[WikiEN-l] The dangers of not citing Wikipedia

[WJhonson at aol.com]

In a message dated 8/11/2008 3:31:05 PM Pacific Daylight Time,  
ansell.peter at gmail.com writes:

Good  point. I do the "as cited by" thing for published papers, but for 
wikipedia  with its mix of anonymous, and pseudonymous users, and its continual  
evolution, it just doesn't look right to say "as cited by Wikipedia user  
204.23.144.2 at 13:00 UTC on August 12, 2008" (if you even feel like taking  the 
time to figure out which user it was that actually put the citation in  given how 
many revisions are on many  articles).>>



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I don't think you really have to go that far.
But I would say something like "Hippo of Carthage is supposed to have said  
'I've had enough' right before he died of food poisoning" (''Annals of Tacitus, 
 Book 12'' as cited by Wikipedia "Hippo of Carthage").
 
It would be a bit complex if we felt we had to actually cite the individual  
author of a polygamous work, instead of the work cited.  I think a citation  
of that sort should be sufficient.  It would be at least better than  
presenting a situation where it would *appear* that you yourself read Tacitus  directly.
 
Now IN THOSE CASES where you merely spot that one source cites another one,  
and then you *actually do* read the underlying source seperately, it's 
probably  more common to simply cite that underlying source.  Personally I don't like 
 that, but I'm sure it happens.  It detracts from the effort the author(s)  
went to,  merely to collect and extract the sources relevantly, and  makes it 
appears like you yourself made that effort.
 
For example, I'm today working on a new biography of Henry Fonda, from  
scratch.  I'm sure that bits and pieces of the *new* data I find will worm  their 
way into here-and-there without citing my work, but its fairly  discourteous to 
approach sources in that fashion imho.
 
Will Johnson



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