[WikiEN-l] The dangers of not citing Wikipedia

[WJhonson at aol.com]

In a message dated 8/11/2008 3:54:52 PM Pacific Daylight Time,  
thomas.dalton at gmail.com writes:

Sure  they do. You just have to go down to the local library. For the
most part,  we're talking about academics/students so they can just go
to the Uni  library which will have plenty of old  newspapers.>>


-------------
I would submit that the majority of Wikipedians are not academics except  
amateur ones.
And you will recall the story cited here stated that the library  in-question 
had "8,000 volumes".
 
I myself went to Northwestern University, which I believe claimed something  
like 100,000 volumes.  That's quite different.  We do have editors  in-Wiki 
who cite underlying source without citing the overlying source.   I've 
personally encountered it several times.  Usually the way it's found  is where the 
extract is so apparently biased that the suspicion is raised that  it's 
out-of-context.  So after digging into the source, the original editor  may admit that 
they cut the quote off a web site and didn't really read the  underlying source 
directly.
 
You get this quite a bit with things like details about various presidents  
and what they supposedly said.



**************Looking for a car that's sporty, fun and fits in your budget? 
Read reviews on AOL Autos.      
(http://autos.aol.com/cars-BMW-128-2008/expert-review?ncid=aolaut00050000000017 )