On 5/17/06, Steve Bennett stevagewp@gmail.com wrote:
On 5/17/06, Anthony DiPierro wikilegal@inbox.org wrote:
I actually don't think finding good sources or referencing is particularly hard, it just isn't very well suited to the current wiki software. When writing an academic paper finding sources and writing the actual text is two separate steps. Wikis jumble the two very different steps into one.
<elitist> I believe it's hard for the "average person". Anyone who hasn't been to university is pretty unlikely to suddenly develop research skills and the ability to go to a library and look up journal articles. </elitist>
Nowadays you don't even have to go to a library to look up journal articles. Wikipedians must be getting the information they put into articles from somewhere, and I find it hard to believe that more than a miniscule portion of it is straight from their memory.
The ad hoc system in place now is completely backwards. You're supposed to get your sources first, *then* write the article. Believe it or not I'm completely in agreement with Jimbo that unsourced material should not be in Wikipedia articles. But just telling people to do a better job or "be kicked out of the project just for being lousy writers" is not a very productive way of achieving that.
Anthony