• JubilantJaguar@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    5
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    23 days ago

    Inexplicably unpopular opinion: the priority for Wikipedia is not to delete whole articles, it’s to delete unsubstantiated content within articles.

    Personally I would be in favor of a bot that, after expiry of a time limit, deletes everything in an article - everything - where no citation has been provided. The resulting encyclopedia would be smaller but more accurate by definition, and almost certainly more useful.

    I just cannot understand why it’s so widely considered acceptable that articles contain unsourced factoids for years, even decades, on end.

    • FundMECFSResearch@lemmy.blahaj.zone
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      7
      ·
      22 days ago

      I think there’s an as big problem in that the citation provided often does not back the sentence claim’s, but since people rarely check the sources it gets included.

      • lengau@midwest.social
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        5
        ·
        22 days ago

        Yeah, and a bot that did that would just encourage more and more irrelevant citations, reducing overall quality.

        • Dharma Curious (he/him)@slrpnk.net
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          21 days ago

          As a college student, I have certainly never cited a completely irrelevant source with a similar-enough sounding title at 11:55pm for a paper due at midnight to get my source count up to meet a rubric… I would never. I resent the accusation.

    • waldenA
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      22 days ago

      Does every bit of info have a published source?

      What sort of requirements does Wikipedia have for published info, I wonder. There’s a lot of wrong info published in books and online.

      • JubilantJaguar@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        4
        ·
        22 days ago

        It’s an encyclopedia. That makes it a tertiary source. Just as a secondary source (book, journalism, and so on) should cite its primary sources, a tertiary source should cite its secondary sources. Yes, you should be able to source the origin of every assertion of fact.

        • waldenA
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          4
          ·
          edit-2
          22 days ago

          Fair enough.

          Does Wikipedia allow someone to tag themselves as a primary source, or does it have to be published elsewhere first?

          Like if someone had specific firsthand knowledge that Elvis preferred a certain brand of Peanut Butter, but that tidbit isn’t published anywhere, how would that work?

          Sorry for not researching this stuff on my own, I’m just curious, but not curious enough to go figure it out on my own.

          • JubilantJaguar@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            4
            ·
            22 days ago

            Very easy to answer that: no. This falls under the “No original research” rule. The information must be publicly available from a reputable source. If you had insider info about Elvis’s peanut butter you would need to write it up and get your article accepted by a recognized publication, basically.

            • waldenA
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              4
              ·
              22 days ago

              That’s really interesting, thanks.