In a message dated 8/11/2008 3:33:08 PM Pacific Daylight Time,
thomas.dalton(a)gmail.com writes:
That's a bad idea,
generally, though. It's just better to actually find a copy of "so and
so" and then cite that directly. Especially when you have no idea who
the person claiming that "so and so" includes the information is,
which is the case with Wikipedia.>>
----------------------------
I agree that a good researcher, biographer, historian, will seek to go to
the most primary version that can. However for example, I have access to
hundreds of newspapers, the actual images of the actual columns from the time they
appeared. Most people do not.
Now let's say I state "Henry Fonda still maintained relationship with his
ex-wife Margaret Sullavan as they were seen eating lunch together months after
the divorce" and I cite my source as the "Fresno Examiner", 4 Apr 1934.
Now someone could come along to my page, think that's interesting and cut
and paste it directly into Wikipedia, obviously citing the newspaper but
forgetting the courtesy of citing my work as the secondary citation. They did not
actually read the newspaper, they are leaching off my work to present some
interesting trivia to the world without even an acknowledgement.
I try not to do that with my own sources, where I can't actually get a copy
of the underlying source, and I wish others would make an effort to learn
secondary citation. Aside from that it's sometimes rather important to know
that a bit of data has been selected and filtered through an intermediary,
sometimes that knowledge alone colors the reading.
Will Johnson
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In a message dated 8/12/2008 11:14:13 A.M. Pacific Daylight Time,
gwern0(a)gmail.com writes:
At 6 shelves a case, that means we need 37 shelves or so. I think you could
stuff 37 shelves into 3 or 4 rooms,>>
---------------------------
Sure I agree *now* that we know that this "boat" has 7 decks.
That changes the picture entirely.
The word "boat" might in some circles be a generic term, but maybe a more
apt description like "ocean-going liner" or something would have been better.
When I think of a "boat" the biggest picture I get is maybe a 50 foot yacht.
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In a message dated 8/11/2008 6:41:49 PM Pacific Daylight Time,
thomas.dalton(a)gmail.com writes:
The boat is intended for students studying, so it's
natural that it would have a small library (8000 volumes sounds about
right).>>.
How do you get 8 thousands volumes onto a boat?
Can you calculate the amount of shelf space that would require?
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Folks,
I am doing some research into stream of consciousness in creativity; most
specifically as it applies to music composition. Does anyone know of someone
in the Wikipedia Project I might talk with about this?
Thanks,
Marc Riddell
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Colleagues,
As some of you already know, I've undergone an RFA recently. Thats ok.
No matter the result, I try to vote on some RFA's whenever I ask for
the community do discuss me.
On the same token, I try to vote on some AFDs (or close some) whenever I
submit an AFD.
As I read some of the RFAs ongoing, I discovered a trend. So I looked
into the recent historical RFA votes. (Lets not get to wrapped around
vote=!vote, for simplicity of this proposal/idea, I'll call all
comments, discussions... votes)
I have discovered what appears to be a trend in clique mentality and
power centralization. Also, I have discovered some crazy oppositions,
for example "I view self noms a prima facia evidence of power hunger."
This is among the craziest I've seen. Not that the editor is crazy, but
the oppose is.
Here is my suggested solution:
Allow editors (those who have not already undergone RFA, desysopped
under a cloud, and desysopped by Arbitration) to sysop after 2500 edits
and 6 months on the project without any recent behavior related blocks.
Permit the crats or admins to grant and take away adminship. If this
idea has some support on the mailing list (with any suggested
alterations) I think I might put up a policy page as I have done on
IPBLOCKEXEMPT for discussion.
The advantages of such a system would eliminate power centralization,
clique mentality, and some of these outrageous opposes.
Everyone here is an academic. We are building en encyclopedia.
Thoughts?
- --
Best,
Jon
[User:NonvocalScream]
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In a message dated 8/11/2008 4:23:10 PM Pacific Daylight Time,
thomas.dalton(a)gmail.com writes:
That's a particularly unusual case of academic work being done on a
boat. In such circumstances, it may well be reasonable to just trust
Wikipedia to have things right, but you still need to cite it.>>
-------------------
I find that hard to believe.
I don't think the story makes it clear that the work was actually performed
*on* the boat.
Wouldn't that be nearly impossible? And if so, why would they point out
that the library had 8000 volumes? The boat isn't likely to have an 8000 volume
library.
Will Johnson
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Interesting.
As to the point about secondary citation, it is standard practice in classes
that teach about research and writing to cover how to do secondary citation.
For example look at
_http://writing2.richmond.edu/writing/wweb/apadocu.html_
(http://writing2.richmond.edu/writing/wweb/apadocu.html)
The way we should approach citing a reference *through* someone else's
citation is
"so and so as cited in such and such"
It's really a matter of courtesy that we cite *in some way* the actual
source which we actually consulted. Of course that isn't the issue here. It
would appear, reading-between-the-lines, that exact quotes or paraphrases were
lifted from the Wikipedia article without either en-quoting, or acknowledging
the source whatsoever. Or perhaps merely acknowledging it by way of a simple
bibliography, which really isn't sufficient if you are quoting.
Will Johnson
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In a message dated 8/11/2008 3:54:52 PM Pacific Daylight Time,
thomas.dalton(a)gmail.com writes:
Sure they do. You just have to go down to the local library. For the
most part, we're talking about academics/students so they can just go
to the Uni library which will have plenty of old newspapers.>>
-------------
I would submit that the majority of Wikipedians are not academics except
amateur ones.
And you will recall the story cited here stated that the library in-question
had "8,000 volumes".
I myself went to Northwestern University, which I believe claimed something
like 100,000 volumes. That's quite different. We do have editors in-Wiki
who cite underlying source without citing the overlying source. I've
personally encountered it several times. Usually the way it's found is where the
extract is so apparently biased that the suspicion is raised that it's
out-of-context. So after digging into the source, the original editor may admit that
they cut the quote off a web site and didn't really read the underlying source
directly.
You get this quite a bit with things like details about various presidents
and what they supposedly said.
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