Hello list! I'm new to the list, so perhaps a short intro is in order. My name is Finlay and I am known to WP as Cantara. I've been a Wikipedian since sometime in 2004, but have only become really active in the last few months. I joined the list at the suggestion of CComMack, who thought that an idea I had (see below) might want input from people knowledgeably about policy and so forth.
My idea is this. We all know that Wikipedia is great and all, repository of the world's information, &c. However, there are people who disagree, who think that Wikipedia is inaccurate because it is written by people who are not experts and because it lacks oversight (or whatever it is they're saying now). When considering these two things together, I realized that there is a kind of information that Wikipedia seriously lacks, and that is bibliographies. If you've written a research paper lately (I'm writing two at the moment, myself) you know that the list of books that the author has read is just as valuable as whatever the book itself is about. However, Wikipedians don't really make an effort to include "further reading" as part of the entry, beyond what they list as citations.
I wanted to start a project to focus on getting that store of information into Wikipedia, and once I get around to it I'll list it on Proposed Projects. However, as mentioned about, a fellow editor suggested that a project like this might have repurcussions in other areas (and I hope he responds to explain what they were - something about the manual of style?).
Discuss, then, and if you'd like to help, I'll have information up somewhere on my userpage fairly soon.
Yours, Cantara
It's a nice idea, but who determines what's worth listing in such a further reading section and what will you do to stop people from spamming long lists of books into such sections?
You'd also need to find a way to teach people the difference between "further reading" and "references" or it might lose us a lot of references in the process because of people ignorant on the subject.
Mgm
On 3/31/06, flogan1@swarthmore.edu flogan1@swarthmore.edu wrote:
Hello list! I'm new to the list, so perhaps a short intro is in order. My name is Finlay and I am known to WP as Cantara. I've been a Wikipedian since sometime in 2004, but have only become really active in the last few months. I joined the list at the suggestion of CComMack, who thought that an idea I had (see below) might want input from people knowledgeably about policy and so forth.
My idea is this. We all know that Wikipedia is great and all, repository of the world's information, &c. However, there are people who disagree, who think that Wikipedia is inaccurate because it is written by people who are not experts and because it lacks oversight (or whatever it is they're saying now). When considering these two things together, I realized that there is a kind of information that Wikipedia seriously lacks, and that is bibliographies. If you've written a research paper lately (I'm writing two at the moment, myself) you know that the list of books that the author has read is just as valuable as whatever the book itself is about. However, Wikipedians don't really make an effort to include "further reading" as part of the entry, beyond what they list as citations.
I wanted to start a project to focus on getting that store of information into Wikipedia, and once I get around to it I'll list it on Proposed Projects. However, as mentioned about, a fellow editor suggested that a project like this might have repurcussions in other areas (and I hope he responds to explain what they were - something about the manual of style?).
Discuss, then, and if you'd like to help, I'll have information up somewhere on my userpage fairly soon.
Yours, Cantara _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
MacGyverMagic/Mgm macgyvermagic@gmail.com wrote:
It's a nice idea, but who determines what's worth listing in such a further reading section and what will you do to stop people from spamming long lists of books into such sections?
You'd also need to find a way to teach people the difference between "further reading" and "references" or it might lose us a lot of references in the process because of people ignorant on the subject.
Mgm
Yeah, I agree. Nice idea, but a bibliography is only useful if the person who created it has actually read the books/articles. Many people will just randomly throw books they've heard about once into the bibliography...
On 3/31/06, flogan1@swarthmore.edu flogan1@swarthmore.edu wrote:
Hello list! I'm new to the list, so perhaps a short intro is in order. My name is Finlay and I am known to WP as Cantara. I've been a Wikipedian since sometime in 2004, but have only become really active in the last few months. I joined the list at the suggestion of CComMack, who thought that an idea I had (see below) might want input from people knowledgeably about policy and so forth.
My idea is this. We all know that Wikipedia is great and all, repository of the world's information, &c. However, there are people who disagree, who think that Wikipedia is inaccurate because it is written by people who are not experts and because it lacks oversight (or whatever it is they're saying now). When considering these two things together, I realized that there is a kind of information that Wikipedia seriously lacks, and that is bibliographies. If you've written a research paper lately (I'm writing two at the moment, myself) you know that the list of books that the author has read is just as valuable as whatever the book itself is about. However, Wikipedians don't really make an effort to include "further reading" as part of the entry, beyond what they list as citations.
I wanted to start a project to focus on getting that store of information into Wikipedia, and once I get around to it I'll list it on Proposed Projects. However, as mentioned about, a fellow editor suggested that a project like this might have repurcussions in other areas (and I hope he responds to explain what they were - something about the manual of style?).
Discuss, then, and if you'd like to help, I'll have information up somewhere on my userpage fairly soon.
Yours, Cantara
Hi Finlay,
I think there's real merit to this idea, and, though I understand the previously mentioned problems of blindly adding books for the sake of it or adding books for commercial interest, this needn't deter people from building (and then accessing) a comprehensive bibliography on a given subject.
I agree this could be done better in Wikipedia in general (though there are obvious good examples where this *is* done well). But I'm thinking this could fit quite well with Wikiversity (another proposed project), which will (amongst other things) assemble a network of references for further reading on a topic. You can see details for this project at: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikiversity/Modified_project_proposal - though there is much more information on this (something I'm working on at the moment).
What do you think?
Cormac
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I think the modified proposal is really nifty. Yes, that's quite the sort of thing I had in mind. And pinpointing the idea of an "educational resource" is valuable in helping me describe exactly how I'm thinking of this project.
To respond to some other people re: spamming. People can already do that, but they don't, really. I'm going to take the optimistic view and say this: that I intend only to add sources that I have read or am at least familiar with, and to accompany the less obvious listings with a short description. If someone posts a long list of sources with no explanation, other editors can sift through them, adding commentary, and removing the ones that seem truly spurious. This is how the rest of WP works, I don't see that this will be much different.
-F
On Apr 2, 2006, at 2:43 PM, Cormac Lawler wrote:
Hi Finlay,
I think there's real merit to this idea, and, though I understand the previously mentioned problems of blindly adding books for the sake of it or adding books for commercial interest, this needn't deter people from building (and then accessing) a comprehensive bibliography on a given subject.
I agree this could be done better in Wikipedia in general (though there are obvious good examples where this *is* done well). But I'm thinking this could fit quite well with Wikiversity (another proposed project), which will (amongst other things) assemble a network of references for further reading on a topic. You can see details for this project at: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikiversity/Modified_project_proposal - though there is much more information on this (something I'm working on at the moment).
What do you think?
Cormac
On 4/2/06, Finlay Logan flogan1@swarthmore.edu wrote:
To respond to some other people re: spamming. People can already do that, but they don't, really. I'm going to take the optimistic view and say this: that I intend only to add sources that I have read or am at least familiar with, and to accompany the less obvious listings with a short description. If someone posts a long list of sources with no explanation, other editors can sift through them, adding commentary, and removing the ones that seem truly spurious. This is how the rest of WP works, I don't see that this will be much different.
I don't know about books, but people *do* add unhelpful "external links" very frequently. Usually it's some massively broad topic, and they add their own favourite fansite, personal webpage or whatever. I'm inclined to think it's generally in good faith - they're not aware that these lists are deliberately kept short and concise.
Steve
On 03/04/06, Steve Bennett stevage@gmail.com wrote:
On 4/2/06, Finlay Logan flogan1@swarthmore.edu wrote:
To respond to some other people re: spamming. People can already do that, but they don't, really. I'm going to take the optimistic view and say this: that I intend only to add sources that I have read or am at least familiar with, and to accompany the less obvious listings with a short description. If someone posts a long list of sources with no explanation, other editors can sift through them, adding commentary, and removing the ones that seem truly spurious. This is how the rest of WP works, I don't see that this will be much different.
I don't know about books, but people *do* add unhelpful "external links" very frequently. Usually it's some massively broad topic, and they add their own favourite fansite, personal webpage or whatever. I'm inclined to think it's generally in good faith - they're not aware that these lists are deliberately kept short and concise.
I've seen people adding a book, singular, to the references section a good few times; I assume they're treating it as "further reading" and just being helpful.
(But, then, I'm also the sort of person who includes Further Reading sections...)
-- - Andrew Gray andrew.gray@dunelm.org.uk
On 4/3/06, Andrew Gray shimgray@gmail.com wrote:
I've seen people adding a book, singular, to the references section a good few times; I assume they're treating it as "further reading" and just being helpful.
(But, then, I'm also the sort of person who includes Further Reading sections...)
Me too. Someone made the rather good suggestion of using "Sources" and "Further reading" sections, rather than the traditional "references" and "external links", which I tend to follow. Of course, if I actually *had* any references (ie, sentence X came from source Y), then I would make a references section. Typically what I have is one source which simply confirms to the AfD brigade that the topic *is* notable, and other editors can go there to get further information.
Particularly since we demand one source from newbies wanting to start articles, we should at least follow suit.
</incoherent ramble>
Steve