[WikiEN-l] WP and Deep Web, was Re: Age fabrication and original research

[phoebe ayers]

On Sun, Oct 11, 2009 at 9:56 AM, stevertigo <stvrtg at gmail.com> wrote:
> Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>> Good faith is not a factor here since we assume it is present in > both paths.  In bottlenecks we get people digging in their heels > and defending certain perceptions of an idea. Dispersion
>> happens when someone abandons the bottlenecked sandbox
>
> Good faith is always relevant when you are asking people to trust
> other people with their valuables, and to make themselves available to
> other people in ways which those others can potentially abuse.
>
> But I understand your point about POV creep. That is why sourcewallas
> must remain neutral: The requester submits a concept to the
> sourcewalla and the sourcewalla finds a selection of various different
> relevant citations. The sourcewalla is simply an intelligent and open
> human interface to a copyright search engine.

*cough* librarians? *cough*

anyway, the way the page above is framed betrays the assumption that
finding sources is a much more clear-cut process than it is, and that
the only expertise required in neutrally evaluating a wide range of
texts about a particular (often obscure) topic is access to a
particular database of articles. Which is not to say that I wouldn't
love to see a broad network of people who love to work on sourcing
problems, much in the same way we have a broad network of copyeditors
and speedy-deleters. Perhaps trying to reinvigorate WikiProject Fact &
Reference Check would be a good idea.

It's also worth noting with many commercial library databases that
it's the act of doing the search and viewing abstracts that is
restricted by license, not just any full-text that may be attached.

-- phoebe

-- 
* I use this address for lists; send personal messages to phoebe.ayers
<at> gmail.com *