I just was looking at http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nation/politics/bal-primarytracker-html,0,4...
and saw that in one of the boxes on the page, the word "superdelegates" was a hyperlink - imagine my surprise when I clicked on it and it took me to the Wikipedia article.
Does anyone worry that if newspapers make a habit of doing that, their readers will look at Wikipedia as being as authoritative as the newspaper and not bother to check into the article's accuracy? After all, if the paper considers it authoritative enough to link to, it must be so, right?
Angela
How many minutes until someone cites that URL on the [[Super delegates]] page and the internet crashes in a tight endless loop?
On Feb 12, 2008, at 1:25 PM, Angela Anuszewski wrote:
I just was looking at http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nation/politics/bal-primarytracker-html,0,4...
and saw that in one of the boxes on the page, the word "superdelegates" was a hyperlink - imagine my surprise when I clicked on it and it took me to the Wikipedia article.
Does anyone worry that if newspapers make a habit of doing that, their readers will look at Wikipedia as being as authoritative as the newspaper and not bother to check into the article's accuracy? After all, if the paper considers it authoritative enough to link to, it must be so, right?
Angela
I'm a software engineer, so, sadly I thought about that too. Would that be considered a "page fault"? :)
(Seriously, if newspapers are using WP as a source, that's just scary.)
Angela
On 2/12/08, Noah Salzman nds@salzman.net wrote:
How many minutes until someone cites that URL on the [[Super delegates]] page and the internet crashes in a tight endless loop?
On Feb 12, 2008, at 1:25 PM, Angela Anuszewski wrote:
I just was looking at http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nation/politics/bal-primarytracker-html,0,4...
and saw that in one of the boxes on the page, the word "superdelegates" was a hyperlink - imagine my surprise when I clicked on it and it took me to the Wikipedia article.
Does anyone worry that if newspapers make a habit of doing that, their readers will look at Wikipedia as being as authoritative as the newspaper and not bother to check into the article's accuracy? After all, if the paper considers it authoritative enough to link to, it must be so, right?
Angela
On 12/02/2008, Angela Anuszewski psu256@member.fsf.org wrote:
(Seriously, if newspapers are using WP as a source, that's just scary.)
I don't... I find that much less scary than using other newspapers as a source, and they do seem to do that sometimes, but those sources are deliberately skewed by their advertising and owners.
In the wikipedia these forces tend to cancel out more or less; except for BLP articles, which are usually written by the guy or gal's publicist ;-)
Angela
On Feb 13, 2008 8:36 AM, Angela Anuszewski psu256@member.fsf.org wrote:
(Seriously, if newspapers are using WP as a source, that's just scary.)
Note that they're not using the Wikipedia article as a source, they're linking to it to define the term, to provide readers with some general background on the area; which really is what an encyclopaedia should be used for.
On 12/02/2008, Stephen Bain stephen.bain@gmail.com wrote:
Note that they're not using the Wikipedia article as a source, they're linking to it to define the term, to provide readers with some general background on the area; which really is what an encyclopaedia should be used for.
Strangely enough, I thought that, but the Lead guideline has been edited by the admins so that this is no longer the case; apparently definitions are no longer required in the wikipedia, according to the guideline anyway.
-- Stephen Bain stephen.bain@gmail.com
On 2/12/08, Angela Anuszewski psu256@member.fsf.org wrote:
(Seriously, if newspapers are using WP as a source, that's just scary.)
It would only be scary in a situation where: 1. information is added to a Wikipedia article without a source, 2. same information is reported in a newspaper which used Wikipedia as a (possibly uncredited) source. 3. Wikipedia article is "updated" to cite the newspaper as a source.
In other cases, ones where we can conclusively tell whether the chicken or the egg crossed the street first, it's nothing to worry about.
—C.W.
It could be an issue, yes, but I have a feeling there's not much we (or perhaps anybody in this situation) can do or should do beyond striving to offer the best services possible. Which we should really be doing, anyway. Readers should be critical of what they read and whom they trust. There are cues we can give to draw attention to specific issues -- citation-needed templates, and the like.
I believe there's been some discussion in press circles about using Wikipedia as a source, whether tacitly or not. It does seem to be useful as a "universal backgrounder" (forget who said that), but I hope people don't go relying on us exclusively.
Most definitions of "authoritativeness" I'm aware of seem circular, at least at some level. A source might be considered authoritative if other sources or people consider it to be so, by linking or citing it. In that context, I just take the links as a sign people find us useful, and that's a good sign from my seat.
-Luna
On 12/02/2008, Luna lunasantin@gmail.com wrote:
I believe there's been some discussion in press circles about using Wikipedia as a source, whether tacitly or not. It does seem to be useful as a "universal backgrounder" (forget who said that), but I hope people don't go relying on us exclusively.
I said it - I haven't spoken to a journalist who doesn't use it that way. It's waaaay too handy not to. And that's fine if they apply their journalistic sense to what they see here.
- d.
On 12/02/2008, Angela Anuszewski psu256@member.fsf.org wrote:
I just was looking at http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nation/politics/bal-primarytracker-html,0,4...
and saw that in one of the boxes on the page, the word "superdelegates" was a hyperlink - imagine my surprise when I clicked on it and it took me to the Wikipedia article.
Does anyone worry that if newspapers make a habit of doing that, their readers will look at Wikipedia as being as authoritative as the newspaper and not bother to check into the article's accuracy? After all, if the paper considers it authoritative enough to link to, it must be so, right?
It's better than them stating things they've read on Wikipedia as fact in their articles without saying where they got the info - at least this way readers stand a chance of being able to correctly determine the reliability of what they're reading.
On Feb 12, 2008 4:25 PM, Angela Anuszewski psu256@member.fsf.org wrote:
I just was looking at http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nation/politics/bal-primarytracker-html,0,4...
and saw that in one of the boxes on the page, the word "superdelegates" was a hyperlink - imagine my surprise when I clicked on it and it took me to the Wikipedia article.
Does anyone worry that if newspapers make a habit of doing that, their readers will look at Wikipedia as being as authoritative as the newspaper and not bother to check into the article's accuracy? After all, if the paper considers it authoritative enough to link to, it must be so, right?
Angela
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Maybe you don't read a lot of newspapers or something, but most are barely as reliable as your average page on geocities. There are few if any newspapers that should be considered more authoritative than Wikipedia (really, any discerning reader should rank both on the level of reliability I call "rumour mill" - your nomenclature may vary).
In fact, I'd wager we could go head to head for accuracy against any newspaper and "pwn" them, as the young people say. I've never figured out why Wikipedians seem to regard newspapers as some sort of gospel, rather the the fish-wrapping pack of lies they are.
Of course, standards for souces have been increasing with time - maybe something we'll see newspapers dropped as reliable sources.
Cheers WilyD
Angela Anuszewski wrote:
I just was looking at http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nation/politics/bal-primarytracker-html,0,4...
and saw that in one of the boxes on the page, the word "superdelegates" was a hyperlink - imagine my surprise when I clicked on it and it took me to the Wikipedia article.
Does anyone worry that if newspapers make a habit of doing that, their readers will look at Wikipedia as being as authoritative as the newspaper and not bother to check into the article's accuracy? After all, if the paper considers it authoritative enough to link to, it must be so, right?
Virginia's dad once said that if you see it in the Sun it must be true. That led to one of the most famous newspaper editorials ever.
In many respects we probably *are* more authoritative than the newspapers. Sheer modesty prevents us from admitting it.
Ec
On 13/02/2008, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
In many respects we probably *are* more authoritative than the newspapers. Sheer modesty prevents us from admitting it.
The scary thing is not how unreliable or not Wikipedia is (and no-one's more aware of that than those of us writing and editing it), but how unreliable everything else is. Anyone who's ever been quoted in a newspaper could only give a hollow laugh at the idea of newspapers automatically being considered "reliable sources." Encyclopedia Britannica is quite the sausage factory, the difference being you can't see inside theirs as you can with ours.
- d.