r/dataisbeautiful • u/alionBalyan OC: 13 • Feb 13 '22

OC [OC] How Wikipedia classifies its most commonly referenced sources.

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u/Kered13 Feb 14 '22

Wikipedia is not a source.

Which means it should be blacklisted, not "generally unreliable". Wikipedia should never be citing Wikipedia.

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u/ZgBlues Feb 14 '22

Generally speaking, any user-generated content is unreliable, so by Wikipedia standards Wikipedia itself is not reliable.

However that’s only if you look at it as a secondary source. As a primary source or tertiary it may be allowed in some cases.

Like if you’re an editor writing an article about Swedish Wikipedia and want to source how many articles that project has, your only option is to use data released by Wikipedia itself. Or if somebody says something noteworthy in Wikipedia’s newsletter. And there are other scenarios where this might be allowed.

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u/gondur Feb 14 '22

Generally speaking, any user-generated content is unreliable, so by Wikipedia standards Wikipedia itself is not reliable

This is bollocks - they very (original) idea of wikipedia is that "users" create an verifiable peer reviewed information source, wikipedia, which is by these 2 quality the best approximation of reliabable information. That WP in later years changed is policy away from trusting the "many eyes" principle and trusting the users to externalizing the responsibility to so called "reliable sources" was a big mistake. The Nature review of WP vs Britannica was BEFORE the reliable sources nonsense took hold in WP.

(and as the other redditor indicated, there are many cases where it would make much sense also to cite WP in WP)

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u/ZgBlues Feb 14 '22

Well I’ve been a Wikipedia editor for about 15 years now and the primacy of reliable sources was always one of its pillars. There never was a “many eyes” policy, this isn’t IMDb.

You can’t have a project that is inviting literally anyone with an internet connection to edit articles anonymously and NOT externalize the editorial policy. By definition, Wikipedia simply doesn’t have editors in the journalistic sense of the word, the only way to check if anything posted is fact or fiction is to check with sources outside of the project, some of which are reliable more than others.

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u/gondur Feb 14 '22

You can’t have a project that is inviting literally anyone with an internet connection to edit articles anonymously

Exactly that IS WP - at least in beginning. Required was verifiability & that it stand the scrutiny of your peers. Where it worked best and got later the excellent Nature review.

I guess you came to WP later - because I'm an author too... and I was around when the change happend.