Talk:List of indices of freedom

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So what is the freeest country in the World. It appears to be Ireland, who are near the top in all three rankings. But I'm biased, since Im from there. --Richy 20:23, 10 May 2005 (UTC)

By these rankings, it would be one of these (free, free, good sitation).

  • Canada
  • Denmark
  • Estonia
  • Finland
  • Germany —Preceding unsigned comment added by 138.246.7.102 (talk) 09:58, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
  • Iceland
  • Republic of Ireland
  • Netherlands
  • New Zealand
  • Sweden
  • Switzerland

The next tier, roughly speaking, are the countries with free, free, satisfactory situation for press freedom (since press freedom is broken up into 5 divisions, not 4 or 3).

  • Australia
  • Chile
  • United Kingdom
  • United States

The interesting thing is that with the exception of Chile, every country in the above list is:

  • in Northern or Western Europe
  • a former colony of England (US, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Ireland) where the English culture, language, etc. took root

Daniel Quinlan

Contents

[edit] Bias in measurement

Not to mention that these rankings are based on western values, any suprise that western countries rank high? That's like asking a person to write an essay on humanity-- chances are they will set the bar low enough to pass as good.

And the english culture was that of aristocracy; the ruling of the higher estates upon the peasants-- not freedom, that is why revolution brought that system down... I think what you mean to say is that those countries have democracies (which comes from Greek culture...).

- 4.152.102.64

Regarding bias in measurement, it's not really a factor here I think since western culture values freedom higher than some other cultures. The article is about freedom, it does not try to define best or greatest overall (that would be POV anyway), just list the degree of freedom (as measured by several western institutions, not us). Second, the history of how English culture evolved from feudalism, monarchy, and aristocracy is besides the point I was making as well. Finally, democracy alone doesn't guarantee freedom, or the same level of freedom. I should also point out that some (maybe all) of the countries listed have a fair claim to not being derived from Greek democracy. Being first doesn't guarantee lineage. For example, the Althing of Iceland. Daniel Quinlan 23:29, 7 November 2005 (UTC)
Zimbabwe and Myanmar are in the least free section, both were ruled by the English. The Estonians come out in the best group, but are not Western European or English. The Japanese and Mauritians come out generally good. They are largely or almost exclusively not of Western European descent.--T. Anthony 02:35, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Inherently NPOV

I may just nominate this for deletion, because it's inherently POV. First of all, it's original research because it uses it's own qualifiers regarding "free", "mostly free", etc... Second, it is making factual statements about the amount of freedom things have. Wikipedia is simply not allowed to do that, period. Wikipedia can have articles about specific studies if they're notable, but not have an article stating as a matter of fact how much freedom countries have. Nathan J. Yoder 07:28, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

Umm, the qualifiers have been made by the indices listed...

[edit] Economic "Freedom"

What exactly is "economic freedom"? I would argue it has nothing to do with what we think of as individual freedom - indeed it has more to do with how free corporations are, which arguably is the opposite of freedom for individuals. It should be noted that the Wall Street Journal and Heritage Foundation are both extreme even in the USA regarding the myth of the free-market as the solution to all problems.

I would argue these indices should be striken - and unfortunately that doesn't leave this "article" with much content.

Brianski 12:32, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

The indices exist external to Wikipedia. Just because you don't like them, it doesn't mean we should pretend they don't exist. Average Earthman 11:00, 2 March 2006 (UTC)
These indices certainly exist independently of WP; but presenting them in this precise manner includes some claims and statements which should be either substantiated or removed.
The article presents a couple of newspapers and a couple of conservative think-tanks as "NGO's". This is a choice, and a somewhat surprising one. As an effect, a listing partly based on the amount of income taxes is presented as a an "index of freedom". This is a highly controversial POV. (Note, that my comments are just from following the links to the WP articles of the various groups and companies behind these indices, and from a general knowledge about how income taxes are viewed by different political groups.)
There is also a selection of a few sources and lists, I think. From some comments on this talk page, you might get the impression that actually some authors think that the US should be placed rather high on any index, if the index is to be worthy of inclusion here. Hopefully, this is not a consensus opinion of the actual article authors.
If this article is to be retained essentially unchanged, then there should be some sources added which shows that the view and opinion that these indices indeed measure freedom, and that the news publications and conservative think-tanks indeed are important and mainstream NGO's, is based on a consensus in the academic world of political science and related subjects. If not this is so and can be shown to be so, then the presentation of the lists should be changed radically.
I am quite aware that article authors with libertarian opinions might be of the opinion that it is an objective truth that higher income taxes automatically infringes people's freedom, and that outspokenly libertarian foundations are the best representatives of NGO's you could think of; after all, who would be more anti-government? However, e.g. article authors with marxist leanings would probably come to other solutions; and it is not the purpose of WP to propagate the one or the other opinion as the undisputable truth. If the choices and presentations only depend on the authors personal basic convictions and not sustained by exterior sources, then they should be removed from WP. This is not a question of whether the libertarian point of view is the true one or not, but of basing the articles on reliable sources.
Note that removing or qualifying the claims that these be indices of freedom produced by NGO's does not mean that the listings themselves need to be qualified or removed from Wikipedia. The listings do exist; that is an objective and WP-independent fact; and IMHO they indeed have enough general encyclopedial interest to be presented. The question is what they are presented as.-JoergenB (talk) 07:55, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Italy

I don't see why my changes to Italy state have been reverted. Freedom House clearly state Italy as partially free.

Oh I see, I was reading the press freedom index and not the global one, sorry for the question ~~

[edit] Color coding

I just swapped the blue and green color codings because:

  1. When more colors are used than just green/yellow/red, blue typically means "better than green", and
  2. This agrees with the color scheme used by the Index of Economic Freedom.

I acknowledge that this is potentially confusing, as now "all-green" isn't the best, but this is more consistent with external color usage. Please change back if necessary. –Ryan McDaniel 21:20, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Personally, I just came to this today (16 March) and I found the mix of colours for "best" confusing. Much better to have the top and bottom colours the same IMHO. Changing the top level for "Freedom in the World" to blue would work. -- Blorg 15:10, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
I'd be in favor of making all top colors blue. If I don't see any objections here in the next few days, I'll do it. —Ryan McDaniel 04:53, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

Seeing 2 votes for, none against, I've made the change. —Ryan McDaniel 19:00, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Other indices?

I wonder if there are any other widely-known indices. It would be interesting to see one for religious freedom, for example.--Pharos 08:42, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

The main index for religious freedom I know of is done by a Freedom House subsidiary. In most comes it comes out about the same as their freedom index, but there are a few exceptions. For example Zimbabwe and Guatemala came out better in the religion index, while Mexico, Greece, and Bulgaria came out worse.[1] Well kind of, see they haven't updated it since 2000 as I recall. However I think Zimbabwe was considered unfree by them in 2000 while Greece was.--T. Anthony 06:28, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] United States

It seems someone took it upon themselves to alter the entry for the United States, though they forgot to change the colour along with it. It is discouraging to such vandalism. I have made the correction.


How did the US only get a satisfactory rating for freedom of the press?

http://www.rsf.org/rubrique.php3?id_rubrique=639 These are the latest rankings with an article discussing them. There's a section discussing the US. At the bottom there is a link to the questionnaire they used to compile the list. DAF 03:52, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Economist rating

Perhaps we should include the Economist democracy rating? Just a thought. QZXA2 18:56, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Update Tag

Index of Economic Freedom scale requires update, as do results for each country. I.e., Austria is not free, it is mostly free. - MSTCrow 19:46, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Morocco

Where is Morocco in the indices . It is included in the IPU - International Parliamentary Union- and is not a democratic country. --Nopetro 09:15, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] = Iraqi Press Freedom

This is a unique situation because their freedom has been steadily rising, yet still threatened by the sectarian violence going on in Iraq. So I have moved this into unique situation. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Haha169 (talk • contribs) 16:55, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Naming of press freedom categories

Where is the source for the category names used in this article to describe the rankings of the Reporters Without Borders' Worldwide Press Freedom Index ? They are listed here as "good situation - satisfactory situation - noticeable problems - difficult situation - very serious situation" but all I see in the actual reports are numerical rankings. Was this an arbitrary decision made by an early editor, or is there a citeable source from RWB showing how these category names correspond to their numbers? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.241.198.109 (talk) 12:18, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] List of indices of freedom?

Isn't this a list of indices of freedom Such as

Please fill if any of tthe blanks if you know them (with source)

  • Indices of Freedom of Speech
  • Indices of Freedom of Religion
  • Indices of Freedom of Assembly
  • Indices of Freedom of bearing Arms
  • Indices of Indices of Freedom of Labor (Freedom of/for Workers)
  • Indices of Freedom of Information (government transparency)
  • Indices of ......

Others I haven't organized

ZyMOS (talk) 01:21, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Not all these indices's are applicable on a global sense. The list seems to US-centric. Seems like you just took the main part of the US constitution.....95% of the planets population is not American. 62.56.66.64 (talk) 21:11, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
Some of those mentioned are only focused on the US, but the list at present is more likely UK-centric. The US does not rank in its "most free" section. However the United Kingdom does as do two English-speaking Commonwealth nations. (New Zealand and Canada) Then again two of the most unfree nations are former British possessions. (Burma and Zimbabwe) Or it could be Eurocentric, although Mauritius is in Africa and is included.--T. Anthony (talk) 11:03, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Conflict in the table with the map supplied by Reporters Without Borders

I found that Portugal's freedom of press column did not match the supplied map by Reporters Without Borders. In the map Portugal is colored at the higher value of press freedom while the column only gave it a "Satisfactory Situation". From my own knowledge and experience of Portugal I corrected the column to "Good Situation" and colored it blue believing the Reporters Without Borders map as being the most correct. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.46.127.11 (talk) 16:28, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] who came up with this chart?

First of all who came up with this chart? Secondly how do i know what "partly free" or "mostly free" means? Please explain the criteria for this chart, because without more information this chart is useless. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.17.167.114 (talk) 23:35, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] uk not a flawed democracy

If the data that says the UK is a flawed democracy comes from this: http://www.economist.com/media/pdf/DEMOCRACY_INDEX_2007_v3.pdf then the UK isn't a flawed democracy, so I will change it unless it's based on newer data in which case feel free to change it back. 79.78.111.16 (talk) 16:03, 2 June 2008 (UTC)