Citing Wikipedia

[Stephen Ewen]

Although every high school teacher worth his or he salt disallows it, did you know that Citizendium has a good number of articles that cite Wikipedia as an authoritative source? 

[Denis Cavanagh]

?

Examples? I wasn't aware of this 

[Martin Baldwin-Edwards]

Recently, there have been some reports to the EU and even some academic conference papers citing WP, in quite an uncritical and central manner. My reaction, along with those of other senior academics, is one of abject horror. In fact, we say quite openly -- if that is his/her idea of a good source, what is the quality of the research done here? Thus, with one reckless citation they have undermined their own work!

The same applies to CZ, of course, and we should remove them.

[Stephen Ewen]

You can see each instance (hopefully) at http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Special:Search?ns0=1&search=en.wikipedia.org&searchx=Search

[Martin Baldwin-Edwards]

There is a policy issue of whether WP links are a good idea under External Links. The reason I mention this, is that the heading of External Links specifies that these are links to "reliable sources". I suppose we could remove the heading 

[Robert_W_King]

If Steven put up the correct link, by my count it's only 46, and even then unfortunately those articles need content review now because of it.  *Groan*.

[kjetil_r]

Norwegian authorities cite Wikipedia in court when trying to expel an alleged terrorist, so why can't we? 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Pladask/Krekar_source

[Martin Baldwin-Edwards]

Better still, we could suggest locating the Wikipedia servers in Guantanomo Bay 

[RJensen]

Lot's of Wikipedia articles are reliable sources. That is a judgement call which CZ authors are qualified to handle. 

[Robert_W_King]

Lot's of Wikipedia articles are reliable sources. That is a judgement call which CZ authors are qualified to handle. 

Are you serious?

[Martin Baldwin-Edwards]

Lot's of Wikipedia articles are reliable sources. That is a judgement call which CZ authors are qualified to handle. 

Are you serious?

I thought referencing their "Dr Who" articles was probably OK. But then, I am not an expert on tv series 

[Aleta Curry]

Lot's of Wikipedia articles are reliable sources. That is a judgement call which CZ authors are qualified to handle. 

Are you serious?

Well, yes, I'm going with Richard on this one.

I have said this from the beginning, there are some well-written, well-researched WP articles out there, and other articles which, if not being perfect in total, nevertheless contain valuable and accurate information therein.

In these of which I speak, the sources and citations used are the same ones we would rely on here.  If I understand Richard's point, our experts would know just by reading...or skimming...which of these are valid.

The problem I've found with WP articles is that they can deteriorate so fast, and that vandalism, subtle and glaringly obvious, ruins them and can sit undetected in estoteric articles, and that popular articles get negotiated into mediocrity, and that controversial articles are...well, you know.

Also, policy is all over the place, enforcement is capricious, standards are capricious, just about everything is valid, including that which I find foul, and so forth.

That's why *I'm* here; not speaking for anyone else.

Those are some real problems, and I've found them insupportable.

That does not negate all the good content.

You want a list of WP articles I found really interesting, really well-written and really good?  Call me.

[RJensen]

Aleta is exactly right.  Lots of Wikipedia articles are serious. I know because I wrote a lot that are duplicated here at CZ. 

Whether a specific Wikipedia article should be cited is a matter for the CZ authors to determine, just as they evaluate other links for inclusion or not. 

Glancing thought the CZ links to Wikipedia in history, politics and military history I did not spot a single link to a poor Wikipedia article.

[Aaron Schulz]

Right, and the statistical time vandalized for high profile pages can be embarrassing. Some of these stats comes from heuristics based stat generators if anyone was wondering what they wierd JS I was adding to monobook.js file was...

I've been wrapping up a new software extension that can stabilize pages, and mark pages as reviewed to various levels. If should show up on German Wikipedia, possibly Wikinews. I'd like to see if CZ could use the software as well as it would make the review process a lot easier.

The problem I've found with WP articles is that they can deteriorate so fast, and that vandalism, subtle and glaringly obvious, ruins them and can sit undetected in estoteric articles, and that popular articles get negotiated into mediocrity, and that controversial articles are...well, you know. [snip...]

[Robert_W_King]

Ultimately the point is that because there is a constant variable of uncertainty that you must account for in WP articles, they cannot be deemed reference-worthy.  Until there is such a time that we can be absolutely certain that there is an expectation of 100% stability (or 99.9999%) I don't think we should be referencing WP at all.