I just encountered, on the article [[House (TV series)]], that citation #3 is actually just a link to [[Words and Deeds (House)]]. Can a article really cite another article or should that citation be removed? Seems a little squirrely to me.
Angela
Angela Anuszewski schreef:
I just encountered, on the article [[House (TV series)]], that citation #3 is actually just a link to [[Words and Deeds (House)]]. Can a article really cite another article or should that citation be removed? Seems a little squirrely to me.
It's less than ideal. But you shouldn't just remove sub-optimal citations; follow the link to the other article, see which source it cites for that fact, and replace the original citation.
Actually, in this case specifically, the article doesn't cite the WP article; it cites the original episode, which is ok. It adds a convenient link to our article on that episode, just like citation 1 (a page on the Fox website) also links to [[Fox]], and citation 5 (a page on the Acadamy of Television Arts & Sciences also links to our page on that organisation.
Eugene
On Tue, Oct 28, 2008 at 8:48 PM, Angela Anuszewski < angela.anuszewski@gmail.com> wrote:
I just encountered, on the article [[House (TV series)]], that citation #3 is actually just a link to [[Words and Deeds (House)]]. Can a article really cite another article or should that citation be removed? Seems a little squirrely to me.
Angela
Nope, Wikipedia should never be used as a citation.
On Oct 28, 2008, at 4:48 PM, Angela Anuszewski wrote:
I just encountered, on the article [[House (TV series)]], that citation #3 is actually just a link to [[Words and Deeds (House)]]. Can a article really cite another article or should that citation be removed? Seems a little squirrely to me.
Normally it would be, but in this case it's more a case of references gone wild - it's citing a fact that is transparent in the episodes. It seems to be referencing it to a specific episode, and in doing so linking to our article on the episode. But the claim in question - a claim about a fictional character's job position - is wholly uncontroversial, and probably shouldn't be sourced at all, but rather left to the implicit use of a primary source.
-Phil
On Oct 28, 2008, at 4:54 PM, Al Tally wrote:
On Tue, Oct 28, 2008 at 8:48 PM, Angela Anuszewski < angela.anuszewski@gmail.com> wrote:
I just encountered, on the article [[House (TV series)]], that citation #3 is actually just a link to [[Words and Deeds (House)]]. Can a article really cite another article or should that citation be removed? Seems a little squirrely to me.
Angela
Nope, Wikipedia should never be used as a citation.
I think this position is unhelpfully hardline - in the case of fiction articles at least, a citation to another article seems fine in some cases so long as that article is well-referenced. I'm thinking here of situations where an article on a TV series makes a glancing reference to a plot point that is dealt with at length in an episode specific article. We could use the primary source citation in the series article, but it's arguably more helpful to point first to our article on the episode, and then from there cite the episode itself. For information that is a distillation of multiple sources, when we have an article that takes a broader view, citing a statement to that article, so long as the article cites its sources well, does seem to me a potentially valid move - but we should understand that what we're really doing there is not citing our article, but rather saying "There's actually a lot of referencing going into this statement, and you should have a broad look at it."
That said, that doesn't seem to be what happened in this case anyway - it looks to me like the citation was to the episode itself, with a convenience link to the article, and that someone subsequently misread that citation as a citation to the article and added a "Retrieved on" tag.
-Phil
On Tue, Oct 28, 2008 at 5:01 PM, Philip Sandifer snowspinner@gmail.com wrote:
Nope, Wikipedia should never be used as a citation.
I think this position is unhelpfully hardline - in the case of fiction articles at least, a citation to another article seems fine in some cases so long as that article is well-referenced.
[snip]
Right. Wikipedia should never be used in an attempt to meet the requirement that articles be well sourced and verifiable. Right now we have an unfortunate practice of confusing footnotes which are needed to meet the verifiability requirements with ones which are merely useful for the reader.
That said, that doesn't seem to be what happened in this case anyway - it looks to me like the citation was to the episode itself, with a convenience link to the article, and that someone subsequently misread that citation as a citation to the article and added a "Retrieved on" tag.
-Phil
Indeed, that was the source of my confusion - the "retrieved on" tag.
Without it, I probably would have figured out they meant the actual episode of the TV show. Thanks for clearing up what I was seeing.
As for the other issue, wouldn't a wikilink be better than a cite if another article provides a great deal more information on a topic? It seems cleaner to me.
Angela
Philip Sandifer wrote:
On Oct 28, 2008, at 4:54 PM, Al Tally wrote:
On Tue, Oct 28, 2008 at 8:48 PM, Angela Anuszewski wrote
I just encountered, on the article [[House (TV series)]], that citation #3 is actually just a link to [[Words and Deeds (House)]]. Can a article really cite another article or should that citation be removed? Seems a little squirrely to me.
Nope, Wikipedia should never be used as a citation.
I think this position is unhelpfully hardline - in the case of fiction articles at least, a citation to another article seems fine in some cases so long as that article is well-referenced.
These hardline stands, here and on the slashdot thread, are vaguely reminiscent of a different generation of healers who used mercury, lead and arsenic as materia medica. Fatalities notwithstanding, they stopped the disease.
Ec
AFAIK, citing other Wikipedia articles in the form of episodes of a show is actually quite common for TV show articles; for example, in articles for Scrubs, a TV show popular in the States, character articles often sources statements made by that character as simply <ref>[[Episode name]], season 2, episode 17</ref>, or something similar. I don't really see this as a negative thing, though; and certainly better than no citation at all.
On Wed, Oct 29, 2008 at 7:28 PM, Alex Sawczynec glasscobra15@gmail.com wrote:
AFAIK, citing other Wikipedia articles in the form of episodes of a show is actually quite common for TV show articles; for example, in articles for Scrubs, a TV show popular in the States, character articles often sources statements made by that character as simply <ref>[[Episode name]], season 2, episode 17</ref>, or something similar. I don't really see this as a negative thing, though; and certainly better than no citation at all.
Those should be using [[Template:Cite episode]] to produce the acceptable format as far as i know.
----- Original Message ----- From: Alex Sawczynec glasscobra15@gmail.com
AFAIK, citing other Wikipedia articles in the form of episodes of a show is actually quite common for TV show articles; for example, in articles for Scrubs, a TV show popular in the States, character articles often sources statements made by that character as simply <ref>[[Episode name]], season 2, episode 17</ref>, or something similar. I don't really see this as a negative thing, though; and certainly better than no citation at all.
In fact, in the vast majority of such cases the citation isn't actually intended to cite the article it's linked to, it's citing the episode _itself_ (as a primary source). The link to the Wikipedia article is merely included as a convenience, since you generally can't link directly to a television episode.
It seems perfectly reasonable to me that general or summary Wikipedia articles should be based upon the work done and cited in the more detailed and specific articles. I really don't see the point in citing everything in such articles twice--though it does mean we have to be careful to actually have the references somewhere instead of assuming that they're where they ought to be, or using circular references
On Wed, Oct 29, 2008 at 8:10 PM, Bryan Derksen bryan.derksen@shaw.ca wrote:
----- Original Message ----- From: Alex Sawczynec glasscobra15@gmail.com
AFAIK, citing other Wikipedia articles in the form of episodes of a show is actually quite common for TV show articles; for example, in articles for Scrubs, a TV show popular in the States, character articles often sources statements made by that character as simply <ref>[[Episode name]], season 2, episode 17</ref>, or something similar. I don't really see this as a negative thing, though; and certainly better than no citation at all.
In fact, in the vast majority of such cases the citation isn't actually intended to cite the article it's linked to, it's citing the episode _itself_ (as a primary source). The link to the Wikipedia article is merely included as a convenience, since you generally can't link directly to a television episode.
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On Wed, Oct 29, 2008 at 11:10 PM, David Goodman dgoodmanny@gmail.com wrote:
It seems perfectly reasonable to me that general or summary Wikipedia articles should be based upon the work done and cited in the more detailed and specific articles. I really don't see the point in citing everything in such articles twice--though it does mean we have to be careful to actually have the references somewhere instead of assuming that they're where they ought to be, or using circular references
I agree with Dr. Goodman. I have, in the past, referenced articles by just linking to the article on the book I've been using & adding a page number.
From my programmer's perspective, asking editors to repeat reference
information in each place it is needed is complete and utter FAIL. I am hard-pressed to think of an even more massive violation of good practices like the DRY Principle*.
Why should I have <ref></ref>s which are 20 lines of {{cite book}} gunk, when I could just do <ref>[[Seeds in the Heart]], pg 172</ref>? I just don't see it. It introduces no more risks than the current system, and makes it easier for out of date bibliographic information to remain and be propagated.
* https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Don%27t_repeat_yourself
-- gwern
As a side note and possible beneficial strategy for this sort of thing, if you find yourself using the same source in many different articles you could create a citation template specifically for that source (with a parameter for page number, if needed). See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Specific_source_templates for many such examples.
Thanks, i try not to, sometimes it is is unavoidable. If you are referring to the Hermitage, I will never do that because their site though useful is full of inacuracies and distortions, which are not repeated in my new pages.
G
On Fri, Oct 31, 2008 at 8:00 PM, Bryan Derksen bryan.derksen@shaw.cawrote:
As a side note and possible beneficial strategy for this sort of thing, if you find yourself using the same source in many different articles you could create a citation template specifically for that source (with a parameter for page number, if needed). See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Specific_source_templates for many such examples.
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Ignore the last post, it was typed and sent to the wrong recipient!
G
On Fri, Oct 31, 2008 at 8:59 PM, Giacomo M-Z solebaciato@googlemail.comwrote:
Thanks, i try not to, sometimes it is is unavoidable. If you are referring to the Hermitage, I will never do that because their site though useful is full of inacuracies and distortions, which are not repeated in my new pages.
G
On Fri, Oct 31, 2008 at 8:00 PM, Bryan Derksen bryan.derksen@shaw.cawrote:
As a side note and possible beneficial strategy for this sort of thing, if you find yourself using the same source in many different articles you could create a citation template specifically for that source (with a parameter for page number, if needed). See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Specific_source_templates for many such examples.
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Is there any preferred way to reference information like television shows/episodes because i know some people considered using hulu and adding a timepoint but the downside is that it's restricted to US viewers only, so thats why i'm kinda in favor of referencing Wikipedia content for somethings like this.
-Peachey
2008/10/31 K. Peachey p858snake@yahoo.com.au:
Is there any preferred way to reference information like television shows/episodes because i know some people considered using hulu and adding a timepoint but the downside is that it's restricted to US viewers only, so thats why i'm kinda in favor of referencing Wikipedia content for somethings like this.
The same way you reference anything else - you give all the details required for someone to find it. There are templates to help, eg. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Cite_episode
I had asked a similar question a few months ago, but I was writing an article. I was told I shouldn't add a citation to an article, but policies change.
On Tue, Oct 28, 2008 at 2:48 PM, Angela Anuszewski < angela.anuszewski@gmail.com> wrote:
I just encountered, on the article [[House (TV series)]], that citation #3 is actually just a link to [[Words and Deeds (House)]]. Can a article really cite another article or should that citation be removed? Seems a little squirrely to me.
Angela
-- Wikipedia:[[User:Psu256]] _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
On Mon, Nov 3, 2008 at 9:37 AM, Jonathan (ENWIKI) jonathan.wiki@gmail.com wrote:
I had asked a similar question a few months ago, but I was writing an article. I was told I shouldn't add a citation to an article, but policies change.
You can't offically but people make execption for things like television episodes and the like.
2008/11/3 K. Peachey p858snake@yahoo.com.au:
On Mon, Nov 3, 2008 at 9:37 AM, Jonathan (ENWIKI) jonathan.wiki@gmail.com wrote:
I had asked a similar question a few months ago, but I was writing an article. I was told I shouldn't add a citation to an article, but policies change.
You can't offically but people make execption for things like television episodes and the like.
It's not really an exception - you aren't citing the Wikipedia article, you are citing the episode and just giving a convenient link to the article. Actually citing a Wikipedia article is never permitted (at least, doing so explicitly isn't, you could say that summary style articles cite the "main article").
On Mon, Nov 3, 2008 at 10:37 AM, Jonathan (ENWIKI) jonathan.wiki@gmail.com wrote:
I had asked a similar question a few months ago, but I was writing an article. I was told I shouldn't add a citation to an article, but policies change.
When will the Wikipedia community accept that there are no "do's and don'ts", but simply some things that are better than others?
- It is better to have (generally accurate) information, rather than no information, even if it's based on information in another Wikipedia article, and your own knowledge. - If your source *is* another Wikipedia article, it's better to cite that article, than to cite nothing. - It's better to get information from a good external source, rather than from Wikipedia.
Should you cite Wikipedia, from within Wikipedia? No. Should you never cite Wikipedia, from within Wikipedia? No.
Steve