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Comment by Uchikoma | Hacker News Reader

The reason why editors stagnate is more like this:

Wikipedia will die because noone real can contribute. Write a new article and it will be shot down. Write an article about important programming languages and it will be killed with some strange acronym.

Exception: a several thousand word article about what Homer did eat in one 8 year old Simpson episode will stay.

"Programming languages are being deleted from Wikipedia " http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2215168

His “on the list” idea is totally Wikipedia directorate style and a.) will be implemented b.) will accelerate stagnation

Wikipedia will stay relevant - and I still use it - for some trivia I want to know, it's usually sufficient complete there. But it creates a mirror universe that reflects the thoughts of all editors, not of the online community.

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Yep. Wikipedia rejects primary sources as a matter of policy. No original research means that the only "legitimate" content can be secondary or tertiary. Mistakes can't be corrected by people in a position to know the truth- whatever information must be published somewhere first. This is completely backward from how quality content must normally be created.

> This is completely backward from how quality content must normally be created.

It's precisely how content for encyclopedias are generally created. Encyclopedias are compilations and summaries of information about a variety of topics, not compilations of original research by experts from a variety of fields.

The problem may be the encyclopaedia format then. High-school textbooks, traditional encyclopaedias and other printed resources are hardly immune from regurgitating long debunked theories about aerodynamics and Haeckel diagrams.

I didn't know that Wikipedia aims to be the web clone of Britannica. I thought it aspired for more.

Yahoo tried to replicate business directories on and for the web, Google did not.

You're being a bit unfair. Wikipedia does have a goal, and ignoring other valid goals is not really a valid criticism. Wikipedia doesn't strive, for example, to end poverty or cure cancer. Their goal is to build the best and most freely available encyclopedia. You just seem to have an issue with what an encyclopedia inherently is, so I suppose Wikipedia becoming the best instance of an encyclopedia doesn't appeal to you.

Wikipedia is an encyclopedia and not a research journal.

An encyclopedia is more like a dictionary. I cannot just add a word to a dictionary just because my colleagues and me thinks its a great word and we use it often or because we are great in our own field.

No; although a lot of editors do tend to reject them out of hand without actually reading the policy (this really annoys me). Nothing actually precludes using a primary source - so long as it is on a purely factual basis and is not "interpreted"/analysed etc.

Yes. And it even means that tabloids are legitimate sources, but science papers published on a university website are not.

Who says that science papers on a university website are not valid sources?

"This page in a nutshell: Wikipedia articles cover notable topics—those that have gained sufficiently significant attention by the world at large and over a period of time, and are not excluded for other reasons. We consider evidence from reliable independent sources such as published journals, books, and newspapers to gauge this attention."

Tabloids aren't considered a good source. As to "science papers published on a university website", that all depends. I remember a few months ago that one joyous postgrad student was hosting a pretty off-the-wall theory on his personal university space and trying to get it into Wikipedia as "published by the university". On the other hand properly peer reviewed papers get used all the time/

I'm not enough into american culture to decide if a daily tabloid is a "newspaper[s]" or not. Taking the biggest German tabloid "BILD", although I do not endorse their way or content, I'd classify them as a (bad) newspaper nevertheless.

This is why the word Tabloid is problematic :) because in the UK it means "trashy newspaper", whereas in other places it means the format. Clearly tabloid, in whatever meaning, is a newspaper.

But what you have quoted is a nutshell summary. I can see how one reading of it could be that newspapers are always a reliable source (and as tabloids are a form of newspaper). But I have feeling you've seriously stretched the reading to prove a point.

Reliable sourcing is linked; and if you read that policy it will make it more clear.

FWIW I never like labelling sources, as some editors tend to, in certain categories (newspaper, journal, etc.) because our policy explicitly sets out criteria to apply to sources on an individual basis.

So in that respect, I agree with you that the nutshell is a problem.

No original research is because otherwise Wikipedia would be infested with physics cranks.

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From my experience this is more like the tip of an iceberg instead of a storm in a teacup.

Many of my articles have been shot down on Wikipedia along the same lines, until I no longer cared.

Sorry, deleted my comment as it was in error - I thought I caught it before any replies came down the pipe. Basically I misread it as being about a single language.

I do think that there is some merit to his defense (if there's not enough references or the references aren't really about the topic at hand...) but I think the balance would be better left with leaving the article in place and sticking the 'references aren't great quality, please improve' banner at the top.

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