Cool. I think about [citation needed] all of the time when I am at work and we are expressing opinions.
/a On Sat, Feb 27, 2016 at 7:37 PM, Chris Sherlock <[email protected]> wrote: > > > On 28 Feb 2016, at 2:25 PM, Chris Sherlock <[email protected]> > wrote: > > > > > >> On 28 Feb 2016, at 1:16 PM, Andreas Kolbe <[email protected]> wrote: > >> > >> On Sat, Feb 27, 2016 at 8:44 PM, Anna Stillwell < > [email protected]> > >> wrote: > >> > >>> Jimmy, > >>> > >>> I have a ridiculous amount of respect for you and what you have > >>> accomplished. I have watched from afar (I was living a lot in other > >>> countries) as this radical experiment in trust *exploded* on to the > world. > >>> It blew my mind. And some of the early rules that were set were nothing > >>> short of genius (e.g. NPOV, AGF and due weight come to mind). It was an > >>> ideal experiment: an open frontier with simple, limited rule sets. And > the > >>> icing on the cake is that "citation needed" ended up not just > influencing > >>> how I thought about an encyclopedic text, but how I thought about > >>> discussing ideas. > >>> > >> > >> Anna, > >> > >> Hold on just a moment. :) > >> > >> It's important to understand that Jimmy Wales didn't accomplish the > things > >> you speak of alone. > >> > > Funny you should say this :-) I’m the “inventor” of [citation needed]. > > You know why I created [citation needed] on Wikipedia? Because the amount > of ill-informed, badly thought out, ridiculous claims on Wikipedia articles > were getting out hand. I started removing them to the talk page, but then > that same person not only refused to explain where they got their > information from, but would put the "fact" back into the article. This > would then perpetuate incorrect information. > > One day I had an epiphany. I realised that you can't just argue with these > people, you need to have a reverse citation system - you need to clearly > mark out information that is dubious, ill-informed, the result of ingrained > prejudice (often unconsciously so) and almost always inaccurate. > > At the same time, there needed to be a way of allowing controversial views > and sometimes accurate but controversial facts be detailed on the > encyclopaedia. > There was only one way I could see to do it - use the same citation system > that referenced sources but invert it to highlight information that needed > a source. Hence I created citation needed (originally without the square > brackets, whoever added them was a genius in their own right). > > Guess what? It worked. 11 years later, despite the many issues on > Wikipedia, finding out the source of assumptions is no longer a problem. > People can go to the citations and see where the factoid is documented, or > whose opinion is being expressed. It allows ordinary people to judge the > view being expressed more accurately, or to look at how the data was > extrapolated, to understand how the academic study was conducted, or to > verify that what is claimed is actually what the original claimant was > indeed claiming. > > But I’d like to make the point: I could *never* have created [citation > needed] if someone had not created the policy to cite sources, and hundreds > and hundreds of other editors didn’t have a commitment to sources. So > whilst [citation needed] was probably one of my best ideas (sometimes I > wonder if this might not be an indictment to my creativitity!) I have to > say that it was only possible because of the commitment by my peers on > Wikipedia to making the project great, and because of those who came before > me. > > And I’m happy to know that my good idea has literally influences and > improved the critical faculties of so many people who use our encyclopedia > today! > > Chris > _______________________________________________ > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines > New messages to: [email protected] > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, > <mailto:[email protected]?subject=unsubscribe> > -- Anna Stillwell Major Gifts Officer Wikimedia Foundation 415.806.1536 *www.wikimediafoundation.org <http://www.wikimediafoundation.org>* _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:[email protected]?subject=unsubscribe>
