7 ms·

I bet that your professor tried to write content from his own knowledge rather than strictly from published sources. The problem is that anyone can claim to be

I bet that your professor tried to write content from his own knowledge rather than strictly from published sources. The problem is that anyone can claim to be a math professor with expertise on graph theory. For this reason, everyone - even experts - need to cite sources in order to add content to Wikipedia.

hyperpape 13y ago
Over my years of editing Wikipedia off and on, I've come to think this is mostly a bad excuse. The issue is that very few articles meet Wikipedia's real standards for citations. Yet new content provided by experts is often challenged for lacking citations, perhaps because of a sort of status quo bias. What needs to happen is that there should be collaboration between Wikipedia insiders who know the Wikipedia system and subject matter experts who have valuable information to add. Worse, the demand for citations is often just absurd. There's a big difference between "this is a controversial claim that might need citations" and "no one has yet bothered to look in a basic textbook for citations." There are real reasons why experts can't just come in and say "do it my way" but the response has to be geared towards saying "how do we take advantage of your knowledge without forcing you to learn arcane policies?" Update: As for identifying experts, that's not altogether obvious. But if an article is an absolute mess, there should be a low bar for cleanup. If the article is in decent shape, then presumably someone is running around with a bit of subject matter knowledge, and can coordinate. Think about any area you know something about: how quickly can you distinguish someone who generally is on target from someone who doesn't have a clue?
- mathattack 13y ago
  I think the challenge is how do you identify experts? Does a Professor have to earn it over time? Are some professorships worth more than others?
  - fluxon 13y ago
    The set of experts I'd like to invite to Talk page discussions would be published, widely cited authors, including professors, engineers, scientists, and non-degreed practitioners with a good reputation in their field. Publications can be academic, professional, and/or popular, IMHO. Peer review, of course, helps. Longevity helps. Professors who have published, and been cited, would certainly become seen to be established in their field.
    - nerfhammer 13y ago
      http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/Main_Page http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/Main_Page
- cldr 13y ago
  I was thinking about this the other day and I came to think that Wikipedia's rule about citations is this: Wikipedia does not want to be a source of information. It wants to be a collection/aggregation of other sources of information, and those other sources have to be accessible to others for all time (i.e. not a human being but a book written by a human being). What I mean to say is that Wikipedia's system is one that does not/will not give article editors credit for original content; it treats them as just collectors and explainers of original content. When the explainers start writing stuff that has no source, they then disappear and leave Wikipedia holding the content which is now unverifiable. And that's just not how Jimmy wanted it to work I guess. When I look at it that way, the policy doesn't seem that ridiculous. It may be inconvenient, but that's like saying a stack data structure is inconvenient because you can't remove things from the bottom. It's just the way it is; it has advantages and disadvantages.
  - fluxon 13y ago
    Agreed, and well said.
  - hyperpape 13y ago
    I agree that Wikipedia's goal is to be the collection of things that we know that we know. So we do need citations. But when an article is wrong and doesn't already have thorough citations for every claim, should we demand citations for every new contribution? My point is really about process: when someone comes to us with a bit of knowledge, but no citations and limited understanding of the Wikipedia process, how do we react? The model whereanyone can edit and see their changes live has real benefits and costs. It makes it easy to make your first contribution, but it also means that if an editor doesn't like it, they just revert it. Sometimes, maybe changes should go in a queue or something. I come to Wikipedia, and dump a ton of graph theory on some page. An editor says "look, this isn't quite how it works, but it looks like you're trying to improve the page. Is this stuff you have citations for? Do you know what textbooks would cover it?" Maybe my edits don't go live immediately, but it's better than the current situation, where they just get reverted by some guy spouting WP:STQ! (That's the grain of truth the comment down below that Wikipedia needs to be more like git).
- fluxon 13y ago
  I agree that many articles lack sufficient reliable sources. Only college or postgrad textbooks are considered reliable sources, but not great ones, unless written by noted and/or frequently cited authors. In my opinion, experts should be sincerely welcomed to kibbitz on talk pages - not directly in editing articles - with a strong invitation to cite sources other than themselves. This approach, optimistically, will keep bias on the Talk page, and out of articles, and give experts a substantial real and perceived voice, currently lacking.
  - hyperpape 13y ago
    Yeah, but the talk pages are basically just sewers for a lot of articles. I look at a talk page and my thought is "god, no one will ever read what I write here".
    - fluxon 13y ago
      It takes a cool head to continue sometimes when discussions head toward the sewer. But we strive to stay exactly so cool, and lots of us even take a bit of guidance from Paul Graham's "How to Disagree" http://www.paulgraham.com/disagree.html http://www.paulgraham.com/disagree.html and the pyramid diagram based on it http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Graham%27s_Hierarchy_of_Disagreement.svg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Graham%27s_Hierarchy_of_Di...
      - hyperpape 13y ago
        Oh, that's another association for sewer that I wasn't thinking of. I didn't actually mean that the comments are crap or nasty, though they sometimes are. I just meant that it's a big backlog of comments that people would probably not read through.
    - alc1 13y ago
      What you can do is first start a section on the talk page about the topic and which sentences/sections could be changed. Then go ahead and make the intended edit on the article and then link to the section on the talk page in your edit comment. Then any editor who may potentially revert or have an issue with the edit will see that link and can go directly to that talk section that you started. The markup used for the linking in the edit comment is the same as the wikitext markup. For example, an edit comment like this: ... see talk page for discussion. would be marked up: ... [[Talk:Article name#Section heading|see talk page]] for discussion. This might help start discussions about low-traffic article topics that would otherwise languish at the bottom of the talk page for weeks if not months.
- lurkinggrue 13y ago
  [Citation Needed]
owenmarshall 13y ago
I bet he was too. But personally I don't care, and in my opinion neither should Wikipedia. In my opinion it'd be better to risk a little inaccuracy if it meant attracting experts to edit articles. But as cldr notes above, it's possible that's not the goal of Wikipedia - which is completely fair, but makes me wish some hybrid of NuPedia and Wikipedia existed.
ISL 13y ago
Physicist here: I stopped making contributions to Wikipedia after a few edits and reversions, I stopped too. Furthermore, the danger that something I'd put a lot of time into could be replaced meant that it's not worth sinking a lot of time into it. The citation policy makes a ton of pragmatic sense, and I understand why it's there. It's an unfriendly way to meet the Wikipedia community. (an alternative way to address a "citation needed" concern is to presume that the editor is correct, and go looking for the citation) In addition, I'm not aware of any way to be compensated, even by citation, for putting time and care into Wikipedia. As academics, we give a lot away for free (want to know some of our most-clever trade secrets? Just read our papers, where we detail everything we do so you can replicate it), but our compensation ultimately comes from what we can show others as our contribution to society. To anyone considering me for a job, promotion, or tenure, a well-written introductory article on precision tests of gravitation isn't worth a hundredth of one precision test of gravity published in Physical Review Letters. For a single contributor, Wikipedia is ephemeral, but the academic literature is effectively permanent.
- rhizome 13y ago
  (an alternative way to address a "citation needed" concern is to presume that the editor is correct, and go looking for the citation) You mean, "hey, I wrote it, you go look it up if you don't believe me?" Down that path lies madness. And Fox News. Academics aren't supposed to have "trade secrets" by definition, because that impedes the teacher and researcher's motivation. Historically, anyway, by my understanding.
  - owenmarshall 13y ago
    I don't think that's what is meant by "go looking for the citation." I read it more as "by being an expert in this subject I know this is true; by being an expert in this subject I also probably don't have time to find the journal that has the article in question, cite it per Wikipedia's rules, and put it in the article." Frankly that sounds like a great task for editors that aren't subject experts. Maybe the expert can say "this is missing knowledge, this is where I think a citation should be or what to look for" and the non-expert can do that.

hyperpape 13y ago

Over my years of editing Wikipedia off and on, I've come to think this is mostly a bad excuse. The issue is that very few articles meet Wikipedia's real standards for citations. Yet new content provided by experts is often challenged for lacking citations, perhaps because of a sort of status quo bias. What needs to happen is that there should be collaboration between Wikipedia insiders who know the Wikipedia system and subject matter experts who have valuable information to add. Worse, the demand for citations is often just absurd. There's a big difference between "this is a controversial claim that might need citations" and "no one has yet bothered to look in a basic textbook for citations." There are real reasons why experts can't just come in and say "do it my way" but the response has to be geared towards saying "how do we take advantage of your knowledge without forcing you to learn arcane policies?" Update: As for identifying experts, that's not altogether obvious. But if an article is an absolute mess, there should be a low bar for cleanup. If the article is in decent shape, then presumably someone is running around with a bit of subject matter knowledge, and can coordinate. Think about any area you know something about: how quickly can you distinguish someone who generally is on target from someone who doesn't have a clue?

mathattack 13y ago
I think the challenge is how do you identify experts? Does a Professor have to earn it over time? Are some professorships worth more than others?
- fluxon 13y ago
  The set of experts I'd like to invite to Talk page discussions would be published, widely cited authors, including professors, engineers, scientists, and non-degreed practitioners with a good reputation in their field. Publications can be academic, professional, and/or popular, IMHO. Peer review, of course, helps. Longevity helps. Professors who have published, and been cited, would certainly become seen to be established in their field.
  - nerfhammer 13y ago
    http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/Main_Page http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/Main_Page
cldr 13y ago
I was thinking about this the other day and I came to think that Wikipedia's rule about citations is this: Wikipedia does not want to be a source of information. It wants to be a collection/aggregation of other sources of information, and those other sources have to be accessible to others for all time (i.e. not a human being but a book written by a human being). What I mean to say is that Wikipedia's system is one that does not/will not give article editors credit for original content; it treats them as just collectors and explainers of original content. When the explainers start writing stuff that has no source, they then disappear and leave Wikipedia holding the content which is now unverifiable. And that's just not how Jimmy wanted it to work I guess. When I look at it that way, the policy doesn't seem that ridiculous. It may be inconvenient, but that's like saying a stack data structure is inconvenient because you can't remove things from the bottom. It's just the way it is; it has advantages and disadvantages.
- fluxon 13y ago
  Agreed, and well said.
- hyperpape 13y ago
  I agree that Wikipedia's goal is to be the collection of things that we know that we know. So we do need citations. But when an article is wrong and doesn't already have thorough citations for every claim, should we demand citations for every new contribution? My point is really about process: when someone comes to us with a bit of knowledge, but no citations and limited understanding of the Wikipedia process, how do we react? The model whereanyone can edit and see their changes live has real benefits and costs. It makes it easy to make your first contribution, but it also means that if an editor doesn't like it, they just revert it. Sometimes, maybe changes should go in a queue or something. I come to Wikipedia, and dump a ton of graph theory on some page. An editor says "look, this isn't quite how it works, but it looks like you're trying to improve the page. Is this stuff you have citations for? Do you know what textbooks would cover it?" Maybe my edits don't go live immediately, but it's better than the current situation, where they just get reverted by some guy spouting WP:STQ! (That's the grain of truth the comment down below that Wikipedia needs to be more like git).
fluxon 13y ago
I agree that many articles lack sufficient reliable sources. Only college or postgrad textbooks are considered reliable sources, but not great ones, unless written by noted and/or frequently cited authors. In my opinion, experts should be sincerely welcomed to kibbitz on talk pages - not directly in editing articles - with a strong invitation to cite sources other than themselves. This approach, optimistically, will keep bias on the Talk page, and out of articles, and give experts a substantial real and perceived voice, currently lacking.
- hyperpape 13y ago
  Yeah, but the talk pages are basically just sewers for a lot of articles. I look at a talk page and my thought is "god, no one will ever read what I write here".
  - fluxon 13y ago
    It takes a cool head to continue sometimes when discussions head toward the sewer. But we strive to stay exactly so cool, and lots of us even take a bit of guidance from Paul Graham's "How to Disagree" http://www.paulgraham.com/disagree.html http://www.paulgraham.com/disagree.html and the pyramid diagram based on it http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Graham%27s_Hierarchy_of_Disagreement.svg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Graham%27s_Hierarchy_of_Di...
    - hyperpape 13y ago
      Oh, that's another association for sewer that I wasn't thinking of. I didn't actually mean that the comments are crap or nasty, though they sometimes are. I just meant that it's a big backlog of comments that people would probably not read through.
  - alc1 13y ago
    What you can do is first start a section on the talk page about the topic and which sentences/sections could be changed. Then go ahead and make the intended edit on the article and then link to the section on the talk page in your edit comment. Then any editor who may potentially revert or have an issue with the edit will see that link and can go directly to that talk section that you started. The markup used for the linking in the edit comment is the same as the wikitext markup. For example, an edit comment like this: ... see talk page for discussion. would be marked up: ... [[Talk:Article name#Section heading|see talk page]] for discussion. This might help start discussions about low-traffic article topics that would otherwise languish at the bottom of the talk page for weeks if not months.
lurkinggrue 13y ago
[Citation Needed]

owenmarshall 13y ago

I bet he was too. But personally I don't care, and in my opinion neither should Wikipedia. In my opinion it'd be better to risk a little inaccuracy if it meant attracting experts to edit articles. But as cldr notes above, it's possible that's not the goal of Wikipedia - which is completely fair, but makes me wish some hybrid of NuPedia and Wikipedia existed.

ISL 13y ago

Physicist here: I stopped making contributions to Wikipedia after a few edits and reversions, I stopped too. Furthermore, the danger that something I'd put a lot of time into could be replaced meant that it's not worth sinking a lot of time into it. The citation policy makes a ton of pragmatic sense, and I understand why it's there. It's an unfriendly way to meet the Wikipedia community. (an alternative way to address a "citation needed" concern is to presume that the editor is correct, and go looking for the citation) In addition, I'm not aware of any way to be compensated, even by citation, for putting time and care into Wikipedia. As academics, we give a lot away for free (want to know some of our most-clever trade secrets? Just read our papers, where we detail everything we do so you can replicate it), but our compensation ultimately comes from what we can show others as our contribution to society. To anyone considering me for a job, promotion, or tenure, a well-written introductory article on precision tests of gravitation isn't worth a hundredth of one precision test of gravity published in Physical Review Letters. For a single contributor, Wikipedia is ephemeral, but the academic literature is effectively permanent.

rhizome 13y ago
(an alternative way to address a "citation needed" concern is to presume that the editor is correct, and go looking for the citation) You mean, "hey, I wrote it, you go look it up if you don't believe me?" Down that path lies madness. And Fox News. Academics aren't supposed to have "trade secrets" by definition, because that impedes the teacher and researcher's motivation. Historically, anyway, by my understanding.
- owenmarshall 13y ago
  I don't think that's what is meant by "go looking for the citation." I read it more as "by being an expert in this subject I know this is true; by being an expert in this subject I also probably don't have time to find the journal that has the article in question, cite it per Wikipedia's rules, and put it in the article." Frankly that sounds like a great task for editors that aren't subject experts. Maybe the expert can say "this is missing knowledge, this is where I think a citation should be or what to look for" and the non-expert can do that.