Gerard Meijssen wrote:
Listening to the show I heard something else, it
was put forward that
people take wikipedia as the "gospel truth" either because they do
not have more time or because they still do not have the skills to do
some proper research.
The biggest problem with the "gospel truth" is the number of people
who blindly believe the gospel.
I came up with this conclusion: we emphasise on
providing the sources
for the articles written. This is cool for as far as it goes. However
the emphasis should be on where the reader should go next. It is much
more productive to state what and where good further reading can be
found. The point is that the source for a fact does not necessarily
make good reading even though it proves a factoid. It is much more
productive to show where to go next.
The crux is that the mentioning of sources make a Wikipedia article
credible. It does not point where to go for further research or
information. To me this is distinctly different and it is much more
important that we encourage people to learn more.
The sources are a place for the reader to go next. In most cases they
will contain much more information than what can be provided in an
encyclopedia. Even where your distinction may be valid the onus is
still upon the reader who wants to know more to track down the cited
source. The purpose of references is to make the article verifiable.
If the readers don't sometimes do that verification it becomes too
easy to just list phoney references.
Hoi,
The sources are a place where information can be verified. They are not
necessarily easily available, they are not necessararily the best place
to find more and better information. Sources refer to what was used to
write an article or to prove a point. What I am on about is that given a
factual article where do you turn to for more informative information
that is readily available and goes beyond what can be expected of an
encyclopedia. The point made in the program was that there is more than
one source, people have to learn that one source however correct is not
all there is to know about a subject. We try our best to be NPOV and it
is good to know where to find the POV's. My point is that giving
references for verification is defensive while pointing out where more
can be found is one way of extending a helping hand to the people in our
public who are looking for more information.
Thanks,
GerardM