[Wikimedia-l] More opportunities for you to access free research databases!

[Ocaasi Ocaasi]

I think there is fair reason to raise questions about the benefit of paywalled sources, despite my optimism about the partnerships. I don't totally share the concerns, but they are surely worth addressing:

First off, we are not handled any ideal choices here.  Either our editors do not have access to paywalled information from which to add to our articles, or, our readers will likely not have access to those paywalled sources from which content was added.  

An approach to better weigh the balance here is to consider the relative percentage of our users who will *read* article content versus those who *source-check* it.  I think I can comfortably say that readers far outnumber source-checkers.  That means that whatever the cost to readers, it is likely several times less than the benefit to them, at least in aggregate.

There are secondary considerations, still.  For example, will having an increasing number of paywalled sources make things difficult for fellow *editors* to do verification work?  While this is already a problem to a degree, it's not necessarily one we want to worsen.  My approach to mitigating that concern is to try and make sure that *enough* of our readers do have access to these paywalled sources.  For example, there will soon be '1000' editors with access to HighBeam (some of our most active for sure), and then there's always Wikiproject Resource Exchange for what falls in the gap.

Will the public lose faith in Wikipedia if the content cannot be easily verified?  I wish the answer wasn't so easy for me, but I think it's almost definitely that they will not lose faith.  Because the average reader cares not where the information came from as long as it is presented to them in a seemingly accurate, thorough, and unbiased fashion.  And I can't really imagine a great revolt in the press or elsewhere because Wikipedia is suddenly taking advantage of the best available resources that serious scholars use in their own practice.

There is indeed a sea change happening with open access, and perhaps we are benefiting in part from databases trying to 'open-wash' their reputations.  I think there are more primary reasons they have made these donations, however, such as receiving linkbacks, attention and good will among editors, and altruistic intentions to improve Wikipedia.  In time, perhaps, we won't have to make these kinds of difficult choices...


Thanks for your thoughts on this.  We should continue the discussion, particularly as efforts to build a 'Wikipedia Library' of sorts go forward.
 
Jake Orlowitz
Wikipedia editor: Ocaasi
http://enwp.org/User:Ocaasi
wikiocaasi at yahoo.com