Stan Shebs wrote
> My
> own impression is that the whole concept of citation is not being taught
> or enforced anymore, and there is now a generation perfectly happy to
> play at being their own "authorities", and who get irate when anybody
> questions the validity of whatever they happen to write down.
Really? You do encourage me. Sounds like the 1960s all over again.
Charles
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Why is this thread being allowed to continue on this list?
Charles
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Jeff Raymond wrote:
> Michael Snow wrote:
>
>> The reader can only supply judgment about the credibility of a source
>> if there is some information upon which to exercise that judgment.
>> The reason blogs get singled out as a category is not because they
>> cannot ever be useful sources, but because so few of them provide the
>> information a reader would need to decide how it stacks up against
>> other sources. (I assume that the reader won't make the decision
>> based on the fact that it's a blog, since as you rightly point out,
>> that's only a label for the medium in general.)
>
> But we can realistically say that about *any* source. I mean, do you
> really trust Reuters and their middle east coverage right now?
>
>>
>> For example, the existence of independent sources is essential, both
>> to maintain a neutral presentation and to avoid gullibly repeating
>> falsehoods. But when you have a blog of unknown provenance, it's
>> impossible to know whether it qualifies as independent (Wal-Mart
>> Across America, anyone?).
>
> Jayson Blair? Stephen Glass?
>
> The only roadblock we have regarding blogs as sources is that some are
> more reputable than others, and filtering the wheat from the chaff is
> important. However, we do that with magazines, books, and journals
> already, so it can't be *that* difficult.
Jeff, you seem to have missed the point I was making. It's not a
question of whether we trust Reuters or the New York Times. The
Cunctator was making the understandable argument that we should tell
people, "We got this from Reuters", or the New York Times or whatever
the case may be, and let *them* decide whether to trust that particular
source.
The roadblock with blogs is not simply that some have shoddy
reputations. It's that so many basically have no reputation at all, and
no way for the reader to figure out what their reputation should be. And
no, you can't do that for an anonymous blog the same way you would for
material from known authors and publishers.
--Michael Snow
"MacGyverMagic/Mgm" wrote
> If forcing people to write
> down what they read to get the information drives people away there's
> something wrong with their attitude.
Sure. And wiki can't possibly work.
This takes us absolutely back to basics. Wiki is about lowering the barriers to entry, right to the ground. I'm not a 'purist' - I don't say that every way in which WP practice differs from wiki theory is a blemish - but I do recognise a cost attached.
There must be something wrong with _our_ attitude if RS policy is both so contentious (see another thread) and required to define where we set the bar for entry-level editing, rather than post-moderation. Not in fact a simple matter: someone writes here based on something from a blog, and they will not have a good time.
Charles
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"Rob Smith" wrote
> Does anyone look at the histories before nominating for deletion? I
> could cite a couple of dozen similiar examples.
The onus is on the deleting admin to check the history, with due diligence.
Charles
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It occurs to me that many fictional worlds have superb wikis devoted
to them over in Wikia. These Wikis are often doing exactly what we're
trying to avoid doing in Wikipedia - providing large amounts of in-
universe information.
May I humbly suggest that articles on topics that are covered by such
Wikia should have boxes at the bottom similar to the Wikiquote boxes
that direct users to these wikis for an in-universe perspective. That
is to say, clear, featured links to other projects that host the
information we've decided isn't suitable for Wikipedia. (Noting that
the reason for its unsuitability has nothing to do with its
reliability, and everything to do with our focus.)
Obviously this involves a bit of a paradigm shift, in that we would
be linking to projects that are not, strictly speaking, sister
projects. But if we're serious about moving this stuff out of
Wikipedia (And I sincerely believe we should be serious about it if
we want to have high-quality out-of-universe articles on Wikipedia,
since to date nobody has managed to write an article that does both)
we need to provide the people who use Wikipedia for this sort of
information a clear alternative - not "go away and find somewhere
else," but "go to this project over here."
Are there any reasons someone with a good knowledge of template-fu
shouldn't whip something like this up?
-Phil
"Stephen Bain" wrote
> But I think his point was something in the interface saying
> that completely unsourced articles are likely to be deleted is
> prudent, since everyone agrees that having no sources at all is bad.
What is bad, to look at what WP:RS itself, is having material 'likely to be challenged' without support. I don't agree that a page of college-level calculus, known and uncontroversial for two centuries, should be deleted for the pedantic reason that it isn't referenced.
Charles
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>
> Come to this thread and be not stupid!
>
Yeah, bickering on the mailing list is all fun and games, isn't it, until some
country[1] CENZ0RS YUO !!!
> So ... written any good articles lately?
>
I've written some crappy stubby articles lately.
Cheers,
Dan
[1] Tunisia, as of about 4 days ago[2]. This is about when the thread really
blew up. Of course, this could be a total coincidence, but you know the
traditional saying. Troll me once, shame on me. Troll me twice, General ben Ali
censors you.
[2] Maybe. Some suspect we are the latest victim of [[:fr:Censure en
Tunisie#Internet|internet censorship in Tunisia]]. Someone suggested even we
ought to tone down some sensitive articles in response, [[:fr:project:Le
Bistro/27 novembre 2006|I am not kidding]]. Of course they were shouted down.
I applaud the culture shift that has taken place on Wikipedia that has
allowed [[Gay Nigger Association of America]] to be deleted due to
verifiability concerns--after seventeen unsuccessful deletion
nominations.
TD
I just noticed that when creating a new article the explanatory text
that appears before the edit area ends in this bolded line:
> Articles that do not cite reliable published sources will be deleted.
with "reliable published sources" linking to [[Wikipedia:Reliable
sources]]. The promise of deletion is given in a rather absolute manner,
but "reliable sources" is a guideline and is therefore supposed to have
flexibility in its application. Could this line's wording be changed to
something that more accurately reflects this flexibility, or perhaps
link instead to [[Wikipedia:Verifiability]]?