Ray Saintonge wrote, I agree that in certain areas we can make good use of "standard" references. However, this leads me to an issue that has concerned me for some time: the use of dictionaries and encyclopedias as sources. I believe that dictionaries are authorities on the spelling and pronunciation of words. I also think they can be drawn on to account for how a word is "commonly" or "popularly" understood. But I am very strongly opposed to relying on them actually to define a term in Wikipedia -- at least, in areas of scholarly and professional concern. For example, OED may or may not have a good definition of "evolution." Regardless, I think the definition of "Evolution" in the "evolution" article should reflect the mainstream understanding of evolutionary scientists (I do NOT want to go into SPOV vs. NPOV; if it makes things easier, I have no problem with (1) specifying that this is how evolutionary scientists define it, and (2) mention that non-evolutionary scientists have other definitions). OED may or may not have a good definition of "imperialism." Regardless, I think the definition of "imperialism" in the "imperialism" article should reflect the mainstream understanding of political scientists and historians (and perhaps even politicians (again, I have no problem with (1) specifying that this is how scholars and professionals define it, and (2) mention that non-scholars scientists have other definitions). According to our "Wikipedia is not a dictionary" policy, we state that it is good to start articles with a definition. I think relying on dictionary definitions is (a) lazy (we are letting whoever wrote researched the dictionary do our research for us. This is not a problem when it comes to relying on books by scholars in writing an article, but dictionary definitions are the ultimate product of abstracting from various sources. This is precisely what our job should be), (b) redundant (anyone who has access to Wikipedia has access to OED online or Answers.com and can get a definition that way, and (c) may very well conflict with the body of the article, if we are drawing on sources written by scholars and professionals. I believe that the "Wikipedia is not a dictionary" and the "Cite Sources" pages should be revised to address this. Other encyclopedias are great ways to begin research, since they give us an idea of what an article on a topic could cover, and sometimes provides references we can turn to. I also think it is a useful exercise to compare our articles to those in other encyclopedias, just to get a sense as to whether we have missed something important. But I object to using articles from other encyclopedias as sources for our articles. It seems so patently absurd to me, it is hard to explain why -- except I know others do this regularly, so I have to. So okay, it comes down to similar reasons for my rejecting dictionaries as sources (at least, in areas of scholarly and professional concern). First, encyclopedia articles are the ultimate product of abstracting from various sources. This is precisely what our job should be. To rely on the research of others to me seems to devalue our own role as researchers. Second, since Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, it seems terribly derivative to base our articles on the articles of other encyclopedias. Moreover, Wikipedia is an experiment in a new way of producing an encyclopedia; to rely on conventional encyclopedias seems to undermine our own integrity, what defines us as unique and special. I grant that there may be occasions in which other encyclopedias can (like the IMDB Ec mentions) be useful resources, but I think these cases should be the exceptions, not the rule. And I think we need to revise our policies to make this clear. Steve Steven L. Rubenstein Associate Professor Department of Sociology and Anthropology Bentley Annex Ohio University Athens, Ohio 45701