[WikiEN-l] Nuke [[WP:CITE]] and [[WP:RS]]

Fri Jan 26 03:22:28 UTC 2007

On 1/25/07, George Herbert <george.herbert at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 1/25/07, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > > From my experience on Wikipedia, unsourced articles are very
> unreliable
> > > > and may have plenty of wrong facts. Most of thse wrong facts are not
> > > > added due to malice (though that is not uncommon), but they were
> > > > added by people either from their (inevitable unreliable) memories,
> > > > from blogs and forums, which, on average have an awful lack of
> > > > accuracy or they are simply misinterpretations.
> > >
> > > From my experience with Wikipedia, unsourced articles are generally
> > > very accurate and moderately precise.  When I find them in areas for
> > > which I'm familiar with the body of knowledge and reliable sources, I
> > > will spend time to go find the appropriate citations and sources as
> > > time allows, to "back up" the already existing content with
> > > appropriate references.
> >
> > "Accurate" and "reliable" are not synonymous. Just because the article
> > happens to have everything right does not make it reliable, because
> > there is no way for you to know that it has everything right.
>
> There are more citations per article in Wikipedia than in Brittanica.
> Is Brittanica an unreliable source?

Yes, it is an unreliable source.  I would never cite Brittanica in an
academic paper, nor would I know how to find a reliable source for something
I read in Brittanica.  On the other hand, there are lots of Wikipedia
articles which can point me towards a source I would use in a paper.

That's what really matters - can an encyclopaedia article give you a good
introduction to a subject and point you towards a truly useful source?  If
it can't, it's just a toy.

I already know that Wikipedia is not completely reliable.  Insisting
> on source citations isn't going to fix that - someone could put in a
> citation that's bogus, or put one in that says something other than
> what they say, or put one in that they misinterpret, because they
> aren't an expert on the field.  All three of these things have
> happened to articles I have edited at one time or another.  I can't
> trust the citations, because I can't trust the identity and accuracy
> of the contributors who added them.  I'd have to go fact-check every
> source for an article to be really sure, and that scales pretty
> horribly.
>
>
> --
> -george william herbert
> george.herbert at gmail.com
>
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