The myth of reference sources Options

[thekohser]

A recent study proves what most of us here knew all along. For all of the hype about how Wikipedia is more and more reliable thanks to the reference sources that pepper its articles, when it comes right down to it, even college students are oblivious to what the references are actually pointing to when they evaluate the credibility of a Wikipedia article.

(Thankfully, as a paid editor, I can sometimes use this to my advantage... puffing out references that are barely relevant to what is claimed in the article. But if that's what it takes to make the content stick, so be it.)

(It's also a nifty trick to get vandalism to hold in place.)

This post has been edited by thekohser: Tue 7th June 2011, 3:30pm

[Unrepentant Vandal]

You just hounded him off, congrats

[melloden]

You just hounded him off, congrats

Yes, yes, congrats Abd.

[Abd]

You just hounded him off, congrats

Yes, yes, congrats Abd.

Don't count on him staying gone. Not that he wasn't just one more crazy monkey.

[DoctorHver]

Wikipedia don't even know when credible source it them in the face. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:The_Yankee_Doodle_Mouse
http://wikipediareview.com/index.php?act=P...969&qpid=279052

Source form original copyright synopsis was delete from the article and yes it was published by the copyright office itself.

So yes Wikipedia and credibility is surely big myth.

This post has been edited by DoctorHver: Sun 10th July 2011, 9:40pm

[Abd]

Wikipedia don't even know when credible source it them in the face. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:The_Yankee_Doodle_Mouse
http://wikipediareview.com/index.php?act=P...969&qpid=279052

Source form original copyright synopsis was delete from the article and yes it was published by the copyright office itself.

So yes Wikipedia and credibility is surely big myth.

DoctorHver, I don't know how to break it to you, but your editing and responses on Wikipedia demonstrate an almost unbelievably deep lack of clue. It's unfortunate that there is nobody there to explain this to you in a way that you might recognize, I used to do that kind of thing until I got banned from it.

1. You were inserting original research or synthesis. Example: This is also only Tom and Jerry cartoon that has sequence missing.

2. The original copyright filing would be a primary source. Primary sources do not necessarily establish a fact, but with consensus you can sometimes use them. I know this may seem crazy to you, but that's because you don't yet understand the sourcing guidelines. They do make sense.

3. You were sourcing material from a blog. While blogs may sometimes, for special reasons, be considered adequate source to verify text, the norm is, not. It's beyond the scope of my response here to explain this, but, in fact, it also makes a great deal of sense (even though it's often been personally irritating). The alternative would be a different project, relying upon experts. For better or for worse, that's not Wikipedia, and, note, it would mean that you wouldn't be allowed to touch anything!

4. With Being Right and four reverts in 24 hours, you can be blocked on sight. You can even be "enforcing policy," you think -- and you could even be correct about this -- and you'll still be blocked, except under certain narrow circumstances that you don't need to know about. Basically, any reverts at all can get you in trouble.

5. You ignored a pile of warnings, continuing to insist on your position. (See number 4).

6. Looking at the quality of your writing, I suggest taking up some other hobby. Seriously. However, if you insist on trying to edit Wikipedia, start by apologizing profusely on your Talk page for your complete lack of clue. (Use those words, "I apologize for my complete lack of clue and next time I will assume good faith and listen to what other editors are telling me and if I don't understand I'll ask and listen and read the guidelines and policies and I'll never never never never edit war again.")

7. Wikipedia sucks, but you haven't even begin to find out how and where. You actually ran into a relatively functional piece of the action, you were warned repeatedly before being blocked and it was a short block.

8. Oh, yes. Warnings were placed on your talk page. You were warned about 3RR violation, and also about the filing on the 3RR noticeboard. Before blocking you, an admin will check your Talk page to see if you were warning, it's essential for the block procedure, if it's being followed. If you must insist, you'd better have a Damned Good Reason, right there with the warning, or you are dead meat. I was reverting a blatant sock puppet revert warring in conjunction with a COI editor editing by IP, and I got a 3RR warning on my Talk, and I placed the necessary information there, and, believe me, it was concise, it had to be, because these admins don't like to read more than a couple of words. I was still blocked, but the admin undid it within minutes. That was my baptism of fire on Wikipedia, coming up against a highly experienced puppet master and surviving. I only went down in flames, later, when an entire cabal, at least two dozen editors including a half-dozen admins, was gunning for me.

The fastest gun in the west goes down eventually. It's the odds.

[DoctorHver]

DoctorHver, I don't know how to break it to you, but your editing and responses on Wikipedia demonstrate an almost unbelievably deep lack of clue. It's unfortunate that there is nobody there to explain this to you in a way that you might recognize, I used to do that kind of thing until I got banned from it.

1. original copyright synopsis, done by MGM for USA copyright office how is that not credible source? Next thing Wikipedia will do is to call Disney's ownership of Mickey Mouse in question.
2. Copyright synopsis are verified by the USA copyright office which makes them credible. There is no proves secondary source are more credible than primary source in many cases. Sometimes errors can happens between the primary source and secondary source. If relay on secondary source your credibility can also been called into question. The sourcing guidelines actually sound like that wikipedia wants to be peer reviewed database, but the fact is that's wikipedia not general user lacks the knowledge too do so and I rely do wonder how much of the current sourcing guidelines originally form Jimbo himself.
3. I'm not sourcing the blog. I'm sourcing scan of that copyright synopsis, as you can see, that the text is too old to be anything written online. And google proves the existence of this document. Even if its not online from there.

4-5. Maybe I should have pointed that I go by Jimbo's own rule "Ignore all rules". I sometimes do wonder that users that don't have anything page not even sign that they are stewards/rolebacks/admins. In the case of the guy that handed me those warnings, I there would be a starter that you must sign on your page that you have more powers other users, it can throw you of guard that guy do know that he will not win the argument anyother way. If I got stalked by puppet admin then I hope admin will be exported and banned. Power abuse should have strick penalties admins and not

6. There is nothing to apology for. The other guy was error and took his false word as wisdom. You should apology for abusing my writing style im not English.

7. I would argue that this is only top of the isberg what I faced here. Have you seen al the Myspace like user pages? The rules? I would be surprised if majory of them were made up behind Jimbo's back and most contradict the "ignore al rules" rule. For exmaple I think i read it here that Jimbo was nerly banned himself by one of those made up rules that he didn't approve

8. 3RR rule is just to win argument, nothing else, I have seen way to many evidence 3RR card is played by the person that is incorrect about the matter. And its just bad management on the admins side hand out ban with out checking all evidence, properly.

[Abd]

Warning: this is a complete waste of time, and it's way too long. Read this if you are already bored and being bored. tl;dr is welcome and encouraged. It's not my fault if you are weird and read this anyway.

DoctorHver, I don't know how to break it to you, but your editing and responses on Wikipedia demonstrate an almost unbelievably deep lack of clue. It's unfortunate that there is nobody there to explain this to you in a way that you might recognize, I used to do that kind of thing until I got banned from it.

1. original copyright synopsis, done by MGM for USA copyright office how is that not credible source?

Credible for what?

And Wikipedia does not have a "credible source" policy. Hey, I'm a credible source. Who is to say I'm not? The question is, "credible for what?" A patent filing, for example, is a credible source for what? It's credible for claims, not for fact, other than the fact of claim. There are millions of patents, most of them not notable. What makes a patent notable? ... Appearance in reliable secondary source.

You've completely missed something. Wikipedia is called the "sum of all human knowledge," but "sum" in that has a special meaning. It means "summary," and the founders of Wikipedia wanted facts included to not only be verifiable, but *notable,* and it depends on independent publishers to make that determination, WP:RS policy is intrinsically bound up with notability policy.

What you did was to refer to an original copyright synopsis, all right. I'm not sure you showed that this was reliably verifiable, but suppose it was. What does that *mean*? It means that this document was submitted, claimed. Does it tell us anything about the actual work as distributed, about whether or not the synopsis was actually used? You presented *conclusions* from a primary source, but those were *your* conclusions, or the conclusions of a blogger.

You can do this, present such synthetic conclusions, but only with consensus. You didn't seek consensus, you simply claimed you were right, and that was that, so to speak, "they'd better stop or I'll complain, and since I'm right, surely Wikipedia administration will tell you to stop your vandalism," and yes, you called those edits vandalism.

Completely clueless, is what I wrote, and you are only confirming that.

Next thing Wikipedia will do is to call Disney's ownership of Mickey Mouse in question.

Okay. How do you know that Disney owns Mickey Mouse? What is the basis for that belief, obviously you think it is unquestionable, why, "everybody knows it." Do you know that there can be and are things that "everyone knows" that are not true? I.e., reality is different. Suppose Disney sold the rights, unbeknownst to you. If Wikipedia was completely strict, it would say that: According to Cartoon Business News, as of 2005 -- or whatever or whenever -- Disney owned the rights to Mickey Mouse. But if there is no controversy, at all, it might just assume ownership.

Do you realize that you can't say "The sky is blue," without a source, on Wikipedia, if someone objects and demands a source and sticks to their guns? (In reality, it might depend on who you know and who supports you. Hint: the clueless aren't supported, they are obvious outsiders, not "us."

You are talking to a community here with a thousand times as much experience as you with Wikipedia, imagining that you know better. That's just another part of the lack of clue. You want to learn about Wikipedia, this is a good place to do it, the users here have, collectively, seen it all. Some will help you, some will just tell you that you are an idiot. This place is like that.

2. Copyright synopsis are verified by the USA copyright office which makes them credible.

No, the copyright office doesn't verify anything at all, beyond providing, sometimes and in some ways, what is in their files. That's just another lack of clue you are showing.

There is no proves secondary source are more credible than primary source in many cases.

Credible for what? Primary sources do not ordinarily demonstrate notability. I'd love to use conference papers, but all they show is that a paper was presented at a conference, and generally anyone can do that, the papers may as well be self-published, as blogs usually are. I've gotten conference papers in where the paper showed the opinion of a notable person. It's an example of primary source usage, and it took consensus. If I'd revert warred to try to keep it in, it would probably not be included! As it was, there was revert warring to keep it out, there are editors who really didn't want to use anything from the site that archived the paper, and I had to demonstrate clear consensus to get this to stand, with what was effectively a Request for comment on the article talk page -- this was a BLP for the author! -- but, once that was done, it was self-maintaining. The original opponent came back periodically to remove it. Eventually he may get whacked for that. Or not. It's Wikipedia, after all.

Sometimes errors can happens between the primary source and secondary source. If relay on secondary source your credibility can also been called into question.

You have no clue about how Wikipedia handles "credibility." It doesn't, basically. It attributes information. The attribution is what can be verified. Notable facts are attributed to independent sources, that's what "secondary source" means.

Is the information "true"? That is entirely another question, one which Wikipedia does not and cannot answer. It doesn't have the expertise, or, more accurately, it doesn't have a means of determining who is expert and who is not, and, besides, experts differ.

The sourcing guidelines actually sound like that wikipedia wants to be peer reviewed database, but the fact is that's wikipedia not general user lacks the knowledge too do so and I rely do wonder how much of the current sourcing guidelines originally form Jimbo himself.

You don't understand them, period, so your critique is based on your own ignorance. There are lots of problems with wikipedia, but until you can understand the basis for it, as it is, you won't be able to intellligently critique it.

3. I'm not sourcing the blog. I'm sourcing scan of that copyright synopsis, as you can see, that the text is too old to be anything written online. And google proves the existence of this document. Even if its not online from there.

You are sourcing the scan to the blog. The reliability of that scan being the document claimed to be is entirely dependent upon the reliability of the blog. The blogger can put up whatever he or she wants, is generally responsible to nobody. Wikipedia "reliable sources" -- in theory -- are independent publishers who will lose something if they put up false documents, or if a real document is presented in a misleading way, or is, in fact, just plain boring (i.e, *not notable*). Bloggers may or may not be responsible and careful.

So the blog hosts an image of a handwritten document. You think this proves something. What it proves is only this: the blog hosts an image, and claims that this image is ... and *you* think this is important. "Importance" is established by the appearance of information in reliable secondary source. Blogs are, generically, not considered to be such. Sometimes they are reliable, in fact, but to consider a blog sufficiently reliable to be used as a secondary source requires editorial consensus, which you completely fail to recognize.

4-5. Maybe I should have pointed that I go by Jimbo's own rule "Ignore all rules".

Famous last words. Have you looked at my comment boilerplate? If you follow IAR, be prepared to be blocked and banned. I'd say, make sure it's worth being blocked and banned for!

Your writing was atrocious. Your understanding of policy was non-existent. You were, indeed, improving the project by what you did, under IAR, because you got blocked, an improvement. If you insist, you'll end up indef blocked, also an improvement, unless you can revise your attitude. Up to you, eh?

I sometimes do wonder that users that don't have anything page not even sign that they are stewards/rolebacks/admins. In the case of the guy that handed me those warnings, I there would be a starter that you must sign on your page that you have more powers other users, it can throw you of guard that guy do know that he will not win the argument anyother way. If I got stalked by puppet admin then I hope admin will be exported and banned. Power abuse should have strick penalties admins and not

Ordinary editors may warn anyone, and ordinary editors use those templates. If they warn them improperly, they can be, themselves warned. But the warnings were proper. There was no pretense of being an administrator, and that you say this simply adds another pile of nails to the coffin of "Clueless but arrogant newbie." Go back and take a look at those warnings. Where does the editor claim to be an administrator. You assumed that, like you assume a lot of things. Read the policies and guidelines, if you want to survive more than a few days on Wikipedia, and make sure you understand what is rightabout them before you imagine you know better.

If it were merely a lack of clue, you might get some help. If you are lucky. But you were absolutely certain that you were right, and that's what your comments here show. Just saying.

6. There is nothing to apology for. The other guy was error and took his false word as wisdom. You should apology for abusing my writing style im not English.

Fine. Suit yourself. I was advising you as to what would begin a possible career as a Wikipedia editor. Look, with your profound lack of clue and a decision to make yourself look like a learner, who earnestly wants to improve the project, and if you were willing to pretend to follow the guidelines for a few months, and with that apology, you could be an administrator in short order, and then you could block that person you think was so offensive. You'd probably need at least 3000 edits, and a period of staying out of trouble, plus that apology. Instead, you come whining here. Good luck!

7. I would argue that this is only top of the isberg what I faced here.'

You have no idea. While you may contribute even though you have very poor English, your lack of understanding is not only of the language, and reverting back in poor writing is going to make you look like an idiot. Truth in advertising, I suppose.

Have you seen al the Myspace like user pages? The rules? I would be surprised if majory of them were made up behind Jimbo's back and most contradict the "ignore al rules" rule. For exmaple I think i read it here that Jimbo was nerly banned himself by one of those made up rules that he didn't approve

OMG. Really? Well, then, welcome to Wikipedia Review. We will be eagerly awaiting your contributions, since you were able to dig up this story.

Do realize that people here include arbitrators and former arbitrators, stewards, highly experienced editors, and legions of the banned?

8. 3RR rule is just to win argument, nothing else, I have seen way to many evidence 3RR card is played by the person that is incorrect about the matter. And its just bad management on the admins side hand out ban with out checking all evidence, properly.

OMG! Bad management? Who'd have thought that possible?

3RR is a "bright red line." It's not uncommon that administrators get blocked for crossing it. If you think you need to cross it, you are demonstrating that you have utterly no idea about how Wikipedia actually works. Given the structure, 3RR is a necessary rule. 3RR is an allowance, not a permission, the basic principle is that content must be negotiated, not imposed. If you break 3RR, it demonstrates that you are *obsessed* with being right. You might read the essay, WP:Eventualism. I don't get that you have what it takes to actually contribute to Wikipedia, which is no harm to you, contributing to Wikipedia can be an enormous waste of time. Just saying.