this and succeed, we can replicate the strategy for other diversity issues as well.

Global coverage champion

This is a bit of a rubbish name, but let me explain what I mean, and perhaps someone can come up with a better one.

Stack Exchange is mostly conducted in English. For that reason, its coverage usually leans very heavily towards the preoccupations of people who, like myself, speak English.

To address this problem, we need more questions and answers about neglected (non-Anglophone) subjects. The Global Coverage Champoins would be empowered to give a substantial rep bonus (hundreds or thousands of points) to users who ask and answer good questions on these topics.

SE is of course mainly technical sites. One imagines (though I could be wrong) that there is relatively little difference in the technical needs of people in Kenya, Peru, India, Canada or Italy. Python is Python, wherever you go.

It's a very different story on non-technical site like History or Politics SE. The biggest tag is World War 2 - it has 1520 questions. For context, there are 126 questions about Africa. WW2 is an important subject, but it's not more important than the history of an entire continent since the beginning of time.

Another example: United States has 1478 questions. That's more than Russia, India, Japan and China combined. Again US history is an important topic, but is it more significant than the history of all those countries put together? Note that the precolonial Americas is not covered under this tag. Even if we include North America's entire history from European arrival to the present day, it's a far smaller expanse of time than the whole of Indian or Chinese history. And unlike African precolonial history, which was shamefully ignored by most academics until very recently, copious secondary sources (in languages other than English) exist which cover the history of the above four countries.

Politics SE is even more one-sided. It has 15,088 questions, and 6669 of these are tagged with United States! 1518 are tagged with United Kingdom.

Someone needs to reward users who can broaden the scope of these sites

This is not about penalising people who write on well-trodden topics. In no way am I suggesting that we need fewer questions about Anglophone countries and Anglophone preoccupations. I myself have written mostly about those topics.

What we need to do is generate more questions and answers about neglected topics. Someone needs to be empowered to give a substantial rep bonus (hundreds or thousands of points) to users who ask and answer good questions on these topics. If a post gets, say, a score of 5 or more and is not closed, the user should get points for writing it.

That person should solicit those questions and answers from, for example, non-English language stacks on SE. They should find out where speakers of Hindi, Japanese, Arabic or Swahili congregate across the internet and ask those people to submit questions here.

I've chosen nationality as the thing to focus on, but it's well known that SE like much of the internet has a diversity problem in more ways than one. If we try this, and succeed, we can replicate the strategy for other diversity issues as well.

Global coverage champion

This is a bit of a rubbish name, but let me explain what I mean, and perhaps someone can come up with a better one.

Stack Exchange is mostly conducted in English. For that reason, its coverage usually leans very heavily towards the preoccupations of people who, like myself, speak English.

To address this problem, we need more questions and answers about neglected (non-Anglophone) subjects. The Global Coverage Champions would be empowered to give a substantial rep bonus (hundreds or thousands of points) to users who ask and answer good questions on these topics.

SE is, of course, mainly technical sites. One imagines (though I could be wrong) that there is relatively little difference in the technical needs of people in Kenya, Peru, India, Canada or Italy. Python is Python, wherever you go.

It's a very different story on non-technical sites like History or Politics SE. The biggest tag is World War 2 - it has 1520 questions. For context, there are 126 questions about Africa. WW2 is an important subject, but it's not more important than the history of an entire continent since the beginning of time.

Another example: United States has 1478 questions. That's more than Russia, India, Japan and China combined. Again US history is an important topic, but is it more significant than the history of all those countries put together? Note that the precolonial Americas is not covered under this tag. Even if we include North America's entire history from European arrival to the present day, it's a far smaller expanse of time than the whole of Indian or Chinese history. And unlike African precolonial history, which was shamefully ignored by most academics until very recently, copious secondary sources (in languages other than English) exist which cover the history of the above four countries.

Politics SE is even more one-sided. It has 15,088 questions, and 6669 of these are tagged with United States! 1518 are tagged with United Kingdom.

Someone needs to reward users who can broaden the scope of these sites

This is not about penalising people who write on well-trodden topics. In no way am I suggesting that we need fewer questions about Anglophone countries and Anglophone preoccupations. I myself have written mostly about those topics.

What we need to do is generate more questions and answers about neglected topics. Someone needs to be empowered to give a substantial rep bonus (hundreds or thousands of points) to users who ask and answer good questions on these topics. If a post gets, say, a score of 5 or more and is not closed, the user should get points for writing it.

That person should solicit those questions and answers from, for example, non-English language stacks on SE. They should find out where speakers of Hindi, Japanese, Arabic or Swahili congregate across the internet and ask those people to submit questions here.

I've chosen nationality as the thing to focus on, but it's well known that SE, like much of the internet, has a diversity problem in more ways than one. If we try this and succeed, we can replicate the strategy for other diversity issues as well.

Global coverage champion

This is a bit of a rubbish name, but let me explain what I mean, and perhaps someone can come up with a better one.

Stack Exchange is mostly conducted in English. For that reason, its coverage usually leans very heavily towards the preoccupations of people who, like myself, speak English.

To address this problem, we need more questions and answers about neglected (non-Anglophone) subjects. The Global Coverage Champoins would be empowered to give a substantial rep bonus (hundreds or thousands of points) to users who ask and answer good questions on these topics.

SE is of course mainly technical sites. One imagines (though I could be wrong) that there is relatively little difference in the technical needs of people in Kenya, Peru, India, Canada or Italy. Python is Python, wherever you go.

It's a very different story on non-technical site like History or Politics SE. The biggest tag is World War 2 - it has 1520 questions. For context, there are 126 questions about Africa. WW2 is an important subject, but it's not more important than the history of an entire continent since the beginning of time.

Another example: United States has 1478 questions. That's more than Russia, India, Japan and China combined. Again US history is an important topic, but is it more significant than the history of all those countries put together? Note that the precolonial Americas is not covered under this tag. Even if we include North America's entire history from European arrival to the present day, it's a far smaller expanse of time than the whole of Indian or Chinese history. And unlike African precolonial history, which was shamefully ignored by most academics until very recently, copious secondary sources (in languages other than English) exist which cover the history of the above four countries.

Politics SE is even more one-sided. It has 15,088 questions, and 6669 of these are tagged with United States! 1518 are tagged with United Kingdom.

Someone needs to reward users who can broaden the scope of these sites

This is not about penalising people who write on well-trodden topics. In no way am I suggesting that we need fewer questions about Anglophone countries and Anglophone preoccupations. I myself have written mostly about those topics.

What we need to do is generate more questions and answers about neglected topics. Someone needs to be empowered to give a substantial rep bonus (hundreds or thousands of points) to users who ask and answer good questions on these topics. If a post gets, say, a score of 5 or more and is not closed, the user should get points for writing it.

That person should solicit those questions and answers from, for example, non-English language stacks on SE. They should find out where speakers of Hindi, Japanese, Arabic or Swahili congregate across the internet and ask those people to submit questions here.

I've chosen nationality as the thing to focus on, but it's well known that SE like much of the internet has a diversity problem in more ways than one. If we try this, and succeed, we can replicate the strategy for other diversity issues as well.

Global coverage champion

This is a bit of a rubbish name, but let me explain what I mean, and perhaps someone can come up with a better one.

Stack Exchange is mostly conducted in English. For that reason, its coverage usually leans very heavily towards the preoccupations of people who, like myself, speak English.

To address this problem, we need more questions and answers about neglected (non-Anglophone) subjects. The Global Coverage Champoins would be empowered to give a substantial rep bonus (hundreds or thousands of points) to users who ask and answer good questions on these topics.

SE is of course mainly technical sites. One imagines (though I could be wrong) that there is relatively little difference in the technical needs of people in Kenya, Peru, India, Canada or Italy. Python is Python, wherever you go.

It's a very different story on non-technical site like History or Politics SE. The biggest tag is World War 2 - it has 1520 questions. For context, there are 126 questions about Africa. WW2 is an important subject, but it's not more important than the history of an entire continent since the beginning of time.

Another example: United States has 1478 questions. That's more than Russia, India, Japan and China combined. Again US history is an important topic, but is it more significant than the history of all those countries put together? Note that the precolonial Americas is not covered under this tag. Even if we include North America's entire history from European arrival to the present day, it's a far smaller expanse of time than the whole of Indian or Chinese history. And unlike African precolonial history, which was shamefully ignored by most academics until very recently, copious secondary sources (in languages other than English) exist which cover the history of the above four countries.

Politics SE is even more one-sided. It has 15,088 questions, and 6669 of these are tagged with United States! 1518 are tagged with United Kingdom.

Someone needs to reward users who can broaden the scope of these sites

This is not about penalising people who write on well-trodden topics. In no way am I suggesting that we need fewer questions about Anglophone countries and Anglophone preoccupations. I myself have written mostly about those topics.

What we need to do is generate more questions and answers about neglected topics. Someone needs to be empowered to give a substantial rep bonus (hundreds or thousands of points) to users who ask and answer good questions on these topics. If a post gets, say, a score of 5 or more and is not closed, the user should get points for writing it.

That person should solicit those questions and answers from, for example, non-English language stacks on SE. They should find out where speakers of Hindi, Japanese, Arabic or Swahili congregate across the internet and ask those people to submit questions here.

I've chosen nationality as the thing to focus on, but it's well known that SE like much of the internet has a diversity problem in more ways than one. If we try this, and succeed, we can replicate the strategy for other diversity issues as well.