[WikiEN-l] Thousands of *awful* articles on websites

[Steve Block]

Stan Shebs wrote:
>> How do we know reliable sources aren't lying.  Every newspaper and 
>> source in town reports Colin Montgomerie holed the winning putt in the 
>> 2004 Ryder Cup, but it isn't true, Ian Poulter struck the putt that 
>> mathematically won the cup.  Monty's story simply made better press.  If 
>> we do, as you say, withhold judgement on whether a source is correct, 
>> why do you then say we can't use some sources because they may be lying. 
>>   Obviously some judgement is at play.
>>   
> Well, if the source is lying, then by definition it's not reliable. Your 
> example is an object lesson in how newspapers are intermediate in 
> reliability; they are usually better than Joe Random's blog, but not as 
> good as a scholarly monograph that has had multiple layers of review 
> spread over multiple years.

No, you haven't as yet stated how we define which source is telling the 
"truth".  My understanding is that we don't do that.  If we don't do 
that, it stands to reason we don't determine which source "lies", since 
doing so indicates we have determined one source is telling the truth. 
My understanding is that we weigh each source in relation to the topic, 
and present it in a NPV.  This means we must judge whether the 
information is relevant, not if it is true.  It is relevant to note that 
Montgomerie is credited as hitting the winning putt.

> Seeing the references to that article, I can see where you're coming 
> from. I personally would be very reluctant to, for instance, use 
> rootsweb to source a death date, because not only do we have the problem 
> of identifying *which* person of a given name is meant, but genealogy 
> sites include all the standard howlers, like descents traced to Julius 
> Caesar, which is only plausible if you don't realize how utterly corrupt 
> the primary sources are for the Dark Ages. The "California Death 
> Records" link comes up blank, the oldpoetry.com link has a single 
> unsourced line affecting to be written in the first person, post-mortem 
> ("I lived from 1887-1972.") - kind of spooky actually. So some of your 
> references illustrate well the reasons to be wary of primary sources.

No, they reflect your bias regarding those sources.  What you cite as 
spooky is simply the presentation style of a website.  What you write 
about the rootsweb site doesn't apply to the California Death Records, 
which are state records and not genealogical research which links me to 
Julius Caesar.  The rootsweb link is to show where I accessed the record 
from, not the source.  The source is the death record itself.  I'm open 
to hearing someone argue that I haven't used the source properly, but 
I'm not open to people declaring it is out of order because it was found 
on the web.

But this reflects something that annoys me on Wikipedia.  Far too often 
people seem to be insisting that all articles be perfect all of the 
time.  Now that was my first edit.  Compare that to some of the articles 
deleted as speedies from first time contributors, and I'd say it's of 
some value.  Wikipedia didn't have an article on Helen Hoyt before that 
edit.  After it, it did.  Has Wikipedia improved because of my edit? 
I'd argue it has.  Now people can come and look at the article, look at 
the sources and decide for themselves what they want to take away from 
it.  And I thought that's what we did.  And I too "did that because I 
read it on a policy page"  although I think it was only semi policy back 
then.

But to be honest, I didn't bring that example up to discuss the sources, 
I brought it up to counter your attempt to assume some sort of moral 
high ground on sourcing based on your editing style.  I have also 
typically added sources to any material I add, and so I don't see that 
you have any such high ground, nor do you have any right to characterise 
my contributions to Wikipedia as anything less than yours, or to 
question my commitment to the project.  This is a collaborative project, 
and that means even the rules we work under beyond the foundation issues 
and board edicts, are created collaboratively, and it tires me to be 
told by people that maybe I should leave by people who disagree with me. 
  I find that unhelpful and counter to the spirit of Wikipedia.

I am honest about my sourcing, and relate what I read in it, as anyone 
else does.  I am happy to discuss that reading and those sources and I 
am happy to concede I may read too much at times, or not present the 
information as best as possible.  Look at today's featured article, an 
article I slogged my guts out on, and tell me again I should reconsider 
my contributions to Wikipedia.

> I bring these up not to try to disparage you, but because to me it's 
> what is interesting about scholarship and Wikipedia. Which sources of 
> information are good, which not so good, and why? If they're 
> inconsistent, which is true, or are they both true if you interpret in a 
> different way? I imagine that some day, if it hasn't already happened, a 
> heated talk-page argument over some factual detail will inspire an 
> expert to do some original research and then publish the findings - 
> which we can then incorporate into the article originally in dispute.

I find this somewhat at odds with your thrust up until this point.  It 
seems to me this debate started when I asserted that web sources have 
value since the OED uses them.  If it is not your intention to declare 
web sources as inappropriate, then I fail to see how we have ended up 
where we are.  And if you didn't intend to disparage me, then I fail to 
see what your edit history has to do with anything.  I'm quite capable 
of judging an argument on its merits, thanks, and would hope my argument 
would be judged similarly too.  Let's not forget, these are only 
opinions, not facts, and we shouldn't be basing strict rules on 
subjective opinions.  I'm of the opinion sourcing is a "horses for 
courses" issue.


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