[Wikipedia-l] formalism (was: Re: Entries for deletion.... issues from the Third World)

[David Monniaux]

>>For individual articles, the way to do it is to put in a clearly
>>sufficient number of citations. from printed works. (accompanied by
>>English translations if necessary). I've found that specific citations
>>from peer-reviewed journals do help, if they are at all pertinent. So
>>do Ph.d. theses and even Masters theses.
>>
This is the current vogue on Wikipedia: everything should have a 
gazillion inline citations, and conversely, anything that does not have 
a gazillion inline citations is bad. This is how very good articles that 
used to have FA status or ability one or two years ago are now 
considered "horrible" according to the current fashion.

Now, what this vogue leads to:
* We have very good articles (in terms of content and accuracy) on which 
nobody who knows the topic objects anything is wrong, but which are 
considered bad because not every statement that any person who have 
heard about the issue would agree with has a source.

* We have horrific articles, but in which everything is "sourced". 
Anything goes: trivia, mention of the subject appearing in a Seinfeld 
episode, quotations from newspapers on fields they are incompetent about 
(such as science), etc.

Formally speaking, they sound nice, and they please the crowd who thinks 
that what's important in life is sticking to formal rules and earn good 
marks for it. However, those articles really are a shame.

In addition, this kind of "sourcing" has a strong bias towards Internet 
sources (Internet-accessible newspapers, sites, etc.), which, on the 
other hand, tend to be very inadequate on many topics. I remember 
recently reading an evaluation of an article on fr: (I think, 'Women in 
Iran') by a known specialist. What she said:
* A lot of relevant literature on the issue is ignored.
* On the other hand, Internet sources, often not much good, are 
overrepresented.
* There are numerous errors.
But this article nearly made it to "featured" status, because, formally 
speaking, it had everything! Many citations, photos etc.

To me, the rules that we create, as all rule systems, have this perverse 
effect that people work more to fulfill the rules ("we should have a 
photo" even on abstract topics, "we should have a gazillion citations" 
even if they are low quality) than to fulfill the goal (having good 
articles that people knowing the subject would agree reflect the various 
notable points of view in an unbiased way).

-- DM