[WikiEN-l] The dangers of not citing Wikipedia

[WJhonson at aol.com]

In a message dated 8/12/2008 4:50:45 PM Pacific Daylight Time,  
delirium at hackish.org writes:

don't  see why Wikipedia should be special-cased here. It's not common 
practice  in academic publishing to cite all the research tools you used 
in arriving  at your actual sources. I don't usually cite Lexis-Nexis 
when I look up an  article through it, or JSTOR, or my local reference 
librarian, or  Wikipedia, or Britannica, or some website with a list of 
interesting  articles, or Google.>>


-------------------------------------------------
That misstates the issue.
 
Some of the above are mindless programmatic tools that merely cast indexes  
into the wind and see what sticks to them.  They are not creative *on an  
article specific basis*.  They are merely methods *by which* you can find  expert 
human resources about one subject, they are not those resources  themselves.  
So Lexis-Nexis, so Jstor, so local reference librarian, so  Google.
 
However Wikipedia, Brittanica and "some website with a list of interesting  
articles" (provided it's generated by specific human effort to that article  
topic, and not automagically) are not in the same category.
 
The question to ask in these cases would be: "Would a PERSON recognize  their 
work being revealed in my work, without citation?"  The courtesy of  
secondary citation is not extended to a computer program but rather to a person,  an 
author, or in the case of Wikipedia or Brittanica sometimes a small group of  
authors.  It is *people* who we are trying to not offend.  Google  takes no 
offense, it cannot, as it has no emotions.
 
An author of a biographical dictionary, can take offense.
 
Will Johnson



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