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I can see the argument that they want sources people can check and evaluate for themselves. You're a legitimate expert, but anyone with a bit of sense can claim

I can see the argument that they want sources people can check and evaluate for themselves. You're a legitimate expert, but anyone with a bit of sense can claim to be an expert and appear just as credible to a layman. Faking a credible secondary source is not impossible, but it is difficult--a "news" site that opened three months ago and only has articles on subjects linked to Wikipedia sources is pretty obviously fake. I wonder if there's some sort of happy medium. Maybe a thing where legit experts can submit credentials to be cleared by the moderators, the way Reddit verifies identities for AMAs. You'd still be expected to source everything you can, but eyewitness details could be sourced to your verified credentials. (Which could then be re-reviewed en masse if you start posting bullshit later on.)

NeedMoreTea 8y ago
An argument that easily breaks an encyclopedia or anything intending to be an authoritative source. Or even a worthy source. It's why you frequently bump into articles that go against memory of anyone living in that phase of history, at the company etc. Or entirely misses out the once famous controversy as evidenced by some 15 year old personal or blogspot site. Yet Wikipedia does it when there's no choice, because all sources are really old books and offline. Case in point. A story cropped up on HN a month or two back about S Wolfram being obsessional about recording something. No surprises there, but I happened to wander to Wikipedia and there is not the briefest mention of his suing + screwing everyone who worked or collaborated with him making Mathematica. Apparently that didn't happen. At all. Sure it wasn't quite SCO vs IBM, but it was well known enough in N England during the 90s that it will forever be my association if someone mentions him, and there was occasional office banter off the back of it. "Wolfram? Who's he suing now, the office cat?" That's because it was in Computer Weekly, PCW, or the hundreds of other paper sources every other issue. On Wikipedia it has been whitewashed from existence, or perhaps never made it in the first place.
- PhasmaFelis 8y ago
  > That's because it was in Computer Weekly, PCW, or the hundreds of other paper sources every other issue. On Wikipedia it has been whitewashed from existence, or perhaps never made it in the first place. That sounds like it might be an editor failure as much as a policy failure, perhaps? Valuable information that exists only in peoples' heads is a real failure point for Wikipedia, but well-documented info that no one has bothered digging up the sources for is not. Or if you're saying that it was removed by some PR flack, that's also a real problem, but Wikipedia does have mechanisms to deal with it. If you watch an article and can demonstrate that true, relevant, well-sourced facts are being removed, you can get the article protected. It's extra work on your part, and that sucks, but I can't think of a better way to deal with disagreement in a crowdsourced encyclopedia.

NeedMoreTea 8y ago

An argument that easily breaks an encyclopedia or anything intending to be an authoritative source. Or even a worthy source. It's why you frequently bump into articles that go against memory of anyone living in that phase of history, at the company etc. Or entirely misses out the once famous controversy as evidenced by some 15 year old personal or blogspot site. Yet Wikipedia does it when there's no choice, because all sources are really old books and offline. Case in point. A story cropped up on HN a month or two back about S Wolfram being obsessional about recording something. No surprises there, but I happened to wander to Wikipedia and there is not the briefest mention of his suing + screwing everyone who worked or collaborated with him making Mathematica. Apparently that didn't happen. At all. Sure it wasn't quite SCO vs IBM, but it was well known enough in N England during the 90s that it will forever be my association if someone mentions him, and there was occasional office banter off the back of it. "Wolfram? Who's he suing now, the office cat?" That's because it was in Computer Weekly, PCW, or the hundreds of other paper sources every other issue. On Wikipedia it has been whitewashed from existence, or perhaps never made it in the first place.

PhasmaFelis 8y ago
> That's because it was in Computer Weekly, PCW, or the hundreds of other paper sources every other issue. On Wikipedia it has been whitewashed from existence, or perhaps never made it in the first place. That sounds like it might be an editor failure as much as a policy failure, perhaps? Valuable information that exists only in peoples' heads is a real failure point for Wikipedia, but well-documented info that no one has bothered digging up the sources for is not. Or if you're saying that it was removed by some PR flack, that's also a real problem, but Wikipedia does have mechanisms to deal with it. If you watch an article and can demonstrate that true, relevant, well-sourced facts are being removed, you can get the article protected. It's extra work on your part, and that sucks, but I can't think of a better way to deal with disagreement in a crowdsourced encyclopedia.