When a Primary Source Isn't Good Enough: Wikipedia 333
unixluv writes "Evidently, Wikipedia doesn't believe an author on his own motivations when trying to correct an article on his own book. A Wikipedia administrator claimed they need 'secondary sources.' I'm not sure where you would go to get a secondary source when you are the only author of a work. Thus, in a lengthy blog post for The New Yorker, Roth created his own secondary source. He wrote, 'My novel The Human Stain was described in the entry as "allegedly inspired by the life of the writer Anatole Broyard." ... This alleged allegation is in no way substantiated by fact. The Human Stain was inspired, rather, by an unhappy event in the life of my late friend Melvin Tumin, professor of sociology at Princeton for some thirty years.' The Wikipedia page has now been corrected."
Re:Working as intended (Score:4, Interesting)
Who decides who these official arbiters are? Does it have to be an established, traditional publishing house? What if it's a self-published e-book?
Re:Back to School (Score:5, Interesting)
I had a similar exchange with an English teacher about Huckleberry Finn. In the book, he and Jim choose to go south down the Mississippi river before heading north to Ohio. We were told to write a paper about why Mr. Twain would have them go south. I talked about how the Mississippi river was almost impossible to navigate north at the time (even for steam ships) due to the swift currents and huge amount of water during that part of the year. I cited several scholarly works, and quoted Mr. Clemens himself as to why he made that decision. Got it back with a "D" because, while the mechanics and citations and the rest were all correct, I missed the "symbolism" of that choice and blah blah blah. It took a meeting with the principle for the grade to be set straight.
Requiring Secondary Sources is a Good Requirement (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Douches (Score:5, Interesting)
Then you revert the Edits back into the article with a note: "It is a violation of wikirules to remove properly cited material. If you think it should be removed, goto Talk page and justify your case."
Roth isn't being serious (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Odd but necessary (Score:5, Interesting)
Excellent examples. There are enough examples of authors and other artists rewriting history to suggest that the creator's word alone should not be sufficient to change an article. To do so would be to open Wikipedia up to inaccuracies specifically put there. There are no lack of real life Greedos who would like Wikipedia to alter the order of who shot first, so simply giving them the power to unilaterally alter statements in an article would damage Wikipedia.
Re:Working as intended (Score:4, Interesting)
>>>There's a Wikimedia foundation, a non-profit.
Sounds like a corporation to me. And if the lawsuit did kill it, well then maybe it deserved to die for having such stupid rules that won't even let the MAN BEING TALKED ABOUT correct his own damn page. It would be akin to wikpedia publishing, "Glenn Beck raped a woman when he was a college student," and Beck tells them that never happened + no such criminal record exists. But instead wikipedia just keeps citing blogs that make the claim.
Would you expect Beck to just say, "Oh well" and do nothing?? Of course not. He would sue for defamation. And if the Wikimedia corporation/foundation died.... then tough shit. Guess they should have thought about that possiblity BEFORE they defamed/insulted a living citizen. (Or in this case: book author.) Another better e-encyclopedia will rise up to replace it. Just as when Atari stopped making videogame consoles in 1983, Nintendo moved in to fill the vacuum in 1985.
Re:Working as intended (Score:5, Interesting)
Who decides who these official arbiters are? Does it have to be an established, traditional publishing house? What if it's a self-published e-book?
The "who decides" is those who give a damn enough to help write the article and help to determine what counts as a reliable source. That is sort of the point of the article talk pages, where things like this is actively discussed. Sometimes it may simply be a blog that is accepted, other times it may need to come from a published scientific journal which has been cited by other publications a number of times.
Hopefully those who are active on the talk page of a given article are sufficiently interested in the topic to also be knowledgeable about most of the available sources which can discuss the topic in the first place, so they are after a fashion "subject matter experts" who can properly evaluate what is a reliable source and what isn't. Discussions about what counts specifically as a reliable source are extremely common debates on article talk pages, including where there are multiple opinions as to what counts and what doesn't.
I fall into the camp that thinks primary sources are just fine... within reason and as long as they don't dominate the article. But the funny thing about Wikipedia is that it depends on those who are active and willing to join into the discussions about such things. It isn't really some hierarchical authority but rather simply those who care to chime in can, and if for some reason you disagree with the decision being made you can also "appeal" to the greater Wikipedia community... particularly when a group of people are acting against general Wikipedia policies.
If somebody is being a real asshat and doing constant edit wars, ignoring discussions or group consensus on what works, they can be "moderated" by wiki admins. There is even a formal judicial procedure called "ArbCom" (the "Arbitration Committee") where you can lay your disputes out before a group of very experienced users who can make a final determination and take action if necessary including imposing a user ban or editorial restrictions like "User X can't edit or participate in Comic Book discussions and articles for the next six months". BTW, the ArbCom is an elected office determined by the Wikipedia community and needs to be re-elected in order to maintain the position. Generally Arbcom doesn't get into disputes about individual sources though but rather dealing with users who don't care about what is happening on Wikipedia but know enough of the rules to stay on the fringe and not get immediately banned.
Re:Working as intended (Score:4, Interesting)
They had ample opportunity to correct the Defaming statement, but refused to listen to the author being biographied.
Who is being defamed here? How is the author of a work injured by the notion that a work was not inspired by one person, but another. There is no implication of plagiarism or any wrong doing.
It wasn't even incorrect. It is true that it was alleged to have been inspired by the life of Anatole Broyard. That the allegation was not correct does not change the fact that it was actually alleged. If another source can be found to show that it was about Melvin Tumin instead, then this can be included too.
But the last thing Wikipedia needs is for the encyclopedia to be turned into PR spin because people want to tweak their own entries.
Re:Working as intended (Score:4, Interesting)
I've seen this before a long time ago. On the article for the TV show "Man vs. Wild", people had long accused the show of being faked. Then one of the show's survival consultants, credited in the show's credits, came forward on the survival forum that he ran and admitted a whole bunch of stuff that they faked. However, this information wasn't allowed to be added to the article because it was a "forum" and a "primary source". Even though the primary source worked on the show and ran the forum. It wasn't until much later that a newspaper mentioned his claims could they be included in the article.
Unfortunately, the rules of Wikipedia are what they are. You deal with them or you don't take part. And while sometimes they lead to less than ideal results, ultimately, I think Wikipedia has built a pretty good product as a whole.
Re:Douches (Score:3, Interesting)
You can't compromise or collaborate with someone who doesn't accept cited facts that are contrary to their worldview. That's the OP's point, and it went whooshing about ten feet over your head.
The OP is supposed to be grateful when an edit that adds a cited fact is accepted, and just shrug it off when it isn't? That's about the most effed up thing I've ever read. Worse yet, you seem to be serious...