I just want to thank Daniel for one of the sanest, clearest explanations
for our cite sources policy. If he has not already made suggestions on the
talk page for "cite sources" I hope he will because I think incorporating
into the policy at least some on what he wrote would be an important
improvement.
Steve
Steven L. Rubenstein
Associate Professor
Department of Sociology and Anthropology
Bentley Annex
Ohio University
Athens, Ohio 45701
This concerns the exchanges between SlimVirgin and others on policing POV
and the quality of sources.
It seems that most people, including Jimbo, are committed to the quasi
anarchic aspect of Wikipedia in which a large community of diverse editors
are always available to edit or comment on controversial articles. I share
this commitment and agree that when editors come into conflict over content
or sources, the first thing to do is to invite others to look and comment,
and to give this process time so that as many people who might want to
comment as possible, do.
But we all recognize that sometimes these informal processes are not
sufficient, which is why we have mediation and arbitration mechanisms.
I think SlimVirgin is calling attention to another situation where these
informal processes are not sufficient, but I don't think that our mediation
or arbitration mechanisms as currently conceived are of help. I have two
points I'd like to make.
If I understand her correctly, SlimVirgin is pointing out that in some
cases concerning content, one must have special knowledge in order to
identify and evaluate bias (or POV), and to evaluate the quality of
sources. This is especially important when there is division over the
repute of sources. Our "official policy" of "cite sources" explains that
claims should come from reputable sources, but there is not clear standard
of what a reputable source is -- nor do I think we can come up with one,
clear, inclusive explanation, it varies so much from field to field. In
some cases, our normal procedures work fine (I am thinking specifically of
a fellow a couple of years ago who thought he had proven Einstein wrong;
enough folks here know enough about physics and the world of physicists
that over time it was clear that there was an informed consensus to revert
what this fellow had been adding. In other cases, however, this does not
happen. There may be different reasons why -- my sense is that even now
there are far more people who regularly contribute to Wikipedia who know a
lot about computers, than about ancient Near Eastern history. Also, I (as
an outsider to this world) get the sense that there are lots of people who
really are quite expert in matters concerning computers, even if they do
not have PhD's in computer science and don't teach in Universities. But
there may be some topics where the gulf in knowledge and understanding
between experts and laypeople is immense.
My first point is that the standard (and in my opinion ideal) process for
dealing with edit-conflicts is biased to work very well in some areas, and
less well in others. In areas where there are very few editors
knowledgeable enough to evaluate accuracy and the reputation of sources, we
often end up with edit wars that go in circles for weeks if not months.
My second point is that we don't really have a good mechanism for resolving
conflict in these cases. I have a high regard for our mediation and
arbitration processes, but in my experience mediators and arbitrators
usually focus on violation of behavioral guidelines. We do not have a
comparable mechanism for dealing with violations of content guidelines. On
the guidelines and policies page we do distinguish between behavioral and
content guidelines, and there are a variety of policies in each
category. But we have institutional recourse for one category, and not the
other.
I think we should either expand the brief of the mediation and arbitration
committees to enforce content guidelines or, if those committees prefer
having a more limited brief, form some other clear process to resolve
conflicts over content and enforce content policies.
I believe very strongly that any mechanism we come up with should be a last
resort. I believe it should be employed only when it is clear that the
ordinary anarchic way of dealing with such problems is not, even given
considerable time, working. But I do think we need some mechanism.
Steve
Steven L. Rubenstein
Associate Professor
Department of Sociology and Anthropology
Bentley Annex
Ohio University
Athens, Ohio 45701
David Gerard wrote:
>Michael Snow (wikipedia(a)earthlink.net) [050129 03:13]:
>
>
>>There are some people who don't seem terribly inclined to do the real
>>research necessary to actually contribute to the encyclopedia, so they
>>just go around slapping tags on whatever articles they run across. I
>>would much rather they spent their time adding appropriate categories
>>instead, which is something else that can be done with relatively little
>>prior knowledge about a subject. The category system still needs serious
>>organization and improvement, and would bring more real benefit to the
>>encyclopedia than happy-go-lucky tag-slapping.
>>
>>
>As I understood the (babelfished) de: quality page, what they did was a
>pile of tag-slapping, then going forth and trying to fix it. The first
>tells where to start on the second.
>
>
That's not my impression, though someone more active in the process
would be needed to say for sure. From my glances at the
Qualitätsoffensive pages and some of the stuff that got worked on, it
looks more like a cross between Collaboration of the Week and the
Countering systemic bias project. They seem to collect ideas of what to
work on, then go from there. I didn't see much in the way of tags, and
in fact I saw more instances where categories were being used for this
sort of thing than templates. So my impression was that the German
Wikipedia has developed its practices somewhat differently from English
in that regard.
It's not necessarily right or wrong either way, of course. But what bugs
me particularly is that this sort of meta-information should be
temporary in nature, but in practice it's often a one-way street. If
there was actually a second wave of work that followed the first wave of
tag-slappers, things would be much better.
>I can't see {{unreferenced}} becoming a bargaining chip in an edit war.
>(People who remove references are an entirely different problem.)
>
>
I probably should have made more clear that I'm ranting generally about
this use of tags, not specifically about the idea of using them to
promote better use of references. In fact, the drive for better
practices in source citation is something I very much support, and this
sort of thing is fine if it helps. So far, at any rate, I've seen a lot
more results from the people urging more and better references than I
have from undifferentiated efforts like {{cleanup}}.
--Michael Snow
Somewhere, recently, here or on the foundation list, I saw a discussion
whereby someone was lamenting a lack of good photos on Commons and
there was talk of a competition. I can't for the life of me track this
discussion down. Could someone be so kind as to point me to the correct
archive?
Christiaan
> From: David Gerard <fun(a)thingy.apana.org.au>
> Rick (giantsrick13(a)yahoo.com) [050129 04:02]:
>> I think it's a HORRIBLE idea!!!!!
>> There are far too many articles with no references.
> And *that*'s a horrible idea.
>> This would be everywhere.
> See, a lack of references is a real problem with Wikipedia's
> reliability
> and perceived reliability. That means you have nothing to start with on
> seeing if an article has a source or is just off the top of someone's
> head.
> It might be crap with a reference that doesn't support it, but at least
> then you have a chance to find out.
Traditionally, encyclopedias are _not_ well-referenced. There are
sometimes what might be called "selected bibliographies," things the
writer things you might want to read next. But references, in the sense
of "here's where I got it," no.
Many, but by no means all of the articles in the EB 11th have a set of
contributor's initials (which you can look up in a table). Odd, since
it doesn't save that much space; the editors don't really want you to
focus on the contributor. Which is not that helpful anyway. When it's
someone like Ernest Rutherford, well, you probably can figure they knew
what they were talking about. For the rest, their credibility basically
rests on the jumble of letters after their name and the miniature
who's-who-like description.
Have I ever heard of "Arthur Dendy, D. Sc., F.R.S., F.Z.S., F.L.S.,
Professor of Zoology in King's College, London, Zoological Secretary of
the Linnean [sic] Society of London. Author of memoirs on systematic
zoology, comparative anatomy, embryology, &c?" No. Do I think he knows
his stuff when it comes to sponges? Well, yeah, sure, sounds like it,
probably. Most of my profs didn't have that many letters after their
name. I have no way of knowing whether he was a POV-pusher, though, and
you'd better believe you can have letters after your name and still be
a POV-pusher. Big-time.
But Wikipedia is different, because basically it's all written by
anons, registered or not.
I haven't been following the "bad reference/good reference" stuff but I
find the whole idea baffling. The purpose of a reference is very
simple. You're telling people where you got your information. It's not
a question of good or bad, it's a simple statement of fact. If I got my
"facts" from The National Enquirer, and I say I got them from the
National Enquirer and give the date and page number, that's a good
reference. The only bad reference would be an untruthful reference--if
I got them from the National Enquirer and said they were from The New
York Times.
But, either way: if I give the reference, I'm giving people reasonable
assurance that I didn't just make them up, unless I'm a total liar and
fraud, and there aren't that many of them contributing to Wikipedia.
And either way, a reference is verifiable. If someone says that The New
York Times published an article about a 400-pound eight-year-old girl
who was inseminated by a space alien and gave birth to a two-headed
unicorn, on page 7, July 16th, 2000, well as it happens I can go online
courtesy of my local public library and find out in about sixty seconds
whether there's really such an article. (I'll leave you in suspense as
to the answer on that one).
If I say "I got it from the National Enquirer, page 1, April 1st,
2000," well, first of all, a lot of people will be able to say right of
the bat, "Great, so I won't believe it."
Furthermore, _I can check the context._ Maybe it says "It is said that
the natives of some remote Canary Islands have an ancient legend that a
400-pound, etc." The chain of traceability is broken. Vanished into the
mists of the Canaries.
But maybe it says "Dr. Fargo M. Seneca, chief obstetrician at St.
Mary's Hospital in Madison, said that a 400-pound etc." Cool! Another
source citation! I can call up St. Mary's and say I'm writing an
article for Wikipedia and could I speak to Dr. Seneca.
(By the way: I've had _very_ good luck contacting "press" contacts by
email or phone, and saying "I'm editing an article in Wikipedia, the
free online encyclopedia, and I was trying to check thus-and-such
fact..." I always give Wikipedia's URL. And sometimes I even explain
that anybody can edit Wikipedia. So far, I've gotten respectful and
helpful treatment every time).
So, I say, cite your sources. If you got it from a secondary source,
just say so. The important thing is to _say where you got it_ and
maintain a chain of traceability.
P. S. True story. In grad school, there were a bunch of us discussing
whether or not UFOs were real. One guy was very impressed by a book
written by someone from APRO or NICAP or something, and, in particular,
by a statement that some pieces of an alien craft had been analyzed and
were of some substance--I forget what--of a purity that was never seen
on Earth and couldn't occur on Earth as the oxygen would do
something-or-other within a few weeks. I think this was someone who
knew enough chemistry/metallurgy to judge that if the stuff really was
that pure, it really did need to be extraterrestrial.
So I said, "OK, let's take this as our test case. How do we know he
wasn't just making it up?" Well, the scientist who did the analysis
was, I don't know, a Dr. Ortega Perez-Guillermo of the Metallurgy
Department, University of San Andrés, La Paz, Bolivia, or something
like that.
Well, this was a big state university we were at and it had a fine
library. One thing I really, really, really miss about not being in
grad school is not being within a five minute walk of a fine library.
So we did a bit of poking around. Guess what? They had several staff
directories for Universidad de San Andrés, La Paz, Bolivia. It turned
out that the University de San Andrés hasn't even got a Departamento de
la metalurgia. And in any case, it didn't have anyone named Dr Ortega
Perez-Guillermo in any department.
I asked whether we should write to the university, but it was generally
agreed that it didn't seem as if that story was very credible.
Source citations are heap big medicine.
--
Daniel P. B. Smith, dpbsmith(a)verizon.net
"Elinor Goulding Smith's Great Big Messy Book" is now back in print!
Sample chapter at http://world.std.com/~dpbsmith/messy.html
Buy it at http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1403314063/
Hello, I propose to include this link in [[Hubble Space Telescope]]. It's my
article from my site, which was republished on two other sites: Kuro5hin and
Code0range ( http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2005/1/22/13500/4359 ,
http://www.code0range.net/node/1078 ).
My article is about the lack of budget for the fourth servicing mission and it
includes an overview of the three past servicing missions, as well as an
introduction to the telescope. It received very positive comments on the
sites where it was republished and also on blogs.
The article is licensed under CreativeCommons, but if you would like to
incorporate material from it in Wikipedia, you may e-mail to discuss about a
GFDL version.
If you believe my article is informational, please feel free to use this link
or change it as you like:
*[http://portal.wikinerds.org/node/183 The end of Hubble Space Telescope?] -
article by Wikinerds Portal on the lack of budget for the fourth servicing
mission
Thanks,
--
NSK
http://portal.wikinerds.org/freehosting
I've been looking at and thinking about the quality project page on de:.
(I would link to it but I've lost the URL! Anyone got it to hand?) A lot of
what they do is simply tagging deficient articles. As well as tags
corresponding to en:'s {{cleanup}}, {{stub}}, etc. (article-space tags
intended to provoke work to allow their removal), they have ones that speak
only of a particular national POV (German, Swiss or Austrian, with a flag
on and a request to add detail for other places).
One that occurred to me was an {{unreferenced}} tag, for an article that
does not have any sources, references or external links listed. I've just
created [[Template:Unreferenced]], with the following content:
:''This article does not include its [[Wikipedia:Cite sources|references or
sources]]. Please add references or [[Wikipedia:External links|external
links]].''
I'm picturing this going at the bottom of an article, where you would
expect to see sources or references.
Before I go wild adding this, what do others think of the idea?
- d.
David Gerard wrote:
>Excellent point. Though a stub with {{unrefenced}} *and* {{stub}} looks a
>little overwhemled and may not have the desired effect, i.e. suggesting
>someone fix it.
>
>
Quite so, and in fact one of the big problems with the proliferation of
tags is their indiscriminate use. I have seen plenty of substubs (a
category I despise, and think should all be organized into the much
better stub categories organized by their content) where you could
barely see the content for all of the tags that had been placed on it -
{{substub}}, {{expansion}}, {{cleanup}}, and {{attention}} all at once.
And then dispute tags are simply used as bargaining chips in edit wars.
There are some people who don't seem terribly inclined to do the real
research necessary to actually contribute to the encyclopedia, so they
just go around slapping tags on whatever articles they run across. I
would much rather they spent their time adding appropriate categories
instead, which is something else that can be done with relatively little
prior knowledge about a subject. The category system still needs serious
organization and improvement, and would bring more real benefit to the
encyclopedia than happy-go-lucky tag-slapping.
--Michael Snow
slimvirgin(a)gmail.com wrote:
>Yes, I agree. In fact, given how many articles don't have sources, it
>might make more sense to create a {{Sources have been cited}} tag. ;-)
>
>
It would require less work, but in terms of design, it would be entirely
wrong. All of these article tags (NPOV dispute, current, protected, the
various stub categories) are supposed to be temporary, to be removed
when the occasion that warranted the tag no longer applies. We should
avoid having tags of this nature that are permanent fixtures on the
article, and we should not allow the existing tags to become fixtures,
as currently they often do.
--Michael Snow