[WikiEN-l] Verifiability

Sat Dec 17 13:43:22 UTC 2005

Ray Saintonge wrote,

>David Gerard wrote:
>
>
> >Steve Bennett wrote:
> >
> >
> >>There really should be different sourcing guidelines for different
> >>fields in Wikipedia - popular culture is just "different" to history,
> >>science or geography.
> >>
> >>
> >Some sort of referencing should be possible. For TV or movie synopses,
> >the text itself as an implicit reference is obvious and sufficient, for
> >example.
> >
>To some extent we can make use of "standard" references.  The Internet
>Movie Data Base is a good example for movies, but that won't work for
>everything.  Many subjects, however, are more controversial and the
>standards there need to be more stringent .

I agree that in certain areas we can make good use of "standard" 
references.  However, this leads me to an issue that has concerned me for 
some time: the use of dictionaries and encyclopedias as sources.

I believe that dictionaries are authorities on the spelling and 
pronunciation of words.  I also think they can be drawn on to account for 
how a word is "commonly" or "popularly" understood.  But I am very strongly 
opposed to relying on them actually to define a term in Wikipedia -- at 
least, in areas of scholarly and professional concern.  For example, OED 
may or may not have a good definition of "evolution."  Regardless, I think 
the definition of "Evolution" in the "evolution" article should reflect 
the  mainstream understanding of evolutionary scientists (I do NOT want to 
go into SPOV vs. NPOV; if it makes things easier, I have no problem with 
(1) specifying that this is how evolutionary scientists define it, and (2) 
mention that non-evolutionary scientists have other definitions).  OED may 
or may not have a good definition of "imperialism."  Regardless, I think 
the definition of "imperialism" in the "imperialism" article should reflect 
the  mainstream understanding of political scientists and historians (and 
perhaps even politicians (again, I have no problem with (1) specifying that 
this is how scholars and professionals define it, and (2) mention that 
non-scholars scientists have other definitions).  According to our 
"Wikipedia is not a dictionary" policy, we state that it is good to start 
articles with a definition.  I think relying on dictionary definitions is 
(a) lazy (we are letting whoever wrote researched the dictionary do our 
research for us.  This is not a problem when it comes to relying on books 
by scholars in writing an article, but dictionary definitions are the 
ultimate product of abstracting from various sources.  This is precisely 
what our job should be), (b) redundant (anyone who has access to Wikipedia 
has access to OED online or Answers.com and can get a definition that way, 
and (c) may very well conflict with the body of the article, if we are 
drawing on sources written by scholars and professionals.  I believe that 
the "Wikipedia is not a dictionary" and the "Cite Sources" pages should be 
revised to address this.

Other encyclopedias are great ways to begin research, since they give us an 
idea of what an article on a topic could cover, and sometimes provides 
references we can turn to.  I also think it is a useful exercise to compare 
our articles to those in other encyclopedias, just to get a sense as to 
whether we have missed something important.  But I object to using articles 
from other encyclopedias as sources for our articles.  It seems so patently 
absurd to me, it is hard to explain why -- except I know others do this 
regularly, so I have to.  So okay, it comes down to similar reasons for my 
rejecting dictionaries as sources (at least, in areas of scholarly and 
professional concern).  First, encyclopedia articles are the ultimate 
product of abstracting from various sources.  This is precisely what our 
job should be.  To rely on the research of others to me seems to devalue 
our own role as researchers.  Second, since Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, 
it seems terribly derivative to base our articles on the articles of other 
encyclopedias.  Moreover, Wikipedia is an experiment in a new way of 
producing an encyclopedia; to rely on conventional encyclopedias seems to 
undermine our own integrity, what defines us as unique and special.  I 
grant that there may be occasions in which other encyclopedias can (like 
the IMDB Ec mentions) be useful resources, but I think these cases should 
be the exceptions, not the rule.  And I think we need to revise our 
policies to make this clear.

Steve

Steven L. Rubenstein
Associate Professor
Department of Sociology and Anthropology
Bentley Annex
Ohio University
Athens, Ohio 45701