[WikiEN-l] I'm disappointed in Wikipedia.

[John Lee]

On 6/11/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
>
> On Sat, 9 Jun 2007 21:52:39 +0800, "John Lee" <johnleemk at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> >As I anticipated, the only reason the article was deleted was a lack of
> >sources. That's perfectly fine.
> >
> >What's not perfectly fine is how lazy people are when it comes to looking
> >for sources. I often see quotations tagged with {{fact}} that have
> sources
> >readily available on Google
>
> There is nothing that says anyone is compelled to go and look for
> sources if the original author can't be bothered to do it themselves.
> Tagging with {{fact}} or {{unreferenced}} is reasonable, the person
> tagging may be completely unfamiliar with the subject and the authors
> of the article will be in a much better position to provide not just
> any old reference but a good, authoritative one.
>
> Some editors - Uncle G springs to mind - specialise in rescuing crap
> articles on good subjects.  Some specialise in identifying the crap
> articles.  Some specialise in Wikignoming.  There is room for all
> sorts.


This being a volunteer project, that's to be expected. I was criticising the
attitude of volunteers who could contribute a lot more if they only took a
couple of seconds to Google something. I'm not talking about obscure things;
I have personally found sources for a variety of quotations from Google, and
all reliable ones - often the first hit for a quote is something like a New
York Times article (let's say) carrying the quote. While perhaps not the
most desirable source, it's better than nothing, and the marginal effort
required is minimal. I'm just saying that volunteers should spend some time
doing a minimum of due diligence before tagging. Obviously they shouldn't be
required to, but the returns are huge, and the costs are small, so why not?

Johnleemk