Thanks, Paul. That's the kind of information I was hoping to find. It's
incredibly disheartening and I hope that it's something Wikipedia will
reconsider.
Best,
Kathleen
On Thu, Sep 26, 2019 at 1:55 PM Paul S. Wilson <paulscrawl(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Not "individual practices"; this is an
English Wikipedia Policy:
Do not use articles from Wikipedia (whether this
English Wikipedia or
Wikipedias in other languages) as sources. Also, do not use
websites that
mirror Wikipedia content or publications that rely on material from
Wikipedia as sources. Content from a Wikipedia article is not considered
reliable unless it is backed up by citing reliable sources. Confirm that
these sources support the content, then use them directly.[11] (There is
also a risk of circular reference/circular reporting when using a Wikipedia
article or derivative work as a source.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Verifiability#Wikipedia_and_sources…
On Thu, Sep 26, 2019 at 12:24 PM Kathleen DeLaurenti
<kathleendelaurenti(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Hi all -
Thanks for the responses. Regardless of our individual practices, I
don't see
any good coming from Wikipedia positively asserting that it
should "never be cited," and that's the crux of my concern here.
Best,
Kathleen
On Thu, Sep 26, 2019 at 1:17 PM Paul S. Wilson <paulscrawl(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
>
> I have never considered user-generated content on Wikipedia to be more
than
what librarians call a "discovery service".
>
> Briefly skimming an article on a subject l may know little about, I
invariably
evaluate the sources rather than the text and hit the cited
references. In my 15-year experience, even the weakest and most apparently
biased articles have at least a few refs that lead to citable sources and
larger literature.
>
>
> On Thu, Sep 26, 2019, 11:54 AM Merrilee Proffitt <mproffitt(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
>>
>> Hi,
>>
>> I completely agree with Kathleen. I would assert that it is a lack of
nuance around the nature of information sources and the research task at
hand that has lead educators and others to wholesale "ban" the use of
Wikipedia.
>>
>> Whether or not a source can be utilized in a research context depends
on
the researcher, and what information they are supporting with the
citation. For my middle school daughter doing some investigation on an
element in the periodic table (as she has been doing this week), the
Wikipedia English article (or any encyclopedia article) is appropriate for
her. For a graduate student in chemistry this would not be appropriate, but
the grad student might (appropriately) cite Wikipedia for some basic
definitional stuff, just as they might cite a dictionary or something
similar. You see Wikipedia utilized appropriately in citations all the time
-- why would we discourage this?
>>
>> Having conversations about the veracity of online information is
tough.
Wikipedia can be challenging because articles are at various levels
of development. To my mind, this makes it something that those of us
engaged in conversations around information literacy should steer towards,
rather than away from, because a) Wikipedia is widely utilized in a variety
of contexts and b) it is a great teaching tool for talking about when you
can trust information online and when you should steer clear. But saying
"no" to any information source without having a discussion about it seems
lazy. It definitely does not reflect the type of discourse we should be
having, especially now.
>>
>> I look forward to more discussion on this topic.
>>
>> Merrilee
>>
>> On Thu, Sep 26, 2019 at 9:02 AM Federico Leva (Nemo) <
nemowiki(a)gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> Twitter doesn't facilitate reasoned arguments. I suppose as usual the
>>> goal was to encourage greater use of the references and other
>>> meta-content of Wikipedia articles, which are excellent tools for
>>> critical thinking.
>>>
>>> Federico
>>>
>>> Kathleen DeLaurenti, 26/09/19 17:55:
>>> > Hi all -
>>> >
>>> > As a librarian who uses and supports Wikipedia, I wanted to bring up
>>> > some issues around the BuzzFeed article posted today about M-Journal
>>> > that has led to some messaging from the WikipediaUK twitter account
that
>>> > I find concerning. I'm not
sure if this is the appropriate place to
>>> > bring this up, but I wasn't sure where else to reach out.
>>> >
>>> > For those who missed, a citation cite is not manufacturing journal
>>> > articles if a student submits a Wiki article so that it looks like
an
>>> > "official" citation in
their school research papers.
>>> >
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ryanhatesthis/wikipedia-fake-academic-…
>>> >
>>> > Clearly there are some nefarious potential uses here, but what's
more
>>> > concerning is that the WikiUK
twitter account has come forward
>>> > forcefully saying that Wikipedia shouldn't be cited in the
literature.
>>> > Period.
>>> >
https://twitter.com/wikimediauk/status/1177215917534711808
>>> >
>>> > I work very hard to improve the cite through my courses and academic
>>> > advocacy as do many librarians. It's concern to me to see Wikipedia
>>> > undermining its own authority in such a public way in what appears
to be
>>> > a misguided attempt to deflect
association with the MJournal site.
>>> >
>>> > Would welcome any insight or ideas on how to navigate this
discussion.
>>> > The entire M-Journal use case
exists, imho, because we are still
>>> > battling for a critical (not blanket acceptance) view of Wiki as a
>>> > resources, and I find this kind of public statement to be very
damaging
>>> > to the hard work so many are
doing to create a quality information
resource.
>
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