Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/2012-01-30/Featured content

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• Personal preference - I don't like the panorama picture view. It seems to distort the image in an unpleasant way. MathewTownsend (talk) 01:56, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
• What stood out to me in the list of new featured articles were the nationality descriptors: American, American, Canadian, Australian, Irish, American, American, British. There were certainly some great topics among them, but they were conspicuously confined to the Anglosphere. —tktktk 04:22, 2 February 2012 (UTC)
  • en.WP is biassed towards the anglosphere. It could hardly be otherwise. The other WPs are similar, I think, although a brief survey would reveal more. Mathew, I asked for the "widescreen" view at the bottom to be reverted if anyone didn't like it. I guess this was fairly late in the process. Tony (talk) 13:26, 2 February 2012 (UTC)
    • That is a personal preference and may not be shared by others. MathewTownsend (talk) 15:52, 2 February 2012 (UTC)
    • It oughtn't be. Whereas with languages such as Finnish or Thai you can safely assume the reader will be Finnish or Thai or at least widely familiar with Finnish or Thai culture, you can make no such assumption with English or Spanish. 31.6% of readers of en.wiki come from places other than North America, the British Isles, or the Antipodes. ― A. di M.​  11:56, 4 February 2012 (UTC)
• Tktktk, as you say, the topics are various:

1. rhythm and blue pop song, Grammy Award winner (by African American Beyoncé Knowles)
2. first female governor of the American state of Kentucky
3. Canadian doctor and researcher
4. Australian naval officer, who went down with his ship
5. Irish composer, teacher and conductor, one of the founders of the Royal College of Music
6. 1852 novella by American Stephen Crane
7. sociologist, first African American doctorate from Harvard, peace and civil rights activist
8. 18th century British warship

• You could say two women and six men (including Crane) were covered, or you could say two articles were on military topics and five were biographies, or that there were two African Americans covered vs six non African Americans, etc. Seems to me that nationality is only one variable in looking at diversity. MathewTownsend (talk) 15:52, 2 February 2012 (UTC)
• Thank-you for parity in nationality descriptors. It is appreciated. Now if it could be equally applied to the rest of the project, which still sees the US as the default setting... 86.134.50.51 (talk) 15:56, 3 February 2012 (UTC)
  • A di M and Mathew Townsend: it was an observation, not an opinion. Tony (talk) 13:37, 5 February 2012 (UTC)