[WikiEN-l] Idealism

[George Herbert]

On 8/24/06, stevertigo <vertigosteve at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> --- Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > If you're saying "Wikipedia articles should have a reference for every
> > statement of fact, and none of those references should be Wikipedia",
> > then yes, that goes without saying.
>
> "Yes"?? Thats citenazism! Its usefulness is dubious outside of scratching
> libel
> out of biographies. When did this happen? How would using this policy have
> affected
> Wikipedia's growth from its humble beginnings when Nupedia sucked down a
> quarter mil?
> How are "good writers" supposed to rephrase in an explanatory way what
> technocrats
> plop down as fact?
>
> > What do you mean by a)? Do you mean that people who perform research
> > using Wikipedia as a base should cite it?
>
> No. I meant simply that people follow different modes of editing, one of
> which
> can be generally called "research."
>
> > we would not want to be cited in an academic journal.
>
> We dont?
>
> > My interpretation of IAR is basically a restatement of ...
>
> And therefore a redundancy, and therefore a confusing fork of...
> a policy which is sharply in contrast with... current topics of
> discussion.
>
> -SV
>
>
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Steve writes:
--
"Yes"?? Thats citenazism! Its usefulness is dubious outside of scratching
libel
out of biographies. When did this happen? How would using this policy have
affected
Wikipedia's growth from its humble beginnings when Nupedia sucked down a
quarter mil?
How are "good writers" supposed to rephrase in an explanatory way what
technocrats
plop down as fact?
--

I think you're misinterpreting that.

It would be good if every fact in WP was referenced.

I have toyed with the idea of an underlying data structure for listing facts
(factual claims, referenced facts).  Over time, it would be good if there
were a slow evolution towards nearly everything being referenced, well
referenced and multiply referenced if possible.

That is not a requirement that we all rush out and reference everything
immediately.

Just because something hasn't had references added to date, doesn't mean we
should inherently mistrust it or throw the articles out or anything.   This
is in a sense the ultimate "leave something for others" project aspect...

Fuzzy end goal, not immediate requirement.


-- 
-george william herbert
george.herbert at gmail.com