[WikiEN-l] The vexed issue of sources

[Ray Saintonge]

Daniel P. B. Smith wrote:

>>Libraries are wonderful things, but a scholar who believes that  
>>"the sum
>>of all human knowledge" is to be found in the library alone is like a
>>medieval monk who believes that the same is to be found only in the
>>monastery.
>>    
>>
>Wikipedia is an encyclopedia and an encyclopedia _is_ a distillation  
>of things to be found in libraries.
>
>Things that are _not_ to be found in libraries are published in peer- 
>reviewed journals, not encyclopedias. Wikipedia is not a peer- 
>reviewed journal. And journals have their own requirements, which in  
>fact are more stringent than those for an encyclopedia, one being  
>reproducibility of results. That's the "new-knowledge" equivalent of  
>what we call "verifiability" and it is _much_ harder to do.
>
We really need to accept that the nature of peer review is changing.  
More and more I read about wikis being a medium for peer review.  
Journals are notoriously inefficient.  If a researcher develops a truly 
novel idea reviewers are often not in a position to empirically 
establish the reproducibility of results; that could require the 
consumption of more time and resources than they have available.  I'm 
sure that most would prefer to put that expense into projects that are 
closer to their hearts.

Ec