4 ms·

Wikipedia has gotten like this. As long as you can cite it, you can include it. Articles have become just a list of citable blurbs with very little overall thou

by pbreit 11y ago

Wikipedia has gotten like this. As long as you can cite it, you can include it. Articles have become just a list of citable blurbs with very little overall thought or coherence.

dudul 11y ago
And that's not counting with all the references that turned into 404 after a few years.
TillE 11y ago
It's actually their official policy: "Verifiability, not truth" Wherever mainstream journalism or authoritative sources fail, Wikipedia is right there to amplify that failure, primary sources be damned.
Someone1234 11y ago
Plus not all citations are born equal. You can use Gawker Media as a citation, but they're no more than a series of gossip sites. Or the Daily Mail or often re-print stories taken directly from anonymous internet comments.
- smacktoward 11y ago
  > You can use Gawker Media as a citation, but they're no more than a series of gossip sites This isn't true anymore; Gawker sites have done valuable reporting in a number of areas. As have Buzzfeed and the Huffington Post, two other sites that HNers tend to dismiss automatically. (IIRC, HN's software will silently reject any submission of a Gawker URL at all, which is kind of ridiculous.)
  - michaelbuddy 11y ago
    Look, when you're citing things, reputation of the source matters. A clock is right twice a day too. Huffpost and Gawker aren't worthy of citation, even if an occasional writer happens to get a balanced article past their sad slanted ultra-fembot, everything-is-racist-&-sexist white-hating editors.
  - diabeetusman 11y ago
    For what it's worth, that doesn't look like it's true. There's this[0] link on the front page to Kotaku. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10697939 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10697939
notahacker 11y ago
It's always amusing to watch editors debate whether an individual's high school can be included without a citation whilst leaving alone a massive "controversy" list of every piece of adverse information ever published about an individual, and figuring it's balanced if there's a few counter arguments in there as well.

by pbreit 11y ago

Wikipedia has gotten like this. As long as you can cite it, you can include it. Articles have become just a list of citable blurbs with very little overall thought or coherence.

dudul 11y ago

And that's not counting with all the references that turned into 404 after a few years.

TillE 11y ago

It's actually their official policy: "Verifiability, not truth" Wherever mainstream journalism or authoritative sources fail, Wikipedia is right there to amplify that failure, primary sources be damned.

Someone1234 11y ago

Plus not all citations are born equal. You can use Gawker Media as a citation, but they're no more than a series of gossip sites. Or the Daily Mail or often re-print stories taken directly from anonymous internet comments.

smacktoward 11y ago
> You can use Gawker Media as a citation, but they're no more than a series of gossip sites This isn't true anymore; Gawker sites have done valuable reporting in a number of areas. As have Buzzfeed and the Huffington Post, two other sites that HNers tend to dismiss automatically. (IIRC, HN's software will silently reject any submission of a Gawker URL at all, which is kind of ridiculous.)
- michaelbuddy 11y ago
  Look, when you're citing things, reputation of the source matters. A clock is right twice a day too. Huffpost and Gawker aren't worthy of citation, even if an occasional writer happens to get a balanced article past their sad slanted ultra-fembot, everything-is-racist-&-sexist white-hating editors.
- diabeetusman 11y ago
  For what it's worth, that doesn't look like it's true. There's this[0] link on the front page to Kotaku. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10697939 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10697939

notahacker 11y ago

It's always amusing to watch editors debate whether an individual's high school can be included without a citation whilst leaving alone a massive "controversy" list of every piece of adverse information ever published about an individual, and figuring it's balanced if there's a few counter arguments in there as well.