The wording of the section about foreign-language sources (in [[WP:V]]) is
ambiguous. It needs to state that foreign-language sources are allowed, and
even encouraged.
Most Chinese speakers come from mainland China, where Wikipedia is banned.
Open proxies are the only way to bypass such censorship, but we have a
policy against editing from open proxies. However, discussion about this
issue belongs in another thread.
2007/8/11, Lars Aronsson <lars(a)aronsson.se>se>:
Milos Rancic wrote:
I used "scientific" in very exact sense
of "scientific method",
not as a marketing.
But the scientific method defines how to do original research,
something Wikipedia has sworn not to do. I'm just saying this,
toungue in cheek, to point out how hollow and vague the claim for
being "scientific" can be. *We* should be scientific whenever we
can, but the resulting *encyclopedia* can not always be. However,
the word "scientific" with respect to encyclopedias is so loaded
as a marketing buzzword, that it becomes practically useless.
The word encyclopedia, I'm told, is composed of Greek enkyklios
(all-round) and paideia (education). These are the two areas
where I think we should focus, but instead so much energy goes
into requiring citations (verifiability) and weeding out
irrelevant topics (notability). Of course, education implies
solid, scientific knowledge, not superstition, propaganda or
self-promotion. But it also means bringing out that knowledge in
an efficient and useful way.
Since raw size is no longer a problem for (the English) Wikipedia,
I think we should start to ask how all-round it really is. The
other day I found a "best-selling author" who didn't yet have an
entry in Wikipedia (so I wrote one). And this author is American
and contemporary, not a best-seller in Japan in the 1920s. And
Wikipedia is still very good on popular culture, such as music,
literature and movies. I think there are many other areas where
we have far more left to do. (Jimmy Wales made a good comment
recently about 19th century mayors of Warsaw.) We know the raw
size in numbes: 2 million articles. But how can the all-roundness
be expressed in numbers?
The next issue is education: How pedagogic or "efficient in
teaching" is Wikipedia really? Are articles well written, well
structured and easy to find? Do we care whether it answers
peoples questions? This is where actual research can be applied.
That is: Original research should not be documented in the
articles, but original research can be used in WikiProjects as a
support for improving articles. Paris is the capital of France.
That simple statement is an efficient way to bring out knowledge.
Loading the text with references to literature doesn't necessarily
improve the encyclopedia's purpose in that case.
The biography I wrote for a best-selling author does improve the
all-roundedness of Wikipedia. It's short, but well structured and
easy to read. Unfortunately, we have no good system for
indicating this progress. But now the article is flagged with
{{unreferenced}}, as that is the main activity going on. Nobody
questions the facts expressed in the article, neither its
notability. It's just the lack of <ref> tags. It would be easy
(and tempting) to fake that by making up a source somewhere.
Just add a <ref> tag, and all is back to scientific again.
--
Lars Aronsson (lars(a)aronsson.se)
Aronsson Datateknik -
http://aronsson.se
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