Martin
You really think that it is ridiculous that encyclopaedias in general and
Wikipedia in particular should be judged, among other criteria, on their
reliability? If so, I disagree.
However, if you really believe that an encyclopadia does not ned to be
reliable, then it seems that on this specific point we may need to agree to
disagree. How about the other points I adduce, such as the millions of
unreferenced or inadeqautely referenced articles discovered at
-- is that
evidence of success?
Thrapostibongles
On Tue, Jun 18, 2019 at 1:44 PM Martijn Hoekstra <martijnhoekstra(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
No.
What I'm saying is this: setting meeting the reliable sources policy of
wikipedia as a condition for success, or not meeting that policy as
evidence of failure is ridiculous.
On Tue, Jun 18, 2019, 14:29 Mister Thrapostibongles <
thrapostibongles(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Martin, Dennis
The tenor of your arguments appears to be that Wikipedia is in fact
reliable, because it uses reliable sources, but that it pretends not to
be
because it's too hard to prevent people
writing article based on other
articles. This is not in accord with the facts. As I pointed out, and
as
Foundation research has shown, millions --
literally millions, and when I
say "literally" I literally mean "literally" -- of articles, about
one in
five, are not founded on reliable sources, and some thousands of those,
being biographies of living people, should have been instantly deleted.
So
we cannot rely on any of those millions of
articles, by your own
reasoning. The reason why Wikipedia deems itself unreliable is that it
is
an open wiki, and all such sources are forbidden,
because anyone can
write
anything on them: "Content from websites
whose content is largely
user-generated
is also generally unacceptable." Wikipedia is cited in the policy as
merely another example of such unreliable sources.
The way forward, however unpalatable this may be to people who would like
to believe that this is somehow silly or sophistry, is to look the facts
in
the face and accept that some form of editorial
policy, content workflow
management and supervision of the volunteer effort is necessary to make
Wikipedia what aspires to be, but is not currently, namely an
encyclopaedia.
Thrapostibongles
On Mon, Jun 17, 2019 at 11:06 PM Martijn Hoekstra <
martijnhoekstra(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
> Wikipedia itself can never be more reliable than the sources it cites.
If
it's
allowed to cite itself, then there is no "bottom" to lean on, and
its
quality would quickly drop.
That you conclude from that that wikipedia is unreliable and therefore
failed is IMO such a silly proposition, that I dont know whether you
seriously think this, in which case we should probably take this off
list,
> or that you're engaging in sophistry and using arguments you don't
think
> are reasonable in the first place.
>
> On Mon, Jun 17, 2019, 19:56 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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