"Brain Diving: The Ghost with the Most" by Brain Ruh, _ANN_ http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/brain-diving/2011-08-09
"This time, though, instead of a fictional book about the supernatural I'm going to be examining a nonfiction book about Japanese ghosts – Patrick Drazen's A Gathering of Spirits: Japan's Ghost Story Tradition: From Folklore and Kabuki to Anime and Manga, which was recently self-published through the iUniverse service. This is Drazen's second book; the first one, Anime Explosion! The What? Why? & Wow! of Japanese Animation, came out in 2002 from Stone Bridge Press and was an introduction to many of the genres and themes that can be found in anime. I think the switch from a commercial press to self-publication may indicate the direction English-language anime and manga scholarship may be heading in. A few years ago, when Japanese popular culture seemed like the Next Big Thing, there were more publishers that seemed like they were willing to take a chance on books about anime and manga.
Unfortunately, as I know firsthand (and as I've heard from other authors, confirming that it's not just me) these books didn't sell nearly as well as anyone was hoping, which in turn meant that these publishers didn't want to take risks with additional books along these lines. After all, all publishers need to make money in one way or another to stay afloat. In the last few years, the majority of books on anime and manga have been published by university presses, perhaps most notably the University of Minnesota Press.
...However, this puts books like Drazen's in an odd predicament. It's not really an academic book, since it lacks the references and theories something like that would entail, which means it's not a good candidate for a university press. However, since few popular presses have seen their books on anime and manga reflect positively on their bottom lines, there aren't many other options these days other than self-publishing. Of course, these days publishing a book on your own doesn't have nearly the same connotations it did decades ago, when vanity presses were the domain of those with more money (and ego) than sense. These days you can self-publish a quality product, get it up on Amazon for all to see, and (if you're savvy about these things) perhaps even make a tidy profit."
On Tue, Aug 9, 2011 at 6:10 PM, Gwern Branwen gwern0@gmail.com wrote:
"Brain Diving: The Ghost with the Most" by Brain Ruh, _ANN_ http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/brain-diving/2011-08-09
...However, this puts books like Drazen's in an odd predicament. It's not really an academic book, since it lacks the references and theories something like that would entail, which means it's not a good candidate for a university press.
My rule of thumb for self-published sources is to see if they cite their sources. If they do, then you can check what they say. If they don't, then you can't, and that can be a problem even with so-called 'reliable' sources. The best measure of reliability after a really reputable name and publisher and reputation, is citing of sources (there is a reason why this is done, after all). So much so, that when I buy (or browse) books that I might consider useful for Wikipedia editing, the first thing I do is look at the back to see how good the references are (if there are any). If there are none, I may buy (borrow if in a library) the book anyway as something of interest, but would be far less likely to use it for Wikipedia editing.
Carcharoth
On Tue, 9 Aug 2011, Carcharoth wrote:
My rule of thumb for self-published sources is to see if they cite their sources. If they do, then you can check what they say. If they don't, then you can't, and that can be a problem even with so-called 'reliable' sources.
This fails to be a useful method when the self-published source is the personal experience of a professional in the industry.
This happens a lot with Internet publications, such as J. Michael Straczynski's postings in the Babylon 5 newsgroup, or Jim Shooter's blog (jimshooter.com).
The standard Wikipedian's response to this quandry is "well, if they can't get a reliable source to quote them, it must not be that important in the first place", which ignores the realities of the modern Internet.
There was an article in the New York Times a few days ago, on a related theme:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/08/business/media/a-push-to-redefine-knowledg...
One of its arguments was that there are whole cultures that lack published "reliable sources".
Quote:
---o0o--- In the case of dabba kali, a children’s game played in the Kerala state of India, there was a Wikipedia article in the local language, Malayalam, that included photos, a drawing and a detailed description of the rules, but no sources to back up what was written. Other than, of course, the 40 million people who played it as children. There is no doubt, he said, that the article would have been deleted from English Wikipedia if it didn’t have any sources to cite. Those are the rules of the game, and those are the rules he would like to change, or at least bend, or, if all else fails, work around. “There is this desire to grow Wikipedia in parts of the world,” he said, adding that “if we don’t have a more generous and expansive citation policy, the current one will prove to be a massive roadblock that you literally can’t get past. There is a very finite amount of citable material, which means a very finite number of articles, and there will be no more.” ---o0o---
Andreas
--- On Wed, 10/8/11, Ken Arromdee arromdee@rahul.net wrote:
From: Ken Arromdee arromdee@rahul.net Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] WP:RSs To: "English Wikipedia" wikien-l@lists.wikimedia.org Date: Wednesday, 10 August, 2011, 16:40
On Tue, 9 Aug 2011, Carcharoth wrote:
My rule of thumb for self-published sources is to see if they cite their sources. If they do, then you can check what they say. If they don't, then you can't, and that can be a problem even with so-called 'reliable' sources.
This fails to be a useful method when the self-published source is the personal experience of a professional in the industry.
This happens a lot with Internet publications, such as J. Michael Straczynski's postings in the Babylon 5 newsgroup, or Jim Shooter's blog (jimshooter.com).
The standard Wikipedian's response to this quandry is "well, if they can't get a reliable source to quote them, it must not be that important in the first place", which ignores the realities of the modern Internet.
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On Thu, Aug 11, 2011 at 6:03 PM, Andreas Kolbe jayen466@yahoo.com wrote:
There was an article in the New York Times a few days ago, on a related theme:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/08/business/media/a-push-to-redefine-knowledg...
One of its arguments was that there are whole cultures that lack published "reliable sources".
I found that article very funny, personally. So apparently it's noble and worthwhile for the Foundation to go out into South Africa or India and spend the donations listening to people on random things like how to make a drink (not to produce articles, even, but just a documentary).
But things the white nerds who wrote Wikipedia care about, like comic books or MUDs or text games or anime which are underserved by RSs? Well, if they don't have RSs, they can go screw themselves. (If you care so much about fancruft, go work on a Wikia! We're busy trying to figure out how to deal with editor retention.)
On 12 August 2011 00:08, Gwern Branwen gwern0@gmail.com wrote:
But things the white nerds who wrote Wikipedia care about, like comic books or MUDs or text games or anime which are underserved by RSs? Well, if they don't have RSs, they can go screw themselves. (If you care so much about fancruft, go work on a Wikia! We're busy trying to figure out how to deal with editor retention.)
That particular subgroup would probably be better served by setting up a more conventional electronic open access journal. I would expect being backed by the charity behind wikipedia would get it enough profile to get some decent submissions.
Heh also paying for the scanning of the old time computer game magazines would be a viable approach.
On 12 August 2011 01:54, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
Heh also paying for the scanning of the old time computer game magazines would be a viable approach.
Some enthusiast scanning and putting up a stack of such magazines would provide quite a lot of support material.
- d.
On Fri, 12 Aug 2011, geni wrote:
But things the white nerds who wrote Wikipedia care about, like comic books or MUDs or text games or anime which are underserved by RSs? Well, if they don't have RSs, they can go screw themselves. (If you care so much about fancruft, go work on a Wikia! We're busy trying to figure out how to deal with editor retention.)
That particular subgroup would probably be better served by setting up a more conventional electronic open access journal. I would expect being backed by the charity behind wikipedia would get it enough profile to get some decent submissions.
I hate this response, along with variations such as "convince the person to publish it himself" and "convince the source to publish a correction". It amounts to "we don't need to listen to your complaint about bad policy because you can work around the bad policy by jumping through a lot of hoops". Jumping through the hoops is often completely impractical, and even when it's technically possible it's orders of magnitude more difficult than just using the source would be if the policy was fixed.
Imagine if we did this in other situations. "Yeah, it's the encyclopedia that anyone can edit. So if your date of birth is in error, just go get published in an electronic open access journal and we'd be glad to let you fix the entry."
Heh also paying for the scanning of the old time computer game magazines would be a viable approach.
Except in the rare cases where the owners give permission (or where you own a copy of the magazine and don't need the scan anyway), this solution doesn't work since illegal copies aren't considered reliable sources. We can't even link to them, never mind use them for sources.
Of course, scanning them will result in a don't-ask-don't-tell policy where Wikipedians insert information based on scans they're not actually allowed to use as sources, but they don't volunteer the information that they used an illegal copy.
On 12 August 2011 15:58, Ken Arromdee arromdee@rahul.net wrote:
Except in the rare cases where the owners give permission (or where you own a copy of the magazine and don't need the scan anyway), this solution doesn't work since illegal copies aren't considered reliable sources. We can't even link to them, never mind use them for sources.
This is false. Print sources do not require a legal scan to be available.
- d.
On 12 August 2011 17:09, Ken Arromdee arromdee@rahul.net wrote:
On Fri, 12 Aug 2011, David Gerard wrote:
This is false. Print sources do not require a legal scan to be available.
If you try using an illegal scan of a print source, you'll be told that you have no reason to believe the copy accurately represents the source.
I tend to just cite the print source and have had no problems. Please give diffs illustrating examples of the problems you are describing.
- d.
On 12 August 2011 17:12, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 12 August 2011 17:09, Ken Arromdee arromdee@rahul.net wrote:
On Fri, 12 Aug 2011, David Gerard wrote:
This is false. Print sources do not require a legal scan to be available.
If you try using an illegal scan of a print source, you'll be told that you have no reason to believe the copy accurately represents the source.
I tend to just cite the print source and have had no problems. Please give diffs illustrating examples of the problems you are describing.
I haven't seen Ken's particular case, but I've seen similar ones. Citing a print source is fine, but some (particularly querulous) people will occasionally challenge the print source because they don't believe what it says. In doing so, they'll argue that the person citing it can't be trusted, or that the transcription referred to is inaccurate, or - in this case - that there is something inherently wrong with the scanned file referred to. See, for example, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Kurt_Meyer_(SS_general) which used this style of argument before moving swiftly on to denying the existence of anyone who'd ever read the book.
It's a conceptually silly argument - it basically amounts to assuming deliberate deception at some point in the chain of evidence, which isn't a reasonable assumption in 98% of cases - but if someone is insistent enough, they can probably stonewall with it until the other party throws their hands up and gives in. And, sooner or later, we all do.
I have seen it used sensibly once or twice - a couple of years back, I even went to the library to check a transcription for someone when it seemed too outlandish to be true - but usually this approach is a good marker of someone acting in bad faith. We can (and do) deplore it, but it's hard to stamp out a deliberately and tendentiously over-literal approach to verification!
On 12 August 2011 18:09, Andrew Gray andrew.gray@dunelm.org.uk wrote:
I haven't seen Ken's particular case, but I've seen similar ones. Citing a print source is fine, but some (particularly querulous) people will occasionally challenge the print source because they don't believe what it says. In doing so, they'll argue that the person citing it can't be trusted, or that the transcription referred to is inaccurate, or - in this case - that there is something inherently wrong with the scanned file referred to. See, for example, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Kurt_Meyer_(SS_general) which used this style of argument before moving swiftly on to denying the existence of anyone who'd ever read the book. It's a conceptually silly argument - it basically amounts to assuming deliberate deception at some point in the chain of evidence, which isn't a reasonable assumption in 98% of cases - but if someone is insistent enough, they can probably stonewall with it until the other party throws their hands up and gives in. And, sooner or later, we all do.
That's a rather different claim than that it is standard and accepted practice, which is what Ken was clearly implying.
- d.
On Fri, 12 Aug 2011, David Gerard wrote:
That's a rather different claim than that it is standard and accepted practice, which is what Ken was clearly implying.
I ran into it a number of times but didn't have a particular situation in mind. I was sure that sooner or later someone would find one (which indeed someone did) to cite, since it's fairly common.
A quick search for "illegal scan" on talk pages turns up this: ------------------------------------------- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Anime_and_manga/Arch... " SaiyanIsland.com hosts illegal scans of various manga series. AFAIK such websites can never be used as general sources, no matter how reliable they are otherwise. 「ダイノガイ千？！」? · Talk⇒Dinoguy1000 02:29, 30 May 2010 (UTC)
That's correct, per WP:ELNEVER 1. --Andrensath (talk | contribs) 02:48, 30 May 2010 (UTC)
WP:ELNEVER doesn't apply to inline citations or general references, only external links, so that guideline can't be used. In such a case, cite WP:VERIFY in that sources containing copyrighted material fail the criteria of a reliable source :) ADD NOTE: More specifically WP:SOURCES." ------------------------------------------- and this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Angel_Munoz "Reference 6: This is an illegally scanned article from an unknown magazine, hosted on Mr. Munoz's website (the poster apparently finds himself quite clever in using the IP of the server instead of the DNS name). If this was linked to an official web site in a non-infringing manner, it would most likely be a legitimate press source. ------------------------------------------- and this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Articles_for_creation/Lydia_McLa... "game-port.com" - do not 'reference' a scan of a DVD (or whatever it is) - it's probably an illegal copy of a copyrighted work anyway. You could reference the published DVD itself. The image is not an appropriate way of verifying the fact. ------------------------------------------- Your reply, incidentally, illustrates another problem with RS: the rules encourage using a request for sources as a way of filibustering.
-----Original Message----- From: wikien-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:wikien-l- bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Andrew Gray Sent: 12 August 2011 18:09 To: English Wikipedia Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] WP:RSs
Citing a print source is fine, but some (particularly querulous) people will occasionally challenge the print source because they don't believe what it says. In doing so, they'll argue that the person citing it can't be trusted, or that the transcription referred to is inaccurate, or - in this case - that there is something inherently wrong with the scanned file referred to. See, for example, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Kurt_Meyer_(SS_general) which used this style of argument before moving swiftly on to denying the existence of anyone who'd ever read the book.
It's a conceptually silly argument - it basically amounts to assuming deliberate deception at some point in the chain of evidence, which isn't a reasonable assumption in 98% of cases - but if someone is insistent enough, they can probably stonewall with it until the other party throws their hands up and gives in. And, sooner or later, we all do.
There is a difference between the sourcing concepts involved in verifiability and the concepts sources as Quality Control.
In any other work than Wikipedia, when citing a source is required, print sources will usually (and sometimes erroneously) be preferred to online ones. That's often because an expert academic work is usually seen as more authoritative than a quickly written scribble from a journalist. Trust me, cite the New York Times in most quality reference works you'll be laughed off the planet. However, in most reference works it is assumed that the author will be honestly and correctly using his sources - the ONLY question is how authoritative the sources are. On the odd chance that the author is misusing the sources, he's got a lot to lose in the way of reputation.
Wikipedia is different. We don't (for the most part) know the identity of the author submitting the information. We don't know his honesty, or his ability to accurately present the material he's taking from his sources. And he's got little to lose if he's at it. Thus our Quality Control often rests on the ability of another editor to check the source. For this reason alone, an online source is often better. Not because it is more reliable, but because there's a more realistic chance of source-misuse being identified. If the article's facts seem to check out with a general article printed in the NYT and available on line, that's better QC than having a reference to an academic work that could theoretically be read in some academic library - but probably no one will actually check. That's true even if said academic work is FAR more reliable than the NYT.
I'd go further, and argue that we ought to insist on on-line sources for any negative material on a living person. Not because on-line is more reliable, or less biased, but because it is essential that we have a realistic Quality Control on such information (and also because a negative BLP claim which can't be found on-line is probably not remotely notable anyway.)
Scott
Ken Arromdee wrote:
On Fri, 12 Aug 2011, David Gerard wrote:
This is false. Print sources do not require a legal scan to be available.
If you try using an illegal scan of a print source, you'll be told that you have no reason to believe the copy accurately represents the source.
I think David meant there's no rule that says there must be a scan (legal or illegal) at all.
I think your point is that there's some precedent for rejecting (or at least complaining about) sources that are only available off-line.
On 12 August 2011 17:19, Steve Summit scs@eskimo.com wrote:
Ken Arromdee wrote:
On Fri, 12 Aug 2011, David Gerard wrote:
This is false. Print sources do not require a legal scan to be available.
If you try using an illegal scan of a print source, you'll be told that you have no reason to believe the copy accurately represents the source.
I think David meant there's no rule that says there must be a scan (legal or illegal) at all. I think your point is that there's some precedent for rejecting (or at least complaining about) sources that are only available off-line.
Rather than your interpretation, I'd like to see examples of what Ken's complaining about - whether he was told "you can't use that print reference" or whether he was told "you've linked to a scan that's a copyright violation". They're rather different things.
-d.
On 11/08/2011 23:03, Andreas Kolbe wrote:
There was an article in the New York Times a few days ago, on a related theme:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/08/business/media/a-push-to-redefine-knowledg...
One of its arguments was that there are whole cultures that lack published "reliable sources".
Which is true. I think though that this argument about "ethnographic" content in WP is rather an old one. There was a time before WP:V was cast-iron policy, you know, and some of the implications were probably brought up in 2003-4 (the archives of this list may reveal this). Does it matter? Not so much, I think. The Web rewards sites doing one thing well; and compiling material from RS as "one thing" covers an awful lot of useful ground.
We tend to think of such cultures in set ways: the "street", or picturesque because not mainstream. I most recently encountered this constraint, though, in the form of an article on games to play on a car journey. Most families don't document their own "oral culture". I think the argument tends to forget that there can be wikis that are not Wikipedia.
Charles
On 10/08/2011 16:40, Ken Arromdee wrote:
On Tue, 9 Aug 2011, Carcharoth wrote:
My rule of thumb for self-published sources is to see if they cite their sources. If they do, then you can check what they say. If they don't, then you can't, and that can be a problem even with so-called 'reliable' sources.
This fails to be a useful method when the self-published source is the personal experience of a professional in the industry.
This happens a lot with Internet publications, such as J. Michael Straczynski's postings in the Babylon 5 newsgroup, or Jim Shooter's blog (jimshooter.com).
The standard Wikipedian's response to this quandry is "well, if they can't get a reliable source to quote them, it must not be that important in the first place", which ignores the realities of the modern Internet.
The standard Wikipedian's response to the standard Wikipedian's response is that we have IAR for particular exceptions to a "rule of thumb". The standard response to that is that the "community" has shown a drift over time from people who like rules-of-thumb and IAR, to people who like rules, period. The standard response to that is WP:CREEP. The standard response to the comment that nobody reads what WP:CREEP says about "Editors don't believe that nobody reads the directions" is that ... hey, there is a thing called the "human condition" and we somewhat have to live with it. [[Wabi-sabi#Western_use]] got there before WP was thought of, but it of course now sounds very old-school. Though the insight that trying to legislate perfection into what we do is rather foolish is worth saying occasionally, even if it is wasted on fanatics for the MoS and inline verification-ultras. Hey, I can now slip in my view that we need to look again at "barriers to entry" in general, not just as special pleading for Babylon 5 fans.
Charles
On Fri, 12 Aug 2011, Charles Matthews wrote:
This fails to be a useful method when the self-published source is the personal experience of a professional in the industry. The standard Wikipedian's response to this quandry is "well, if they can't get a reliable source to quote them, it must not be that important in the first place", which ignores the realities of the modern Internet.
The standard Wikipedian's response to the standard Wikipedian's response is that we have IAR for particular exceptions to a "rule of thumb". The standard response to that is that the "community" has shown a drift over time from people who like rules-of-thumb and IAR, to people who like rules, period. The standard response to that is WP:CREEP. The standard response to the comment that nobody reads what WP:CREEP says about "Editors don't believe that nobody reads the directions" is that ... hey, there is a thing called the "human condition" and we somewhat have to live with it.
True, it's all been said before.
But when you look at what actually *happens* in situations of this sort, the people who like the rules always win unless the article simply goes under everyone's radar. There are standard responses and counter-responses, but they don't all work.
Wikipedia is based around rules to the point where if there's a dispute between a rule and IAR (even though IAR is technically a rule), the rule wins unless the person claiming the rule is just one guy. There are enough people looking for an excuse to get rid of Babylon 5, comics, webcomics, or MUDs that IAR is never going to win.