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Horsehockey. Wikipedia cannot be cited because it is not a static resource. Occasionally, its citations can be cited. But generally, if you have ever tried to a

Horsehockey. Wikipedia cannot be cited because it is not a static resource. Occasionally, its citations can be cited. But generally, if you have ever tried to actually follow those citations, you will frequently discover that the authors and editors of the page are full of shit, and you will see why professionals tend to issue the blanket recommendation to avoid ever using it for anything. Minute for minute, research time is better spent on a real resource than it is spent trying to sift something useful from the trillion page shit-vault that is Wikipedia. Newspapers and textbooks aren't serious sources either, which is why academic research manuals usually forbid their usage except in some specific circumstances (such as using them as primary sources, for illustrative purposes, as evidence of what media reported at the time, etc.).

whatshisface 4y ago
These threads always reveal that different people have had wildly different experiences with Wikipedia. I wish everyone would clarify what those experiences actually were so we could answer questions like "is it only some parts of Wikipedia."
AlotOfReading 4y ago
What are you talking about? Wikipedia has a perfectly adequate page on how to cite it [1] and provides tools that account for how dynamic it is in generating citations. Newspapers and textbooks are also regularly cited to demonstrate general facts of knowledge and are usually accepted anywhere other tertiary sources would also be appropriate. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Citing_Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Citing_Wikipedia
raegis 4y ago
To be fair, you can cite a Wikipedia page along with the last revision date. And the complete revision history is available, I believe. I would expect researchers to include revision dates with any Wikipedia citation.
nico 4y ago
> because it is not a static resource What do you consider a “static resource”?
gmfawcett 4y ago
It's trivial to cite a specific snapshot of a Wikipedia page. A citation isn't an authoritative source in itself, its sole purpose is to point the reader at the source of information, whatever it may be. There are plenty of bona fide academic citations that point at sources of terrible quality.
jacobolus 4y ago
Okay, you don’t like Wikipedia, newspapers, or textbooks as sources. What about journal papers and monographs published by academic publishing houses? I read academic works on a daily basis, and they are chock full of nonsense, even from high-impact journals. Sometimes just sloppy scholarship uncritically repeating dubious claims (sometimes even found on Wikipedia then not credited!), but other times intentional fabrications. In the academic literature you can find misattributions of discoveries, serious calculation errors, sources that say the opposite of what they are cited to say, claims from notorious fabulists and mentally ill people credulously repeated, false history, faked study data, nonsensical mathematical models extrapolating trivial numbers of data points far outside their original range, invented interviews, legends presented as factual, speculation presented as factual, promotion of snake oil, amateur psychiatric diagnoses based on fragmentary evidence, apologies for genocide, and whatever other bad thing you might imagine. Students should be taught to critically examine these sources and look for biases, mistakes, and incongruities.
mordae 4y ago
If you date your citation, you can easily find it in the page history. Revisions are immutable.
cycomanic 4y ago
Those are some incredibly broad and strong statements. What do you mean by professionals? What field? I know plenty academics who often start looking at Wikipedia as a first entry to a topic, and it is not uncommon to cite Wikipedia for example for a common definition. Yes for many things you would not cite Wikipedia because you would rather cite primary sources. That's also why I don't understand your statement about newspapers, there are plenty of fields (e.g. Political science, history) where newspapers magazines are important primary sources. The argument that things change is also week, books change as well so we cite the Edition, similarly you should cite Wikipedia (as well as other online sources) with a retrieval date.
jefftk 4y ago
> Wikipedia cannot be cited because it is not a static resource Regardless of the merits of citing Wikipedia, if you do want to cite it you can reference a specific revision. Or include the date and time you accessed it, from which anyone else can determine the revision. This puts Wikipedia in a much better position than citing URLs in general, which are mostly not version-controlled.

whatshisface 4y ago

These threads always reveal that different people have had wildly different experiences with Wikipedia. I wish everyone would clarify what those experiences actually were so we could answer questions like "is it only some parts of Wikipedia."

AlotOfReading 4y ago

What are you talking about? Wikipedia has a perfectly adequate page on how to cite it [1] and provides tools that account for how dynamic it is in generating citations. Newspapers and textbooks are also regularly cited to demonstrate general facts of knowledge and are usually accepted anywhere other tertiary sources would also be appropriate. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Citing_Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Citing_Wikipedia

raegis 4y ago

To be fair, you can cite a Wikipedia page along with the last revision date. And the complete revision history is available, I believe. I would expect researchers to include revision dates with any Wikipedia citation.

nico 4y ago

> because it is not a static resource What do you consider a “static resource”?

gmfawcett 4y ago

It's trivial to cite a specific snapshot of a Wikipedia page. A citation isn't an authoritative source in itself, its sole purpose is to point the reader at the source of information, whatever it may be. There are plenty of bona fide academic citations that point at sources of terrible quality.

jacobolus 4y ago

Okay, you don’t like Wikipedia, newspapers, or textbooks as sources. What about journal papers and monographs published by academic publishing houses? I read academic works on a daily basis, and they are chock full of nonsense, even from high-impact journals. Sometimes just sloppy scholarship uncritically repeating dubious claims (sometimes even found on Wikipedia then not credited!), but other times intentional fabrications. In the academic literature you can find misattributions of discoveries, serious calculation errors, sources that say the opposite of what they are cited to say, claims from notorious fabulists and mentally ill people credulously repeated, false history, faked study data, nonsensical mathematical models extrapolating trivial numbers of data points far outside their original range, invented interviews, legends presented as factual, speculation presented as factual, promotion of snake oil, amateur psychiatric diagnoses based on fragmentary evidence, apologies for genocide, and whatever other bad thing you might imagine. Students should be taught to critically examine these sources and look for biases, mistakes, and incongruities.

mordae 4y ago

If you date your citation, you can easily find it in the page history. Revisions are immutable.

cycomanic 4y ago

Those are some incredibly broad and strong statements. What do you mean by professionals? What field? I know plenty academics who often start looking at Wikipedia as a first entry to a topic, and it is not uncommon to cite Wikipedia for example for a common definition. Yes for many things you would not cite Wikipedia because you would rather cite primary sources. That's also why I don't understand your statement about newspapers, there are plenty of fields (e.g. Political science, history) where newspapers magazines are important primary sources. The argument that things change is also week, books change as well so we cite the Edition, similarly you should cite Wikipedia (as well as other online sources) with a retrieval date.

jefftk 4y ago

> Wikipedia cannot be cited because it is not a static resource Regardless of the merits of citing Wikipedia, if you do want to cite it you can reference a specific revision. Or include the date and time you accessed it, from which anyone else can determine the revision. This puts Wikipedia in a much better position than citing URLs in general, which are mostly not version-controlled.