Folks,
Real quick question: Is there any problem with using a foreign language WP Article as a source in the English language one? In this case it's birth & death dates.
Thanks,
Marc Riddell
On 16/04/07, Marc Riddell michaeldavid86@comcast.net wrote:
Folks,
Real quick question: Is there any problem with using a foreign language WP Article as a source in the English language one? In this case it's birth & death dates.
I don't think we are meant to use ourselves as sources. Certainly using an internal link as a source is not allowed, so I would guess a link to another Wikipedia/WMF project would be similarly frowned upon. Where does the other Wikipedia get its source for the DOB? - you could use that?
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on 4/16/07 7:49 AM, Gary Kirk at gary.kirk@gmail.com wrote:
On 16/04/07, Marc Riddell michaeldavid86@comcast.net wrote:
Folks,
Real quick question: Is there any problem with using a foreign language WP Article as a source in the English language one? In this case it's birth & death dates.
I don't think we are meant to use ourselves as sources. Certainly using an internal link as a source is not allowed, so I would guess a link to another Wikipedia/WMF project would be similarly frowned upon. Where does the other Wikipedia get its source for the DOB? - you could use that?
Interesting. Neither of the two sources the German Article cites lists the full dates of B&D, only years; so I don't really know where the author of the piece got the full dates. BTW, the Article in question is on the painter [[Hans Hansen]].
Marc
It's not a good idea to use another language Wikipedia as your source. That would make spreading misinformation far too easy. Instead you should find where they got it from and cite that as a source (even if it's in German). If the article is translated from the German Wikipedia, it's a good idea to mention that in the references section, though.
Mgm
on 4/16/07 8:15 AM, MacGyverMagic/Mgm at macgyvermagic@gmail.com wrote:
It's not a good idea to use another language Wikipedia as your source. That would make spreading misinformation far too easy. Instead you should find where they got it from and cite that as a source (even if it's in German). If the article is translated from the German Wikipedia, it's a good idea to mention that in the references section, though.
Thanks, That approach feels better to me too. Right now I'm Googling it to death to see what I can find.
Marc
Marc Riddell wrote:
on 4/16/07 8:15 AM, MacGyverMagic/Mgm at macgyvermagic@gmail.com wrote:
It's not a good idea to use another language Wikipedia as your source. That would make spreading misinformation far too easy. Instead you should find where they got it from and cite that as a source (even if it's in German). If the article is translated from the German Wikipedia, it's a good idea to mention that in the references section, though.
Thanks, That approach feels better to me too. Right now I'm Googling it to death to see what I can find.
Marc
The funny thing is that the bigger languages wikipedia are frequently used as source for smaller languages wikipedia, with full translation of article :-)
ant
on 4/16/07 8:15 AM, MacGyverMagic/Mgm at macgyvermagic@gmail.com wrote:
It's not a good idea to use another language Wikipedia as your source. That would make spreading misinformation far too easy. Instead you should find where they got it from and cite that as a source (even if it's in German). If the article is translated from the German Wikipedia, it's a good idea to mention that in the references section, though.
Marc Riddell wrote:
Thanks, That approach feels better to me too. Right now I'm Googling it to death to see what I can find.
Marc
on 4/16/07 8:37 AM, Florence Devouard at Anthere9@yahoo.com wrote:
The funny thing is that the bigger languages wikipedia are frequently used as source for smaller languages wikipedia, with full translation of article :-)
ant
Exactly :-) And, I was just about to post that I have found an independent, non-WP source for the information. I'm going to use this in the Article instead.
Thanks all,
Marc
on 4/16/07 8:37 AM, Florence Devouard at Anthere9@yahoo.com wrote:
Marc Riddell wrote:
on 4/16/07 8:15 AM, MacGyverMagic/Mgm at macgyvermagic@gmail.com wrote:
It's not a good idea to use another language Wikipedia as your source. That would make spreading misinformation far too easy. Instead you should find where they got it from and cite that as a source (even if it's in German). If the article is translated from the German Wikipedia, it's a good idea to mention that in the references section, though.
Thanks, That approach feels better to me too. Right now I'm Googling it to death to see what I can find.
Marc
The funny thing is that the bigger languages wikipedia are frequently used as source for smaller languages wikipedia, with full translation of article :-)
Interesting sidebar to all of this: I went in and changed the source from the German WP to the only other one I could find, artfacts.net, and was immediately reverted by a bot. It seems reference to this site is prohibited in WP. They read me Miranda, and I was off to the pokey ;-). It seems ignorance of the law is no excuse :-) The Article is back where it started.
Marc
On Mon, 16 Apr 2007 07:43:22 -0400, Marc Riddell michaeldavid86@comcast.net wrote:
Real quick question: Is there any problem with using a foreign language WP Article as a source in the English language one? In this case it's birth & death dates.
Christ no. Have you *seen* the crap in Wikipedia? Oh, wait...
Guy (JzG)
Real quick question: Is there any problem with using a foreign language WP Article as a source in the English language one? In this case it's birth & death dates.
Absolutely nothing wrong with that.
Yes, there is definitely something wrong with that. What are you talking about? We're always telling the public not to use Wikipedia as a source - that same rule applies to us for exactly the same reasons.
Hi there!
On Tue, 17 Apr 2007 00:03:49 +0100, Thomas Dalton wrote:
Real quick question: Is there any problem with using a foreign language WP Article as a source in the English language one? In this case it's birth & death dates.
Absolutely nothing wrong with that.
Yes, there is definitely something wrong with that. What are you talking about? We're always telling the public not to use Wikipedia as a source - that same rule applies to us for exactly the same reasons.
That is debatable, if you ask me. Imagine that an article is wholly without dates, making it, for the casual reader, impossible to place the subject in history. (And we do have such articles.) In that case, I rather have a date that can be reasonably expected not to be utterly wrong instead of nothing.
I do agree that it would be far better to have other sources, but if we have none, say, because one stumbles over an article in a field one is really not familiar with, and can translate a glaring omission from another language WP, that is better than nothing. Of course, an appropriate tag might be a good idea, too.
Greetings from Cologne, Alex
On 4/16/07, Alex Regh Alex.Here@gmx.net wrote:
Hi there!
On Tue, 17 Apr 2007 00:03:49 +0100, Thomas Dalton wrote:
Real quick question: Is there any problem with using a foreign language WP Article as a source in the English language one? In this case it's birth & death dates.
Absolutely nothing wrong with that.
Yes, there is definitely something wrong with that. What are you talking about? We're always telling the public not to use Wikipedia as a source - that same rule applies to us for exactly the same reasons.
That is debatable, if you ask me. Imagine that an article is wholly without dates, making it, for the casual reader, impossible to place the subject in history. (And we do have such articles.) In that case, I rather have a date that can be reasonably expected not to be utterly wrong instead of nothing.
I do agree that it would be far better to have other sources, but if we have none, say, because one stumbles over an article in a field one is really not familiar with, and can translate a glaring omission from another language WP, that is better than nothing. Of course, an appropriate tag might be a good idea, too.
Greetings from Cologne, Alex
If one kind find no sources, one should not put the fact in the article! This is basic citing policy.
Sincerely, Silas Snider [[en:User:Simonfairfax]]
Hi!
On Mon, 16 Apr 2007 19:31:29 -0700, Silas Snider wrote:
If one kind find no sources, one should not put the fact in the article! This is basic citing policy.
Wasn't that exactly the question? Whether another WP is a potential source or not? Especially since birth and death dates are usually not all that specialised knowledge, and I do expect them to be mostly right, and I would not expect them to be sourced. We do not source every comma (although some people seem to think this is a good idea), and who would put in -- especially given how much sources a current article cites -- an extra source for that sort of facts? Not exactly many.
I have also given a good reason for putting that information in, even if, say, there is a risk of a typo and it's a year off or two. (Which is, btw, a risk with every source.) I rather had "John Smith (183x to 189x) was a writer who wrote about race relations." than "John Smith was a writer who wrote about race relations."
Same goes for art -- if one is looking for artists of a certain period, the risk of a year off or two is hardly relevant; somebody born in 1520 would not paint much differently from one born in 1522. They would however probably have painted considerably differently from one born in 1020/2.
Again, what I say is that I prefer some less-than-idealy-sourced information to no information at all, especially when it comes to such rather less critical information about dates. (Interpretations of facts are a wholy different matter, as in "was a liberal" etcpp.) And in some cases (such as birth and death dates), one can simply reasonably expect that a fact is, with a quite high degree of probability, at least mostly correct. (My my, what a relativist sentence.)
YMMV, of course, and we might have to agree to disagree.
Greetings from Cologne, Alex
On 4/16/07, Alex Regh Alex.Here@gmx.net wrote:
Hi!
On Mon, 16 Apr 2007 19:31:29 -0700, Silas Snider wrote:
If one kind find no sources, one should not put the fact in the article! This is basic citing policy.
Wasn't that exactly the question? Whether another WP is a potential source or not?
<snip/>
I should have clarified -- since Wikipedia requires sourcing for these kind of facts (see below for my reasons why this is a good idea) we should use the source from the foreign language wikipedia and not the wikipedia itself. If for some reason, the sources are less precise, or do not contain the data they are claimed to, then the information should be deleted from the foreign article, not added to the english article to assist (intentionally or not) in the promulgation of an inaccuracy.
I firmly believe that if a fact that is not 'common sense' is too trivial to get sources for, it may be that it is too trivial to include.
Sincerely, Silas Snider [[en:User:Simonfairfax]]
On 4/16/07, Silas Snider swsnider@gmail.com wrote:
[snip] we should use the source from the foreign language wikipedia and not the wikipedia itself.
Others have pointed out, and I agree, that one should never add a reference that one hasn't personally verified. If one hasn't actually read the source of the foreign-language Wikipedia, then *it's not your source*. The foreign-language Wikipedia is, and you should cite that. It might be better to acquire the original sources, if one can, though since they may be foreign-language and foreign-published that might be challenging.
-Matt
Silas Snider wrote:
On 4/16/07, Alex Regh Alex.Here@gmx.net wrote:
On Mon, 16 Apr 2007 19:31:29 -0700, Silas Snider wrote:
If one kind find no sources, one should not put the fact in the article! This is basic citing policy.
Wasn't that exactly the question? Whether another WP is a potential source or not?
<snip/>
I should have clarified -- since Wikipedia requires sourcing for these kind of facts (see below for my reasons why this is a good idea) we should use the source from the foreign language wikipedia and not the wikipedia itself. If for some reason, the sources are less precise, or do not contain the data they are claimed to, then the information should be deleted from the foreign article, not added to the english article to assist (intentionally or not) in the promulgation of an inaccuracy.
It's not a question of unsourced articles. The other Wikipedia is a source. It's own material is subject to that Wikipedia's own sourcing rules. You can cite those sources too if you examined them yourself, but if you only use them transitively you should note that fact too.
Ec
Thomas Dalton wrote:
Real quick question: Is there any problem with using a foreign language WP Article as a source in the English language one? In this case it's birth & death dates.
Absolutely nothing wrong with that.
Yes, there is definitely something wrong with that. What are you talking about?
I'm talking about respecting the work of other Wikipedians in other languages without supporting any systemic bias that English language work is in any way better.
We're always telling the public not to use Wikipedia as a source - that same rule applies to us for exactly the same reasons.
That's not the reason. Outsiders may use that as a reason; we shouldn't. Our reason is to discourage dependence on a single source; it is the same reason that we would use to discourage the use of _any_ encyclopedia as a source on anything other than a superficial level.
Ec
On 4/16/07, Marc Riddell michaeldavid86@comcast.net wrote:
Folks,
Real quick question: Is there any problem with using a foreign language WP Article as a source in the English language one? In this case it's birth & death dates.
If the German Wikipedia article *is* the source, it should be *cited* as the source. That's fundamental. In fact, we even have templates for this ("This information came from the ... Wikipedia on ... day"), but I don't know the name of them off the top of my head.
In general, translating articles from other Wikipedias is a good idea. It's much faster than researching the article from scratch, and helps to synchronise the different projects, and may even help in reducing systematic bias (depending on which way the translation is going).
Steve