--- Sabine Cretella sabine_cretella@yahoo.it wrote:
not here ... up to now in a place with 6000 people not one knew Wikipedia - I am NOT kidding.
Wikipedia is a top 40 website and the number 1 reference website on the Internet. 13 million unique visitors used Wikipedia in September of this year. That does not at all include the many millions more people who use Wikipedia content from hundreds of mirrors. By any measure that makes Wikipedia famous.
It is one case ... things have been corrected as soon as the error was seen ... well, where's the problem?
The libelous statements remained uncorrected for 4 months and were spread to hundreds of Wikipedia mirrors. We not only failed to correct the error, but our license allowed it to be spread all over the Internet.
The best answer to such an article would have been: well if you knew that it was wrong, and you know what Wikipedia is, why do you make such a huge problem out of this: simply correct things - you could have done this - so it is not us who are wrong, but the person who "did not correct" knowing how Wikipedia works and "officially" believes in equal chances and whatever ... use these critics in the right way - that's all.
SoFixIt is no longer a valid retort for the larger language versions where readers outnumber editors by over 200 to 1 and the vast, vast, majority of people who use those Wikipedias will never edit. Again, a sourcing requirement would only be enacted by each wiki community when it thinks that it is needed. I think it is needed for at least the English Wikipedia.
So now I write about the "Chiesa del Carmine" (Church of the Carmine) here in Maiori - where there is no official documentation - all I know is from what people of Maiori told me.
That may or may not be original research. If it is, then it already is not allowed, if it is just observation or common knowledge in that village, then citing personal correspondence and unpublished records is perfectly valid when there are no other alternatives. In other words, if a phone call or visit could confirm the information, then that may in fact be a valid reference.
Readers who rely on only one source are not good readers ... they are blind readers.
I agree and find it odd at how indigent some people get when they find out that any source they use is wrong. But at the same time we do have a responsibility to make sure we try our best. Good referencing is a part of that. We also have to take the world as it is, not as we think it should be. The world is filled with lots of blind readers.
And what if the references already contain that error? The reference of the reference?
Each reference is going to have its own errors. That is why any article written should ideally have multiple references; common facts between them can be more trusted than facts that disagree. A good researcher needs to use good references, compare their facts, and find out the truth when the references disagree.
But none of that work can be done if there are no references to check.
-- mav
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