[Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?

[Andreas Kolbe]

> So 30 seconds British library catalog search then forget
> about it.
>  
> Which means that unless you happen to live with a library
> that
> includes a bunch of naval history or are prepared to spend
> a non
> trivial amount of money you can't edit say [[HMS Argus
> (I49)]] (which
> cites Warship 1994). You appear to be missing the point
> that wikipedia
> is a collaboration.



Well, it should be *informed* collaboration. 

Of course I am not saying that you are not allowed to edit [[HMS Argus (I49)]] unless you have read "Warship 1994". If that book is not available to you, but you have a different source, then naturally it's absolutely fine for you to jump in and add content based on that source.

The point I am making is that you should *look* for scholarly sources, because they are likely to be the most valuable. 

I don't use a library either. But I regularly use google books, which has previews of millions of books. 

For example, you can look for university press books that have "canal(s)" in the title like so: 

http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&safe=off&tbs=bks:1&q=canal+intitle:canal+OR+intitle:canals+inpublisher:university&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=

Then click on a book and read it online. 

There is a utility that converts google books URLs into a readily formatted Wikipedia reference:

http://reftag.appspot.com/?book_url=&dateformat=dmy

When a page is missing in the google preview, you can sometimes find it in the amazon preview. And you can use google scholar to see whether a book is well cited.

I have a subscription to Questia ($50 a year), which has lots of humanities stuff -- books, journals, some press. You can read the complete books online. And sometimes, of course, I end up buying books.

Your Warship book has snippet view in google books: 

http://books.google.com/books?cd=1&id=z2AqAQAAIAAJ&dq=isbn:0851776302&q=Argus#search_anchor

This means that even though you can't see complete pages, google has the complete content stored, and with a little trickery you can get to text beyond the snippets:

http://www.google.com/search?tbs=bks:1&tbo=1&q=%22did,+might+well+have+become+a+very+famous+ship%22&btnG=Search+Books

The minimum requirement for content contributions in Wikipedia is, and always has been, that you should have read a reliable source.


Andreas