--- On Fri, 4/2/11, Carcharoth <carcharot...@googlemail.com> wrote: > Andreas Kolbe <jayen...@yahoo.com> > wrote: > > > For better or worse, Wikipedia in its present state is > more of a news > > aggregator than an educational resource, and the > reason is that the > > community likes it that way. > > Parts of Wikipedia are more like a news aggregator, yes. > Other parts > are clearly not. Most obviously the stuff that newspapers > don't cover, > or where other sources exist. Has anyone tried to do one of > those > network diagrams showing correlations between types of > articles and > particular types of sources? Some interesting patterns > might emerge > there.
Even parts of Wikipedia where other sources do exist frequently restrict themselves to aggregating news. There are no end of scholarly sources on [[Doris Lessing]], say. Our article on her cites (news and web sources listed left, book sources indented): NobelPrize.org The Guardian BBC News Toronto Star The Times Bloomberg The New York Times http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi The New York Times BBC News Online ------------------------------------- A book by Harper Collins biography.jrank.org ------------------------------------- A book by Broadview Press Newsweek Voices of America dorislessing.org Huffington Post BBC Radio rslit.org The New York Times Daily Mail Herald Sun The Telegraph CBS News New York Daily News BBC News Online dorislessing.org The New York Times dorislessing.org ------------------------------------- "Worldcon Guest of Honor Speeches" otago.ac.nz hrc.utexas.edu/press/releases/2007/lessing.html lib.utulsa.edu/speccoll/collections/lessingdoris/index.htm gencat.cat/pic/cat/index.htm That's 32 media/web references (some of them with multiple citations), and 3 book references (each cited once). We've been doing this for ten years. We have always said, "articles will develop eventually". But by now, some articles are actually degrading again, and on the whole we have failed to attract great numbers of competent experts with real-life credentials. There are some promising signs that this is changing, and I am glad of it. But we should remember that the image we project through the quality and seriousness of our articles has a lot to do with what sort of editors we attract. There are virtuous circles as well as vicious circles. Another scholar for example who I asked for advice a while back volunteered the information that ---o0o--- "I do not permit any of my students to cite your encyclopedia as any kind of reliable source when they write papers for me. Wikipedia is too much a playground for social activists of whatever editorial bent wherein the lowest common denominator gets to negotiate reality for the readers. No thanks." ---o0o--- Reactions like that are our loss, and perpetuate the problems we have. Our efforts at outreach could be coupled with efforts to make Wikipedia a more reputable publication. Charles Matthews mentioned at a recent meet-up a BLP where editors were all focused on whether the subject was gay or not, while no one had any interest in adding information explaining what made the person notable. This seems rather typical. Our beloved media gossip, complete with divorce details from thesmokinggun.com http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Search&redirs=0&search=thesmokinggun+divorce&fulltext=Search&ns0=1 may be keeping those editors away who we most need to turn articles like Doris Lessing's into something worthy of an actual encyclopedia. In other words, the more tabloid sources we cite, the more editors we attract who like tabloids, while turning off those potential contributors who don't read tabloids. Andreas _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
