Wikipedia talk:Forum for Encyclopedic Standards

Brief summary

The following builds on views expressed by Maurreen, now on Wikipedia talk:Forum for Encyclopedic Standards (archive4). -- Jmabel | Talk 23:30, Nov 23, 2004 (UTC)

We seem to be starting to generate at least a list of topics and areas of concern:

Sourcing and citing
Schemes for editorial approval
1. Interest in best-of-both worlds approach toward flagging "approved" articles while preserving openness
Schemes for dispute resolution
1. Can we build on RfC?

The main controversies so far seem to be:

What is acceptable sourcing?
1. Will we be able to come up with encyclopedia-wide standards, or will we need different standards for different types of subject matter?
Who is qualified to make approval-related judgments?
1. How does this relate to formal education?
2. How does this relate to indentifiability of the individual in the outside world?
3. How does this relate to previous involvement in a particular article or subject-matter area?
Where to start
1. Do we start by working on uncontroversial or controversial articles?
2. Can we identify some pilot projects?

Mission statement

Wikipedia:Forum for Encyclopedic Standards is a place where discerning Wikipedia editors can "meet" to discuss, develop and promote encyclopedic standards.

We envision developing or refining:

A set of goals for articles,
A system to indicate articles or article versions that have attained those goals, and
A quality-based method of resolving editorial disputes.

Maurreen 09:10, 20 Nov 2004 (UTC)

RfC

I think at least some of the editorial disputes could be addressed through more effort in available processes. For example:

listing them on RfC,
summarizing the dispute on the talk page, to help anyone who visits the talk page from RfC, and
anyone who lists anything on RfC trying to help out at least at a couple other disagreements.

I've only listed on RfC a couple of times, and the second was only today. But I believe my first RfC listing didn't bring any comment. RfC or a similar mechanism I think is especially needed or useful when the disagreement is between just two people. Maurreen 00:36, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)

"Reviewed" articles draft proposal

Advantages:

Simple and quick. This could be implemented and useful within an hour of its adoption.
Takes best-of-both-worlds approach to wiki nature and any standing of experts.

Outline:

Any registered user could review any article.
There would be a category and list of reviewed articles.
The list would indicate which version of an article was reviewed by each reviewer.
Reviews on the list would be no more than a paragraph long.

Options:

Detailed reviews could be written and linked to from the list.
Reviewers who chose to could list themselves and a paragraph about any relevant qualifications or limitations on a list of reviewers.
Reviewers should at least indicate if they have worked on the article.
We could have a list of articles for which a review is desired, or use the current peer review page.
We could choose a set of suggested levels or other indicators (such as “acceptable,” “weak,” “comprehensive,” etc.).

Maurreen 21:04, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Editorial board(s)

My thought on this is that there is an immediate problem with 'Any registered user could review any article'. There's no problem with having anyone review an article - however to improve the credibility and reliability of Wikipedia, I think that we (unfortunately) need a link to the 'outside world' where people have real names and qualifications, rather than 'karma' built up under a nom-de-plume. For articles' credibility to be increased, someone's, or some people's, reputation needs to be on the line. My thoughts are that a properly constituted editorial board needs to approve (and possibly modify) articles. As I've mentioned elsewhere, there could (and in my view should) be multiple competing boards aiming to set their seal upon particular article versions. For example, one such board could be a set of academics in a particular subject whose names are known, who have a publishing record in peer-reviewed journals, and have an academic reputation. This does not preclude a self selected group of people setting up their own board under noms-de-plume and producing a Wikireputation based set of approvals. Users would have the choice of using either or both or neither board's seals of approval (article tags) as a filter into Wikipedia. WLD 21:48, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Standards and collective review

Maurreen, are you talking about working toward Wikipedia 1.0? I could see the sense of reviewing in advance of that; but if so we need a minimum standard for Wikipedia articles for publication on a CD/DVD. I think that establishing that minimum standard comes first.

I also think we need a more collective review mechanism - individual reviewing standards are too subjective and won't build too anything constructive without a software solution to support them. If we are going to do this without a software solution, then I think we should build on FAC. We should be able to process far more articles because the standard would inevitably be much lower. If we set up such a process it would mean that x number of articles could be flagged as approved by whatever mechanism is eventually developed in the software. :ChrisG 20:27, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)

ChrisG's template and process

Thinking some more about Maurreens proposal it occurred to me that with the combination of templates and categories we could set up a voting system to approve articles. Consider this template (I used subst to create the text, e.g. {{subst:ChrisGtest}} ):

The version of this article listed below this message is a current candidate for Wikipedia 0.1. Standards for Wikipedia 0.1 are at Wikipedia 0.1 Standard.

Voting should last for a minimum of a week, and approval requires 80% support. If opposing votes outweigh supportive votes at any stage this candidature should be removed. Full rules are listed at Wikipedia 0.1 procedure. Please vote below either for or against approval. A negative vote only counts if it provides a supporting explanation for why the article version fails to meet the standard.

If you look to the bottom of the screen this template categorises the article as a candidate for Wikipedia 0.1 and also by the current day, month and year (uses variables so need to update). This means anybody wishing to vote on articles need only check the appropriate category for articles. They could click the links to the talk page of the articles they are interested in. The talk page of the article would give the link to the specific version and the votes so far; after checking the article the person could vote as they see fit.

As time passes, the articles listed as candidates will dwindle as they are approved or rejected. The fact the candidates are categorised by date would mean we know when to close the vote of any articles that have been sitting in candidate status for too long.

Rejected articles would have the candidate category removed. Successful articles would be given a Wikipedia 0.1 category instead, again identified by the date of the version approved. In addition the specific version of the article should be listed somewhere as approved on that date, i.e Wikipedia: Approved 0.1/1 Dec 2004.

I realize we don't have a consensus on how to approve articles, largely I think because some people are talking about approving top quality articles and others are talking about minimum standards for the CD/DVD editions; but this is a method which we could apply now without changes to the software, which would scale and would thus be suitable for either purpose.

ChrisG 01:10, 25 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Interim measure

Maybe it would be helpful to think of my proposal for article reviews as an interim measure. It isn't intended to be perfect by any means.

It is intended to give readers some measure of the quality of any given article or article version.

It is something that could very easily be produced and used while something better is discussed, decided and developed. It does not preclude any other system. It can include, or not include, a minimum standard for Wikipedia articles, which would need to be developed.

It could be one of any number of tools that work toward an eventual paper or "release" version. Maurreen 09:34, 25 Nov 2004 (UTC)

What I'm doing (Jmabel)

I hope no one wants to shoot me for what I'm doing here, but we seem to have hit a wall and I'm trying to see whether I can get us moving again. The following section, "Proposed strategies (moved from project page)" consisted of three proposals that really helped to get discussion rolling here, but were nowhere near getting consensus. I'm moving them to the talk page here, and then going back to the project page to try coming at this from a higher level, and see if we can give this more focus. If someone thinks I'm really headed the wrong way, please let's discuss; we can always revert the project page to before I got there. -- Jmabel | Talk 00:01, Nov 24, 2004 (UTC)

I think you did a great job! Maurreen 04:08, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Proposed strategies (moved from project page)

I still only have a rough idea as to what these standards might be and how they would be enforced. This page, though, will hopefully spark a discussion that will lead a large number of users to collaborate and eventually create a detailed draft proposal. 172 02:56, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Referencing in Wikipedia articles

I created Template:Unsourced. Comments? [[User:Neutrality|Neutrality (hopefully!)]] 05:52, Nov 16, 2004 (UTC)

Well from Wikipedia:Cite sources, the section should be called references. That is what we have been more or less standardizing on at FAC since that is one of the FA criteria now. But I suppose we could have a discussion about what the best section title is. Further comments on the talk page. - Taxman 18:44, Nov 17, 2004 (UTC)

I agree that better referencing is critical to Wikipedia's credibility. I would like to see every article have at least 2 book references, 2 journal references, and 2 Web references. In addition, at least half the references should be cited in the body of the article. A well referenced article (such as Strategic management which has about 120 references and about 110 of them cited in the article) allows the reader to check the source(s) of all the major points made in the article. I see this as the inevitable next step in Wikipedia's growth and maturity. mydogategodshat 16:48, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Again, how can this be possible on pop culture topics or recent events? -- Jmabel | Talk 23:53, Nov 19, 2004 (UTC)

I would oppose a requirement for "at least 2 book references, 2 journal references, and 2 Web references." That appears to put form over function. Maurreen 09:56, 25 Nov 2004 (UTC)

What is the function of a bibliography? There are two: first, if provides legitimacy. Second, it is a resource for people who want to do more in depth research. I think we can encourage both of thee functions, and we do not need some rule like two books or two journal articles. I suggest some kind of template which allows editors to explain very succinctly how they researched the article. This might include mentioning articles or books, but in some cases, where that's not appropriate, it would include other things. The point is, it wouold provide transparency and legitimacy. Another template would allow editors to suggest to readers how they can learn more. Again, this might mention books but may not, it all depends. In both cases, thought, I suggest a template that is NOT a list (whether of books or of web-sites). Many encyclopedia articles in other encyclopedias, and many books, end with "bibliographic essays" or "suggestions for further research" and I am thinking of something more along these lines. Those articles and books, rather than providing lists, provide narratives that help explain the particular value of different resources -- information that really helps readers. Slrubenstein

I'm basically for this. I've often been frustrated that our current approach does not (for example) readily allow us to remark on the shortcomings of particular sources. On the other hand, I can imagine this becoming a POV mess, especially in controversial areas. Does anyone have an idea how to reconcile this? -- Jmabel | Talk 20:38, Nov 26, 2004 (UTC)

One approach is to have an article on the source and its author, as for example there is on The Great Terror and its author, Robert Conquest. Fred Bauder 22:45, Nov 26, 2004 (UTC)

Recent events articles

An encyclopaedia is not a place for discussing recent events. In my opinion there ought to be a rule that Wikipedia is not a newspaper and it ought to be enforced. No doubt we could have a Wikipedia News Service for those who can't resist. As for pop culture articles, my first response is "who cares?", but I suppose a more considered response is that some subjects will have to have less rigorous standards of referencing than others. Adam 01:43, 20 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Clearly, the consensus is otherwise. You don't need to work on those articles, but others will, and we will never get standards adopted as being encyclopedia-wide that won't accommodate those articles. -- Jmabel | Talk 02:30, Nov 20, 2004 (UTC)

We owe part of our popularity to the spike in traffic from the events of Sept 11 2001. The truth is today's news is tommorrow's history. History is encyclopedic. BTW, there is demo.wikinews.org for all those interested in contributing true news articles. -- user:zanimum

Adam's suggestion that there should be a Wikipedia is not a newspaper rule is an excellent one. I have been thinking the same thing for quite a while. It would greatly improve some parts of the encyclopedia and avoid many of the most useless edit wars. To clarify what it would mean, only events with some finality would be included, not a daily mishmash of events unfolding. For example, Arafat's illness and death would have been admitted after he either got well or died. During the time he was lying in hospital there was never a moment when what was in Wikipedia was more than embarrassing crap fought over by the POV warriors. Anyone who wanted news could look at a real newspaper. --Zero 12:51, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Any discussion over whether W. is a newspaper or not has to consider the way the technology affects distribution and consumption. What is a Newspaper? I guess many people think it is a source of information about news and current events. But I think what is more important is that it is disposable. Newspaper is a vehicle for publishing material with the shortest possible shelf-life. Wikipedia certainly is not a Newspaper, from this perspective. But that doesn't mean it cannot publish news and current events. We already have a long history of articles on such "newspaperish" events and I don't wee how (or why) we could change. Let's continue creating new articles on recent events. But our articles come out in a way that is not instantly disposable. Contributors can slowly and continually work on those articles, providing follow-up, analysis, increasing context, turning them into articles that merit long shelf life. Why not? Slrubenstein

Referencing of Wikipedia articles

One approach involves the very difficult question of citation, in the sense of others citing Wikipedia. IMO, Wikipedia is not suitable as a citable source on most history or politics. If I were writing a paper on such a subject, I would only use Wikipedia as a source to point me elsewhere, not as definitive in itself. Aside from the issues of POV and self-selected writers, we have the problem of constantly shifting content. An accurate citation would have to read: "English Wikipedia, 'George W. Bush is subhuman controversy,' revision of 17 October 2004, between 0023 and 0432 (UTC)." Perhaps we could consider limiting revisions (other than typos) to certain articles to once a week. During that period all proposed changes would go to a draft article, and that article vetted (how?) before being incorporated in the "public" article. -- Cecropia | explains it all ® 17:32, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I would oppose that suggestion. It would discourage users from contributing. I understood that all website citations should include the date of publication, or of retrieval if the publication date is unknown. In the case of Wikipedia, the publication date is clearly 0023 (UTC), 17 October 2004 in your example. This is clear, and anybody with a passing acquaintance with Wikipedia would be able to retrieve the referenced article. Warofdreams 16:53, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I believe my point is not that you can't retrieve the appropriate Wikipedia source for the citation, but that Wikipedia articles, especially on contentious subjects, are ephemeral. To paraphrase the old line about the weather: "If a Wikipedia article doesn't support the thesis of your paper, just keep watch for a few days, it will." (no smiley) -- Cecropia | explains it all ® 17:54, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Whether Wikipedia is a valid information source has to be judged on an article by article basis. Some, particularly those that have ample references, are worthy of citation. Many unfortunately are not. I agree with Warofdreams that shifting content is not a problem if the reference is done correctly. mydogategodshat 16:48, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)
- Agreed. Referencing Wikipedia is fine on an article by article bias provided people learn to reference specific versions of the article. The radical openness of Wikipedia means that any other kind of referencing is inappropriate. I think the guidance at Wikipedia:Researching_with_Wikipedia and Wikipedia:Citing_Wikipedia should clearly reflect this point. :ChrisG 19:14, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I am opposed to any rule that either fixes the content of articles, or that limits or regulates people's ability to edit them. I think the only solution is for us (whoever we are) to come up with some system by which we periodically review articles to make sure content is still encyclopedic, and sources are sonsistent with content. Slrubenstein

Endorsement idea

We might be able to develop a system by which anyone could endorse a particular version of an article; presumably groups could form whose endorsement would carry some weight. The mechanism would be one "reader" approval equals point one(0.1) an "editor" would rank one point (1) an "editing librarian" would rank one to ten (1 - 10) an admin would rank 10 to eleven (10 - 11), a group could be assigned a similarly weighted scoring rank, i.e. an opinion offered editorially by "The Royal College of Physicians & Surgeons" might rank one way or the other compared to a select group of its Alumni. Deriving from this an articles approval-rating would be a function of its veracity as regards the opinion of the majority of its' readers. an entry in wikipedia would have (available for review) an articles position relevant to all other articles. (Idea from anon, Maurreen moved from project page.)

The idea of open endorsement has merit, but this outline seeems very complicated. Maurreen 06:13, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Editorial arbitration

My idea for accomplishing these ends for a while has been a setting up alternative channels in the conflict resolution process focusing on specific subject areas. In practice, this could mean setting up a committee for editorial arbitration-- at least on an experimental basis. A committee set up along the lines of the Arbitration Committee but with editorial discretion could be established for arbitrating disputes on articles pertaining to modern history and politics, which tend to dominate each step of the existing conflict resolution process. Such a committee could consist of committed Wiki editors who are PhDs or graduate students (examples that come to mind are Slrubenstein, Adam Carr, Danny, Jtdirl, El C, and John Kenney). The experts could be hired by the Foundation, which has in the past reviewed resumes by users applying for Wikimedia positions. So, whereas the Arbitration Committee focuses on behavior and process, the sort of editorial review committee that I am proposing can focus on disputes concerning point of view, language, sources, factual accuracy, etc. (By the way, if such a committee were to be set up, I would not apply to serve as an editorial arbitrator for history, given my choice to contribute anonymously.) If anyone is interested, please see Wikipedia talk:Forum for Encyclopedic Standards. 172 20:11, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I contine to see this is a crucial and desperately needed function. I myself asked for such help recently. I don't see why we cannot start forming small teams now to start offering such services. UNLIKE other committees, we should not claim the power to anything binding; we shouldn't try to "resolve" (i.e. end) a conflict, but rahter make constructive and well-informed interventions with a focus on encyclopedic standards. Slrubenstein

Think tank?

Perhaps we should think of this forum as a "think tank" and incubator for ideas, many of which should promptly move out onto project pages of their own, linked from here. -- Jmabel | Talk 00:57, Nov 24, 2004 (UTC)

I think you are entirely correct. The benefit of having a central forum is that we will achieve sufficient interest to keep the discussion going, generate good ideas and hopefully develop some consensus that we could put forward as new policy.

Good projects like Wikipedia:WikiProject Fact and Reference Check and Wikipedia 1.0; and mechanisms for meta:Article validation and Wikipedia:Approval mechanism do not get enough attention to sustain them. Besides which there is enormous crossover of ideas and contributors (the same usual suspects) and so we duplicate the same points and don't move forward enough.

When we archive we need to identify where the relevant discussions needs to go; and if there isn't a project page for that type of discussion start one. :ChrisG 18:54, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Again, I think this is a great idea and one we should be focusing on developing. Slrubenstein

Archiving

I know that a lot has been archived very rapidly: we've generated something like 200KB of discussion in a little over a week. I encourage anyone who thinks that their good idea may have been lost in the shuffle to dig it out of the archive, put it on a wikipedia:-space page of its own (or add it to a relevant one), and link it from Wikipedia:Forum for Encyclopedic Standards. -- Jmabel | Talk 01:01, Nov 24, 2004 (UTC)

Recommended archive locations

Referencing: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Fact and Reference Check
- Also Wikipedia:Cite sources Maurreen 09:53, 25 Nov 2004 (UTC) I think there's something else similar, but I don't remember the name. Maurreen 13:49, 25 Nov 2004 (UTC)
- Also Wikipedia:Footnotes. Maurreen 08:26, 27 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Wikipedia 1.0: User:Jimbo Wales/Pushing To 1.0
- If Jimbo wouldn't object, could we move this to Wikipedia namespace instead of User namespace? -- Jmabel | Talk 20:30, Nov 24, 2004 (UTC)
  - I think that would make sense. Looking at the page it only ever got comments from people other than Jimbo. If we created a Wikipedia 1.0 page, we could use the talk page for discussion and the project page for a description of the project, related pages, and minimum standards for articles. :ChrisG 20:57, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)
    - I'll ask him if we may move it. -- Jmabel | Talk 21:12, Nov 25, 2004 (UTC)
Approval mechanisms: Wikipedia:Approval mechanism
Article validation: meta:Article validation
Research difficulties with Wikipedia: Wikipedia_talk:Researching_with_Wikipedia
- If the difficulties are important enough, they belong in Wikipedia:Researching_with_Wikipedia -- Jmabel | Talk 20:30, Nov 24, 2004 (UTC)
Systemic bias: Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Countering_systemic_bias

Are these okay? Any other suggestions? :ChrisG 19:25, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Software assisted citation?

As briefly mentioned here, I think it would help a lot if we had a reference manager functionality in our software. I don't know if there are any projects underway or if there is any opensource code that we might use, but I think the idea as such should be discussed. My idea in brief: bibliographic information for any source of information should be entered only once and then automagically be quoted by some simple inline command in the wikitext. The software should the make this a reference and organize a literature list for each article in a consistent format. Online query of scientific databases (like PubMed) should also be possible to access bibliographic information and possibly abstracts and/or fulltext. In a word, we should a have an open source EndNote (TM) clone. Ideas? Kosebamse 18:20, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I've had similiar ideas to this. I want references to be reusable throughout Wikipedia. That is, once a reference is set up within Wikipedia that particular reference could be used wherever appropriate. Another major benefit of this is that discussion of the appropriateness of a reference would be consolidated in one place. And if that reference is updated or identified as inaccurate this would amend the reference in all the articles it is used.

I would like the software to automatically create the endnotes or bring up a tooltip (perhaps depending on user configuration), pulling the information from wherever in Wikipeda it sits. :ChrisG 20:46, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Related software, such as EndNotes, exist and exemplify some of the shortcomings of such tools. On the other hand, it would be very useful to be able to use a {{ref|reference id}} which would automatically build a ==References== section with the footnoted resources, or even simply a link to a reference citation page. The problem would be to make the list of references browseable in any reasonable fashion would require a considerable development and editing effort. (I have myself spent more than 3 weeks doing nothing but keying citations into EndNotes, just for my personal article collection.) - Amgine 02:26, 25 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Can I suggest you add this idea into the bugzilla database? Feature suggestions lodged there have a much better chance of getting worked on. Shane King 04:02, Nov 25, 2004 (UTC)

I would suggest to refine the concept (much) further before making it a feature request. At the least there should be an idea of

what the user interface should look like
what should go into the database
how is the output integrated into wikitext
should there be a category system for references (any librarians around to give advice on this?)
and what should be demanded of an online query for bibliographic information

If done, this project may have implications for several other Wikimedia projects, so it might be appropriate to move the discussion to meta and set up a project page there. And, of course, keep integrated with the general thrust of the encyclopedic standards project. Kosebamse 06:33, 25 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I think there's also some merit in getting something up and running, and working to iteratively improve on it. That's the wiki way after all, I see no reason why the mediawiki software can't be included in that ideal. Anyway, it was just a thought. Shane King 06:46, Nov 25, 2004 (UTC)

I agree that there is no reason not to work in that way. However, as this could have implications far and wide, we should have some kind of concept before we approach the developers; also, I imagine that a developer would prefer to see some kind of concept instead of just an idea. Kosebamse 12:09, 25 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Personally I think we need to work out what kind of references we want. I would like to remove as many external links as possible. I would like to see every reference source being given a wikipedia article. The article can then comment on the credibility of the reference, provide an abstract of the article or book and provide a standard format reference for the endnotes of the article referencing it. We can create links to specific parts of articles so there is no reason we couldn't create a reference to endnote reference within the reference source article. If we started setting up such articles as agreed policy, the eventual software solution would be able to do various smart things with the reference.

Any obvious exclusion to that policy would be newspaper reports, because you wouldn't write an article about a specific article, though you would like to link to it. But you would want an article about the newspaper. :ChrisG 13:44, 25 Nov 2004 (UTC)

"Every reference source being given a wikipedia article" sounds good, however I would rather call it a critical review plus info for automated referencing that should come in a standard format. Something like a template saying "New Wikipedian Journal of Medicine // general medicine // peer-reviewed scientific journal // so and so many points in this and that citation database // quote as: NWJM-volume-year-page // etc. //etc." and for a specific article: "NWJM, volume, pages, year // authors // title //abstract // quote as: //etc. // etc." Of course there should be discussion about the merits of a source, but it would be fine to keep that out of the reference info itself. We should however not duplicate the efforts of professional institutions. E.g. in medicine, you can't beat PubMed, and it's online for free. So, retrieve what can be retrieved from elsewhere and concentrate on evaluation. If then we could sort all of this in to a category system, even better. (Like "cat:peer-reviewed journal, cat:general medicine, cat:ten points for reliability") Kosebamse 14:44, 25 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I also mean critical review/abstract; but as I see it that is eminiently encylopediac and so it is correct to say we want a wikipedia article on it. If we start creating large numbers of articles which are critical reviews of reference sources we will make Wikipedia useful in a whole new way. I think it would be an excellent way to bring more students and serious academics into Wikipedia and I think it would majorly enhance our percieved reliability. It would also support the reliability of our normal articles, because debates about the reliability of references would take place in the critical review and its talk page.

I also think we should use categorisation to list all these sources. It sounds like it would be a worthy addition to our categorisation system, and would help identify useful sources for wikipedia articles and research.

With regard to querying existing databases, what would be nice would be an extension of the template system, so that if you put say, for instance, a pubmed template in an article it would use the critical review article title or some metadata stored in that article to hunt for that information in pubmed.

I didn't quite follow your idea for a template, could you elaborate further? :ChrisG 16:31, 25 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Do we need to reinvent the wheel? There are a number of standards for references which could be used as the database template (APA for example). There is no way to standardize a valuation for a given resource, since the quality of articles in a given journal fluctuates based on available submissions and the members of their review panels. However, the method by which articles are reviewed - editorial reviewed, juried, blind juried, etc. - is usually indicative of quality. (But not entirely, for example some journals are known for having biased review panels for a specific POV; e.g. New England Journal of Medicine once known for refusing to even review naturopathic medicine articles, and their review panels are still believed biased against such.)

One other comment - An encyclopedia is not a research articles index. Critiques are regularly published in the research journals. A student/researcher shouldn't be looking to Wikipedia to find resources, but to a relevant index (such as Medline, in the example above.) Having a brief synopsis of content or focus may be useful, but more than that is redundant, imo. - Amgine 16:42, 25 Nov 2004 (UTC)

--I agree that we should not reinvent the wheel. If there are standards for references that we could use, that would be fine and possibly would help for interoperability with other databases. --Regarding evaluation of sources, that will certainly not be easy. One first step however would be to categorise sources according to what they are, not how good they are (as mentioned by Amgine). --Regarding the "template", I just realised that "template" has a specific meaning WRT MediaWiki. That's not what I was thinking of, rather a standardised format for data about a source (bibliographical and other). --Wikipedia should indeed not try to be a research articles index. There are professional institutions who can do that better. --One more thought: There have been several suggestions for evaluation systems for users ("trust metrics") and article content ("sifter project" and related ideas). Would it make any sense to create a "Grand Unified Evaluation Standard" for all similar purposes? So that, in the end, a reader would just click a button for an article/user page/reference to see that the content/quality-of-contributions/reliabilty-of-source has been reviewed and is thought to have such and such a quality? Kosebamse 17:39, 25 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I'm not suggesting that Wikipedia would replace these research indexes. Though as far as I was aware, most of the good ones are only avaliable if you are a student or an academic (though I would be happy to learn that things have changed in the last few years). So for the reader there is an access issue, and even more saliently, most of our readers would not go near a research index to get their information, because they are not looking of that level of specificity. What I am trying to say is if for the purposes of an encyclopedia we need to reference a specific research study, then by definition that probably makes it an important study; then there should be an article about in on Wikipedia that is accessible to the general reader (and just as importantly our general editor). Currently Wikipedia only has articles on a few landmark studies, and I think that is a huge gap. Wikipedia's role is to produce accessible knowledge; we are always going to be behind the start of art in academic research, but we should be summarising the status quo. Achieveing that would enhance Wikipedia in a number of ways and would be incredibly useful to the non-academic.

With regard to your standard template, or in Wikipedia terms format of data. You might want to look at the Wikidata project. The basic idea of this project is store all the data which is currently located in infoboxes on Wikipedia, in a database format avaliable for all, so making it reusable for multiple projects and circumstances. In the Wikipedia articles we would pull the appropriate Wikidata into our infoboxes.

I don't think we can give a metric for credibility across the board. Wikipedia can just provide a NPOV article about a study or set of studies; or source and we have to trust the reader to come to an intelligent opinion. :ChrisG 22:36, 25 Nov 2004 (UTC)

On the "every source should be an article" idea, I've got what I think is a better idea: make a "Source:" namespace. Some sources aren't worth an article of their own, and others may get deleted etc, but if we had a namespace for it, then different standards could apply. Then in the references section, you could just link to the source page.

One additional benefit of this would be that the "what links here" page would tell you what articles are using something as a source. The talk page for the source could be used specifically for discussing the source's credibility and such, instead of all the other disucssion that would happen at normal articles.

The format of things in the source namespace is the question: we could have a specific set of fields, or it could be freeform and done by convention, I don't know.

What do people think? I think it would be pretty easy to do, and integrate well with the rest of wikipedia. If people are interested in the idea and want to flesh it out, I'm willing to write the code to make it happen. - ShaneKing

I think this could be an excellent idea. The only issue would be when does a source deserve a wikipedia article; and thus possible duplication. If we used id's or headings people could link to specific reference discussions within a source. Anything that moves such discussions away from the Wikipedia articles to a central place would be beneficial; it also would mean the discussions would be reusable. :ChrisG 18:37, 26 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Just realized that isn't a problem. If a source article deserves an encyclopedia entry in the article namespace, we can transclude that entry into the source namespace using a template. :ChrisG 00:10, 27 Nov 2004 (UTC)

The code has been written already. See Bug 192 for discussion. -DanKeshet

Version 1.0 Editorial Team

Maybe I was hasty, or maybe I just followed advice about being bold and the think tank idea. But you're invited to Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team. Maurreen 08:13, 25 Nov 2004 (UTC)

The validation feature on the test wiki

There is a validation feature on the test wikipedia. [1] I think anyone interested in standards should consider how useful it will be. And if implemented how it could best be used. :ChrisG 08:47, 27 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Archives