It might be a good thread were it based on a better line of argument.
You are making too much of an artifact of the drafting of a Wikipedia
policy. The intent was clearly to prevent 1., bootstrapping, ie, writing
an article and using it as a 'reliable source' for another article, and 2.,
reliance on content of a wiki article which is subject to change. There
might also have been other ways to manipulate the software and policies to
the detriment of the project.
The main thrust of the policy was to compel the use of reliable sources.
Rather than make a policy specific to WP or other project wikis, it was
much simpler to simply declare that WP was not a reliable source.
On Mon, Jun 17, 2019 at 1:55 PM Mister Thrapostibongles <
thrapostibongles(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Dennis,
I started this thread to discuss both conduct and content policies on
Wikipedia, and indeed how the two interact. Wikipedia is a project to
build an encyclopaedia. By its own criteria, encyclopaedias are reliable
sources and Wikipedia is not a reliable source; hence by its own criteria,
Wikipedia is not an encyclopaedia. That is, it is currently in a state of
failure with respect to its own mission.
One of the reasons for that state of failure is indeed the failure to
provide a collegial working atmosphere.
Thrapostibongles
On Mon, Jun 17, 2019 at 2:19 PM Dennis During <dcduring(a)gmail.com> wrote:
"One (and not the most important) pieces of
evidence for Wikipedia being
in
a failed state is precisely that
it does not, by the community's own admission, constitute a reliable
source
"
You have made this argument more than once. That might be a piece of
evidence seems both wrong and not relevant to the sense in which people
here as saying WP has failed, which is as a welcoming, "safe" environment
for contributors and would-be contributors.
It is good policy to make sure that contributors reach out to other
sources, even when one believes that Wikipedia is as reliable as the
average tertiary source we allow as a reference. It prevents us from
relying exclusively on what can easily turn out to be a very narrow set
of
points of view. Does/did the Encyclopedia
Britanica cite other EB
articles
as references rather than include them as
"see alsos"?
On Mon, Jun 17, 2019 at 8:27 AM Mister Thrapostibongles <
thrapostibongles(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> Vito
>
> This rather tends to support my point. One (and not the most
important)
pieces of
evidence for Wikipedia being in a failed state is precisely
that
> it does not , by the community's own admission, constitute a reliable
> source:whereas "Reputable tertiary sources
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:TERTIARY>, such as
> introductory-level university textbooks, almanacs, and encyclopedias,
may
be
cited". So Wikipedia fails in its aim of being an encyclopaedia on
one
> of the most important tests one could imagine, namely reliability.
And a
> reason for that is its lack of effective
content management policies
and
> mechanisms to put them into effect (in the
old days we called that
being
an
editor, but that word on Wikipedia now is more or
less a redundant
synonym
> for contributor).
>
> Now suppose that Wikipedia had effective editorial policies and
processes
> that allowed it to assume the status of a
reliable source, just like
the
encyclopaedia it aims to be. You say that even in that situation, it
would
> be easy to manipulate. On that assumption, how much easier it must be
to
> "trick" it today when it has no
such effective policies and processes
in
place!
Thrapostibongles
--
Dennis C. During
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