I've never seen a self-citing encyclopedia.
Given its open editing structure it would be so easy to game the system by
creating a series of cross-references. In short forbidding citing Wikipedia
on Wikipedia avoids such short-circuits.
No text is 100% accurate, Wikipedia relies upon the bet that by widening
the editorial community accuracy will asymptotically converge. Traditional
textbooks, scholarly articles, any different knowledge aggregation system
is characterized by a different funding premise.
In my opinion the "no autocitation" principle is a direct consequence of
our fundamental principles, therefore a self-citing Wikipedia is possible,
but it wouldn't longer be Wikipedia.
Vito
Il giorno lun 17 giu 2019 alle ore 19:55 Mister Thrapostibongles <
thrapostibongles(a)gmail.com> ha scritto:
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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