[WikiEN-l] A much neglected aspect of quality - Bibliographies

[Fred Bauder]

Like many dilemmas faced by Wikipedia, we need to do several things: cite the references actually used; cite easily accessed sources of information, especially online sources; and point the reader to the seminal articles and authorities in the field. These categories need to be set forth in clearly identifiable sections.

Fred

>-----Original Message-----
>From: Mak [mailto:makwik at gmail.com]
>Sent: Saturday, June 30, 2007 12:18 PM
>To: 'English Wikipedia'
>Subject: [WikiEN-l] A much neglected aspect of quality - Bibliographies
>
>I see Wikipedia cited more and more as a possible first step for serious
>research. I have seen more and more people suggest that Wikipedia should
>encompass all or most of the articles included in specialist encyclopedias,
>such as the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (my personal
>favorite). I have also seen many more calls for working on quality of
>articles, rather than quantity. I see a major lack in terms of using WP for
>deeper research, rather than quick information gathering, when comparing
>Wikipedia to these specialist encyclopedias. This lack is in well developed
>and defined bibliographies.
>
>I am not talking about people citing their sources and sticking them in
>reference sections, which I also think is important. I'm talking about a
>limited review of the literature, mentioning which works are considered
>seminal, which are standard, which give the best overview for the
>uninitiated, basically a good bibliography which is not too bloated and
>which is not too biased.
>
>We frequently talk about how students should not use Wikipedia as a sole
>source, but as a starting point. I see the best way for Wikipedia to be a
>starting point is to give the basic information, and then point people to
>the very best information. The best books or journal articles will not
>necessarily be the ones which were to hand when a person was first writing
>the article, or when someone was getting rid of {{fact}} templates. In the
>best of all possible worlds they were, but it's more likely they were the
>most easily accessible, and may have been online resources which were not as
>good as what would be available in your local library or with a subscription
>to JSTOR or similar.
>
>I would like to encourage everyone to think about how to create great
>bibliographies, especially for subjects where you could easily be snowed
>under with relevant works, or where the best literature is not necessarily
>obvious.
>
>And some questions about Bibliographies - should we create them in separate
>pages or namespaces so they can be better controlled and saved from
>spammers? Is ISBN really the best way to identify and find books? Should we
>think about a partnership with OCLC/WorlCat or some other database so that
>people can easily find the books mentioned locally? Can we simplify our
>templates for citing books, or should we make them even more complex so they
>fit with the MARC standards <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MARC_standards> ?
>
>Sorry for the long rant, but this is something which has been bothering me
>about Wikipedia for the last year and a half, and where I don't feel like
>much progress has been made in terms of quality.
>Makemi
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