Wikipedia is not a substitute for actual research.

[Songbird]

I might have to use that from now on. I have a debate coming up in one of my classes, I may just have to keep that as a backup defense. :beach:

Try to dismiss any facts presented and repeat how strongly you feel.

 

[Revoltingest]

Try to dismiss any facts presented and repeat how strongly you feel.

I like to point out that 9 out of 10 gynecologists agree with me.

 

[Yerda]

I love the random article button.

 

[Songbird]

I like to point out that 9 out of 10 gynecologists agree with me.

About everything?! Remarkable.

 

[Quintessence]

The thing I like about Wikipedia is it has articles on things that you just won't find elsewhere. For example, your typical encyclopedia will have woefully inadequate entries on the majority of things pertaining to Neopaganism. The Wikipedia pages on these religious groups are among the very best (sometimes THE best) summaries you can find. There just isn't anything else out there that is similar. I think this is sad, but the reality is Neopaganism is not well-studied in academic circles. There are relatively few academic-style references on anything and anything you read by Neopagan authors is going to be fraught with their own personal stance on things. Wikipedia has far less of that than anything else I've come across. Perhaps someday they'll be a better substitute, but right now there isn't. There are other topics that have this problem as well; I use Neopaganism as an example because it's something I'm especially familiar with.

 

[lunamoth]

Years later when we were roommates, he got a phone call, which he described to us after he got off the phone. Someone had looked up his name in the phone book and got his parents, who gave them his number at school. The woman calling was some sort of grad student... she called up to request an interview with the "doctor". When my roommate explained that he created the site when he was 15 and all the content was made up, she responded with "but that was the main source for my thesis!"

Burned.



*ooh, was that in bad taste?

 

[waitasec]

The wiki is useful for what it is: an elementary introduction to a topic. It's not a good enough source on which to build an argument.

unless it is used as a tool for an argument that is elementary in nature my dear watson...

 

[dust1n]

Personally, I'd rather get a Wikipedia article than a reference to a book that no one would have the time to drop everything they were doing and read. And by reference to the book, I don't mind specific info from it, but when they just tell you to read the whole book.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

The way I see it a well cited wiki article, that contains credible sources, can be a good source. I have even found an article in Wikipedia, about Somatoform pain disorders, that has a part that is word-for-word identical to my Abnormal Psychology text book. I even found some scholarly articles that I later found where referenced on a Wiki article about the subject.
But since Wiki has placed stronger regulations on editing pages, the information posted has become better, and they do have sections to debate the information.
Some Wiki articles are bad though, but as long as you read through a Wiki article like you would an academic journal some of the articles are actually pretty accurate and I believe can SOMETIMES take the place of the real journal, especially since online you can usually only access a journal's abstract.
Wiki probably isn't the best thing to try to use for an end all, but as long as you are careful you can build a good debate from Wiki.

 

[Jainarayan]

Here is an example of why one needs to be careful using Wiki...

Sanskrit grammar - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is the Talk page on Sanskrit Grammar:

"s" instead of visarga?
I'm just a beginner, but I'm confused as to why "s" is given instead of visarga, eg. as the nominative singular of a-stem nouns. It's true that it is pronounced "s" in places due to sandhi, but the basic form is the visarga, isn't it? Kannan91 (talk) 16:14, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

You are not wrong. I corrected it to ḥ The -s ending of the nominative masc. sing. of -a stems was wrong. It is not Rā́mas, or Krishnas, it is Rā́maḥ or Krishnaḥ. It becomes -s before (e.g.) tu "Krishnastu Bhagavan svayam" due to visarga sandhi. - Frank 11/11/11 11:23 EST — Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.68.194.3 (talk) 16:23, 11 November 2011 (UTC)


This is somewhat a matter of taste. The underlying and historically correct form is -s, which in most instances become visarga (as in word-final position). To change only the -s of the nominal a-stem and not all other instances (the verbal system, for instance) where this sandhi would apply is making the article inconsistent and unnecessarily difficult for those who aren't familiar with the sanskrit sandhi rules. In introductory books i've seen paradigms with visarga, most probably for beginners to progress more quickly, but in Whitney's grammar all examples are given with -s. What wikipedia perhaps should decide is whether to write the historically correct -s with a note that it is subject to sandhi rules, or with the visarga and leave a note that it is actually an underlying -s that has been transformed by sandhi. My personal view is that, since anyone interested in learning the language is bound to learn the sandhi rules early on, they will be familiar with all this and whichever is good enough. But someone who is not learning the language will not be helped by a sandhi-remade paradigm or, indeed, the article at all in any meaningful way, except for interest in IR or indo-iranian linguistics, and then the historically transparent -s is preferable. I reverted your change because of the inconsistency with the rest of the article, but if there are good reasons that all applicable instances of -s should be changed to visarga you are welcome to convince the community. Amilah (talk) 14:54, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

I think it's better to approach this as a historical sound change issue, i.e. "the old Indo-European "s" became "ḥ" except in certain Sandhi environments". So in terms of Sanskrit as it is actually used and considered in isolation (as this is an article on the grammar of Sanskrit and not its history) it makes more sense to consider "ḥ" as the underlying form and the retained archaic "s" as a special occurrence. Otherwise we have to take the rather absurd and counter-intuitive position that "ḥ", even though it is the stand-alone form, is a Sandhi mutation. It doesn't matter too much either way, but there should definitely be an explanatory note in there somewhere. Kannan91 (talk) 11:25, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

I agree with Kannan; a student learning Sanskrit is going to learn it as ḥ, as it is used. The history of PIE, IE and IndoIr can be learned later. I was embarassed when I publically cited the table here to a person well-versed in Sanskrit, when I insisted Krishnas is the nominative and not the Krishnaḥ form, as it is used. It was pointed out to me as a reason why Wikipedia is often dismissed. The inconsistency can be resolved by correcting the other conflicting sections. I will defer to my betters on this, but explain the inconsistency. - Frank 12/11/11 9:43 am EST — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.0.243.7 (talk) 14:41, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

To be completely honest, it seems to me that this person cannot have been all too well-versed in sanskrit or perhaps there was some kind of misunderstanding, since this is definitely not a wikipedia thing at odds with the rest of the world. Whitney's grammar, although old, it is not outdated and still a standard work. His take on the problem is to give every paradigm with -s, assuming that everyone reads the chapter on "rules of euphonic combination" before continuing to the rest of the grammar. Another thing to bear in mind is that -ḥ can also come from a -r, even if it in most instaces actually is -s, and you have to know which one is the underlying form when applying or solving sandhi combinations since they behave different. I would not take this as a reason to dismiss wikipedia due to it being wrong in any way, but i would take it as a good example to explain the problem of the sandhi rules and and the tendency of the native grammarians to analyse the language phonetically and not phonemically.Anyhow, it is of no use for someone to try to apply any knowledge they might have of sanskrit without being aware of the phenomenon of sandhi and permitted finals, and this should be explained in the article regardless of which option we finally decide on. And since it is mandatory that it is known whichever we choose, I would prefer the more transparent -s. Amilah (talk) 14:11, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

The person speaks Sanskrit. This is still an embarassment to Wikipedia, as apparently Whitney is not what is taught or used today by Sanskrit speakers. Noun Basics | Learn Sanskrit Online Whitney was written and published in 1891 by a non-Indian when the (false) AIT was coming into vogue and the IE theory was being fleshed out. There are more current Sanskrit grammars. Clearly this is now a matter of digging in one's heels to hold onto a preference for something that is not being taught, used or correct in a non-historical context. However, this is no longer worth the time.

Basic noun and adjective declension
This whole section should be removed, as it is too confusing. It does not correspond to the full nominal inflections. - Frank 11/11/11 11:40 EST

Swim at your own risk.

 

[Neo-Logic]

The only thing I will say in the defense of Wiki is that its on the web and therefore available for linking to. How much of the research that you have done could you actually show here?

This is a good point, although I wouldn't call it a defense of wiki but instead an astute criticism of accessibility to academic research. Even with Google Scholar or google search, sometimes the most relevant and recent academic papers and journals are by subscriptions only. Unless you attend a well-off research university with subscriptions to all the journals, wikipedia would be the first stop for many.

Having said that, I think the thread is a bit of a straw-man claim because I don't believe anyone trying to engage themselves in a debate--whether academic or with any level of seriousness--would use wikipedia as the sole or primary source for any conclusions. And even if they did, it may not always be automatically incorrect and depends on what factual info they're grabbing from wiki. Dates of well known events, general info on people, places, and things maybe usable but I would be very cautious of using any statistics or academic findings from wiki.

 

[fallingblood]

This is a good point, although I wouldn't call it a defense of wiki but instead an astute criticism of accessibility to academic research. Even with Google Scholar or google search, sometimes the most relevant and recent academic papers and journals are by subscriptions only. Unless you attend a well-off research university with subscriptions to all the journals, wikipedia would be the first stop for many.

Having said that, I think the thread is a bit of a straw-man claim because I don't believe anyone trying to engage themselves in a debate--whether academic or with any level of seriousness--would use wikipedia as the sole or primary source for any conclusions. And even if they did, it may not always be automatically incorrect and depends on what factual info they're grabbing from wiki. Dates of well known events, general info on people, places, and things maybe usable but I would be very cautious of using any statistics or academic findings from wiki.

On this very forum, I have come up with various people using Wiki as their primary and probably sole source for their conclusions.

And it isn't necessarily that they use Wiki. There are times that Wiki can be a fine source. But if we are talking about a religious subject, especially one that is quite debated, it may serve as a general introduction, but it isn't the best source for an in depth debate. And I have seen that happen quite often though, that someone uses Wiki for the end all source on a difficult subject.

My main problem though is when I quote from a scholar, or a journal, or the like, and then instead of dealing with it, the other person simply lists a Wiki article as if it trumps all other sources. And that has happened often here.

 

[Neo-Logic]

On this very forum, I have come up with various people using Wiki as their primary and probably sole source for their conclusions.

And it isn't necessarily that they use Wiki. There are times that Wiki can be a fine source. But if we are talking about a religious subject, especially one that is quite debated, it may serve as a general introduction, but it isn't the best source for an in depth debate. And I have seen that happen quite often though, that someone uses Wiki for the end all source on a difficult subject.

My main problem though is when I quote from a scholar, or a journal, or the like, and then instead of dealing with it, the other person simply lists a Wiki article as if it trumps all other sources. And that has happened often here.

If you included in your OP that this your suggestions/ frustrations are meant to apply mainly to RF forums, I would've been more readily inclined to feel that pain. Outside of online forums (this and others) at work places and in academic settings, wiki use is rare so that's why I called your claim a bit of a straw-man but I can see how it would apply nicely to online forums.

But even then, maybe I don't look at it as a big problem because of how I look at forums in general. I rarely expect academic debates on here and while people may try to be serious in some cases, many (not all and certainly more than a few exceptions IMO) won't have the practice, training or will power to do their due diligence in research or presentation of their arguments so it's rare I ever consider any topics on here as 'serious' discussions.

I guess people using wiki and bad sources is something that we'll just have to learn to live with on forums and keep beating them down because the greatest things about forums is also one of its weaknesses--everyone has access. You can tell some people not to use wiki but they'll still come back and quote a random blog-site or something similar. You can never expect proper citation or research or arguments or logic on forums and you're right--it can be very annoying.

I guess this is just one of the big asterisk mark next to all things online, anonymous and accessible.