[Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?

[David Gerard]

On 2 October 2010 22:44, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:

> The problem is how to avoid making rules against stupidity. Because
> you can't actually outlaw stupid. Experts already complain about
> uncitability. I suppose we could advise experts on how to use citation
> as a debating tactic.


"Experts complain about uncitability" - they complain that common
knowledge in the field doesn't actually make it into journal articles
or textbooks, but is stuff that everyone knows.

I suspect they've been caught by surprise by a popular and important
work (and Wikipedia is important) suddenly demanding a standard of
citability they weren't ready for, and they feel put out and
undervalued by this.

So no, requiring more and better citations won't fix a lot of the
expert problem. Perhaps we could solve this facet of it by suggesting
review articles specifically written for the purpose of citation in
Wikipedia. People already write stuff specifically so it can be cited
as their view of things in the article on them personally.


- d.