[WikiEN-l] Re: [Wikipedia-l] Schools on en: (was DoImisunderstand Wikipedia?

Thu May 19 19:52:01 UTC 2005

Gregory Maxwell wrote:

>Unlike NPOV I don't consider no-original-research to be a core (thus
>non-negotiable) principal of the project, rather it's just a useful
>rule.
>
>Once wikipedia has dominated the known universe and has become the
>primary repository for all human knowledge it may become the case that
>the only way to get good peer review is to publish in wikipedia.  It
>is already the case that I'd trust content vetted in wikipedia over
>some sources (notably the non peer-reviewed sort).  I expect that
>we'll revise our procedures to address this when the time comes.
>  
>
I'd disagree with that view---if Wikipedia is to be an *encyclopedia* by 
any reasonable definition of that term, it has to be a compendium of 
existing human knowledge, not a research journal publishing novel 
claims.  I'm not opposed to a Wikimedia Foundation project that would 
include original research, but I think it would be problematic to 
include it as part of an encyclopedia.  Perhaps eventually it would 
become a test of important research that it makes it into Wikipedia, but 
this would be after it's presumably published and discussed elsewhere; 
it shouldn't make its first appearance in an encyclopedia article, if 
this is to actually be an encyclopedia.

-Mark