On 10 May 2011 17:04, Scott MacDonald doc.wikipedia@ntlworld.com wrote:
I've written a little essay which I think serves to illustrate the dangers of Wikipedia's tendency to create articles (and particularly BLPs) from a pastiche of newspaper articles.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Otto_Middleton_%28or_why_newspapers_a re_dubious_sources%29
It may amuse (or it may not)
No it just provides further evidence you haven't really thought about the issue. Firstly lets not forget this is all in reaction to the [[Pippa Middleton]] article which is based on a wider range of sources over a longer period of time and who quite clearly exists. In any case Britain has royal watchers in much the same way it has train spotters so sourcing is not much of a concern.
Secondly if you think that this is limited to BLPs and newspapers you are sadly mistaken.
Jasper Maskelyne was a stage magician who served as a perfectly respectable and competent camouflage officer. After the war he had a set of ghost written memoirs published which are a mix of wild exaggerations and plain making stuff up. These stories have make it into various sources beyond newspapers:
http://www.maskelynemagic.com/Resources/SEND%20IN%20THE%20CLOWNS.pdf
But hey it's not limited to people. There's [[Operation Tyr]] originally a web hoax about a supposed plan by nazi germany to invade Liechtenstein. It has since made it's way into Michael Sharpe's 5th Gebirgsjäger Division: Hitler's mountain warfare specialists.
The story about an dummy airfield being bombed by dummy bombs has also made it's way into an unreasonable number of sources.
Covered here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Geni/WW2_sourcing_issues
The difference is I'm able to document this without a WP:POINT violation.
-----Original Message----- From: wikien-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:wikien-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of geni
Firstly lets not forget this is all in reaction to the [[Pippa Middleton]] article which is based on a wider range of sources over a longer period of time and who quite clearly exists. In any case Britain has royal watchers in much the same way it has train spotters so sourcing is not much of a concern.
Existence is not really the point. The point is that reliance on newspaper sources is incredibly dangerous - even when a wide range is used. For example, on Pippa Middleton, see my critique of this section, which was a careless pastiche of terrible newspaper stories. http://tinyurl.com/5s6hoxa
The problem is that our metric for keeping an article is that multiple sources exist. No one ever seems to consider whether the sources are adequate for a reliable biography, but once the article exists people need the need to fill it out, and so they use google to find every passing mention and make as much of each as they can.
Secondly if you think that this is limited to BLPs and newspapers you are
sadly mistaken.
Nothing is ever limited to anything. But the use of newspapers to write bios of celebrities, where no proper biographical sources exist is particularly pernicious.
The difference is I'm able to document this without a WP:POINT violation.
Writing an essay to make a point is not a violation of WP:POINT - although I'll admit creating this as an article at the start was a little silly.
Scott