Relevant to researchers. This is both * a very popular type of argument used by cranks when pushing their pet theories * a popular source of irritation for experts who confuse reputation for well-sourced material and feel that anyone with a good reputation should have their word taken at face value * a popular source of irritation for experts who find articles with factual errors that are miscited or simply repeat oppular but inaccurate works (whether or not those works are a majority of overall reputable works, if they are a majority of web citations *and* some loud tertiary sources claim them to be in the majority, sometimes that is enough to be received, for a time, as consensus in a field) Ordered in my guess as to order of visibility among editors. These three groups all get conflated, and if you start such a discussion on a page you may trigger responses to each of those three situations even though usually only one of them applies. The third class of situation is one in which WP can actually perpetuate bad, counter-field tendencies... the sort of thingw e try to avoid with reliable sources and NOR. S. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: David Goodman <dggenwp(a)gmail.com> Date: Tue, Feb 14, 2012 at 10:36 PM Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] The 'Undue Weight' of Truth on Wikipedia (from the Chronicle) + some citation discussions To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List <foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org> There are a number of interesting relies. As they too undoubtedly intended the material to be available, (I'm one of them & at any rate I did,)  I include them here; if additional come in, I shall post them. operalala 1 day ago In your 2011 edit: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/inde... instead of providing a counterargument to a cited quotation, you removed and replaced it. of material to draw on to support your edits. You need to cite your sources, just like a term paper, or not complain when it gets handed back to you. marka 7 hours ago in reply to operalala Wait a minute.  He claims to have cited primary sources - but potentially erroneous secondary sources are the standard?  By these measures, Copernicus, Galileo, Darwin, etc., wouldn't have been mentioned in their own time - but Biblical entries should get top billing because they have been cited by many?  Or Stalinist & Maoist propaganda, because they have been cited many times? And as his student says, if the prosecution spent numerous days at trial, what, indeed, were they talking about?  On its face, the Wiki entry is clearly erroneous.  A judge & jury found the evidence 'credible.'  Who says it wasn't, and what is their evidence? jwhab309 1 day ago Thank you.  I was not aware that quality research was unacceptable in Wikipedia land.  Very unfortunate indeed. 6 people liked this.  Like   Reply See Kuhn, Thomas, "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions," with Wikipedia playing the role of gatekeeper of hegemonic paradigms in the place of scientific journals. Although "in the place of" may not be correct -- perhaps "in addition to" is more accurate. marka 6 hours ago And now that I've gone to the primary sources cited in the Wiki article, the author of this Chron article is correct - the citations do NOT support the assertions in the Wiki.  For example, the assertion that 'friendly fire' was the cause of police wounds, the very sources cited say exactly the opposite - primary gunfire was from the crowd - also noted in Wiki footnote 5.  Yikes!  Looks like Wiki 'editors' are adhering to some ideological point of view, rather than actually read the footnotes and follow the links.  Operalala, who .... are you? dgoodman 6 hours ago Qualified experts prevail at Wikipedia when they rely on their expertise, not their qualifications. A true expert will be able to give the best arguments and know the best sources. If they also write in a style understandable by non-specialists, and not condescend to them, they will have their edits accepted.  It is intended to be different from the academic world; there is no respect at Wikipedia for status, but only for evidence. People however qualified or expert who have done original research that is not yet accepted by their profession will not have their ideas accepted  at Wikipedia as the mainstream view, precisely because their views are in fact not yet mainstream. How could they expect it, for who at Wikipedia will be able to judge them?  For that they need other experts, and the world of peer-reviewed publication is the place for them. 22067030 4 hours ago Wikipedia is presumably not authoritative so much as a place to start.  The gatekeepers are often inexpert, and may be unaware of who the experts are, and at any rate are not maintaining a citable source. Wikipedia is the place to START research.  That means, for example, if there is a squabble over, say, climate change, then the squabble itself is a topic that should have citations for people who want to explore the squabble further.  But Wikipedia's mission will be undercut if experts - or people who imagine themselves to be experts - start deleting stuff. I would recommend that if this is a place where the conventional wisdom is very wrong, you start a new page on the controversy itself, with citations to as wide a variety of points of view as you can find, and then link current pages to your new page. My experience with Wikipedia is that you can tell if you are having an impact by what you initiate, not what you inscribe in stone. GLMcColm On Tue, Feb 14, 2012 at 5:12 AM, Tim Starling <tstarling(a)wikimedia.org> wrote: -- David Goodman DGG at the enWP http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:DGG http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:DGG _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l -- Samuel Klein          identi.ca:sj           w:user:sj          +1 617 529 4266