Milos Rancic wrote:
On 8/10/07, J.L.W.S. The Special One hildanknight@gmail.com wrote:
- Sources for articles on topics pertaining to the Sinosphere (for example)
are much harder to find than sources for articles on topics pertaining to the Anglosphere.
As someone who is a part of a culture which is not so good covered on Internet (Serbian), I think that I am completely relevant to talk about this issue.
If the only sources available about a subject are in the Serbian language, there is absolutely nothing wrong with using them as references.
Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. Yes, it is much more then just an encyclopedia, but it is primary encyclopedia.
- Encyclopedia follows scientific method, not religious, not political. *
One of the basic principles of science is to say that it may describe something and that it is not possible to describe something else. *Not possible* may mean that it is not possible to do it temporary, but it also may mean that it is not possible to do at all.
"Scientific method" would say that all that we say is hypothesis subject to verification. Saying that it necessarily excludes the opposite is a fallacy. At first glance the wave and particle theories of light seem contradictory, but they have had to learn to live with each other. It is logically fallacious to say that because a thory is determined to be valid an apparently contrary theory must be false. A lack of adequate scientific proof for a theory does not imply that that theory has been proven false.
Science, politics and religion do not together define a complete set of all modes of investigation. Other bases can exist too.
Encyclopedia doesn't "think", it cites what do other think. There are no such things like "well known truths" for encyclopedia.
Yes. Actually it cites what others say, not what they think. The term "scientific method" is misleading. We cite what people say, and thus establish the meta-fact that they said it; we are not in a position to judge whether what they say is true. That's how we diverge from scientific method.
Unsourced sentences like "Queen Victoria was born in London" (well known truth for one person from Anglo-Saxon cultural sphere) leads to sentences like "Leo Tolstoy was born in Yasnaya Polyana" (not so well known truth for a person from Anglo-Saxon cultural sphere) and "Josib Broz was born in Kumrovec" (not well known truth for a person from Anglo-Saxon cultural sphere). (I may make an elaborate that we are making general encyclopedia in 200 language editions, not encyclopedias of particular cultures in their languages; I may also elaborate about examples which I chose ... Plus, it is completely unscientific to say that something is "well known" and something is not except you have a very complex research about what are "well known truths" in different parts of the world.)
So, the only valid method is to have sources for all of them. And we have to fight against systematic bias, but we shouldn't make Wikipedia unscientific in such fight.
There is a place for standard reference works. These are works that contain the basic facts about a subject or a person's life. Whether you agree or disagree with what Tolstoy and Broz stood for, there is unlikely to be a dispute about where they were born. We should not need detailed repetitive sources about such things.
- Sources for articles on non-academic topics (that mainstream
encyclopedias are unlikely to cover) should not be held to the same standards of reliability as sources for articles on academic topics (such as science and maths).
I think that we need one method for all sources. If it is needed to go down because of non-academic topics, then it should. However, it seems that I am not so introduced in differences in approaches.
We should avoid putting square pegs in round holes.
Ec