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User:RandomP/Economy of X

< User:RandomP

What's all this, then?

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I've noticed that for many articles about countries, the economy section flatly fails to adhere to the NPOV. At least partly, this appears to be because prose is copied verbatim from the CIA world factbook. In order to get an idea of the scope of the problem, I'm currently looking at all country articles, and the list below is supposed to help me keep track.

The most common problem, by far, is that a causal relationship is asserted as a statement, without attributing it to anyone. Economics is complicated, and care must be taken only to use this construction when the causation is, well, beyond a reasonable doubt.

Passing judgement on a government, in the way the CIA factbook frequently does by declaring it or its economic policies "sound", "imprudent", and the like, is unacceptable except, possibly, in the most extreme of cases.

There's also a general point of view that high GDP and full employment are ipso facto good things; this isn't very controversial, but it's not universally accepted either. When such problems can be fixed with simple rewording, I'll generally do that.

Statistics

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(I'm not sure all the counts are accurate, I copy-and-pasted to wc):

Of 246 articles I looked at, 108 seemed okay with regard to the concerns above (though 8 of those had other, non-NPOV issues); 65 had problems (4 of which had severe problems) with the NPOV; 12 had no economy section, or only numbers in the economy section; 57 countries received no classification, which means that while the section appears troubling, I'm not totally sure that it's violating the NPOV. Those countries don't have severe issues.

Strategy

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I'm thinking of setting up a "pipeline", in a way, in order to fix those countries:

  • decide which countries to fix, review and archive the economy section
  • check the article to see whether there's already a discussion going on about these issues
  • save a copy of the economy section
  • post a (boilerplate, mostly) text to the article's talk page
  • wait a certain period (1 week is my current idea), during which I intend to be available for discussion
  • if no consensus has been reached, go back to the previous step
  • make changes to the article

I will go slow, starting by putting one article a day in the pipeline. I will also start with countries that have severe issues but whose articles aren't extremely heavily edited.

Boilerplate text (under construction)

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I have reviewed the "Economy" section in all country articles on Wikipedia; unfortunately, many of them have NPOV issues, and by my reading, this article is one of them.

Common issues with this section include:

  • verbatim quotes from the CIA world factbook
  • describing a country's economic policy as "sound", "unsound", "imprudent", etc.
  • assuming a link between economic health and low inflation
  • using expressions like "the GDP improved" (should be increased), "beneficial levels of inflation" (should be low levels of inflation), etc.
  • postulating cause-effect relationships that seem controversial.

Issues in this specific article are:

This note will stay up for a week before I'll make any further changes. Please feel free to be bold and fix the article yourself, though! I'll also be monitoring this discussion page, and will try answering any concerns.

If you want to discuss the entire project, you can do so on my talk page or at the talk page for this specific project.

The perfect Economy section

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I personally would like to find, at least, something about the following numbers:

  • real GDP growth per year in recent years. Note that this number is properly expressed in percent per annum, not just percent.
  • real GDP per capita growth. This is arguably even more important than the previous measure, because real GDP per capita is what is widely used as a measure of economic development. Again, percent per annum, not just percent.
  • currency: this is important! it's no longer the case that it's "normal" for a country to have its own currency, and even if it does, this currency might or might not be pegged. If it's pegged, is it backed?
  • inflation: inflation should always be stated with both the currency and the region it applies to! a pegged currency naturally has an inflation rate very close to that of the currency it's pegged to. Also keep in mind that inflation isn't necessarily a bad thing, at least according to the NPOV.
  • income distribution: there's a standard measure of this, the name of which I forget.

The Pipeline

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Considered for talk page notice

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Talk page notice given

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Through the pipeline

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Panama#Economy

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considered: June 18 talk page notice: June 18 fixed (by other editor): September 17

notes: rvv

Mali#Economy

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considered: June 18 talk page notice: June 19 fixed: September 17

notes: rvv

Tuvalu#Economy

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considered: June 19 talk page notice: June 20 fixed: September 17

Georgia (country)#Economy

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considered: June 21 talk page notice: June 21 half-fix (needs rewrite): September 17

Economy section okay (for now) (108 countries)

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totally okay

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minor edits required

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  •   Bermuda (UK overseas territory) ("equivalent", not equal?)
  •   Gambia, The – Republic of The Gambia (needs uspov and copyedit though)
  •   Liechtenstein – Principality of Liechtenstein (minor copyedit required)
  •   Portugal – Portuguese Republic (copyedit required though)
  •   Puerto Rico – Commonwealth of Puerto Rico (US overseas commonwealth) (copyedit though - compares median GDP in one region with average GDP in another)
  •   Saint Pierre and Miquelon (French overseas community)
  •   Saudi Arabia – Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (copyedit though)
  •   Svalbard (Territory of Norway) (uspov though)

Economy section has problems (65 countries)

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fixed (on reversal watch)

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in the pipeline

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less severe issues

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severe issues

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Review again (57 countries)

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No Economy section (12 countries)

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  1. ^ See also Nagorno-Karabakh.
  2. ^ Argentina is also named Argentine Nation for purposes of legislation.
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference ABK was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
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