In a message dated 8/12/2008 4:50:45 PM Pacific Daylight Time, delirium@hackish.org writes:

don't see why Wikipedia should be special-cased here. It's not common practice in academic publishing to cite all the research tools you used in arriving at your actual sources. I don't usually cite Lexis-Nexis when I look up an article through it, or JSTOR, or my local reference librarian, or Wikipedia, or Britannica, or some website with a list of interesting articles, or Google.>>

------------------------------------------------- That misstates the issue.

Some of the above are mindless programmatic tools that merely cast indexes into the wind and see what sticks to them. They are not creative *on an article specific basis*. They are merely methods *by which* you can find expert human resources about one subject, they are not those resources themselves. So Lexis-Nexis, so Jstor, so local reference librarian, so Google.

However Wikipedia, Brittanica and "some website with a list of interesting articles" (provided it's generated by specific human effort to that article topic, and not automagically) are not in the same category.

The question to ask in these cases would be: "Would a PERSON recognize their work being revealed in my work, without citation?" The courtesy of secondary citation is not extended to a computer program but rather to a person, an author, or in the case of Wikipedia or Brittanica sometimes a small group of authors. It is *people* who we are trying to not offend. Google takes no offense, it cannot, as it has no emotions.

An author of a biographical dictionary, can take offense.

Will Johnson

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