One of the most important essays in Wikipedia is WP:FIVEPILLARS which is designed to eloquently sum up what we're here for.
Pillar one defines Wikipedia as an encyclopedia. It suggests some things that we are not. Thoughts about what we are not are covered in the deletion lesson.
Pillar two talks about neutrality, a concept that this lesson will be concentrating on.
Pillar three talks about free content. The Copyright lesson will go into this in more detail.
Pillar four talks about civility. Wikipedia is a collaborative working environment and nothing would ever get done if it wasn't. I'll go into civility more during the dispute resolution module.
Pillar five explains that Wikipedia does not have firm rules. This is a difficult concept and will be covered in the Policy and consensus lesson.
Once you get your head around these five pillars, you will be a Wikipedian and a good one at that. All 5 are covered in my adoption school, though at different lengths. Be aware that I don't know everything and I would doubt anyone who said they did.
The articles in Wikipedia are designed to represent the sum of human knowledge. Each article should be written from a neutral point of view – personal opinions such as right and wrong should never appear, nor should an editors experience. Neutrality also means giving due weight to the different points of view. If the broad scientific community has one set of opinions – then the minority opinion should not be shown. An example is in medicine – if there was an article on say treatment of a broken leg, a neutral article would not include anything on homeopathy.
To ensure that the information in an article is correct, Wikipedia has adopted a policy of verifiability. Anything written in Wikipedia should be available to confirm by looking at the associated reliable source. Wikipedia should not include anything not verifiable by seeing it is published elsewhere; in other words, it should not contain anything original.
So what is a source? Wikipedia uses the word source for three interchangeable ideas – a piece of work, the work's creator or the work's publisher. In general, you would expect a reliable source to be published materials with a reliable publication process, authors who are regarded as authoritative in relation to the subject, or both. This doesn't mean that a source that is reliable on one topic is reliable on every topic, it must be regarded as authoritative in that topic – so whilst "Airfix monthly" may be a good source on the first model aeroplane, I would not expect it to be authoritative on their full size equivalent.
A source that is self-published is in general considered unreliable, unless it is published by a recognized expert in the field. This is a very rare exception – so self publishing is generally considered a no-no. This means that anything in a forum or a blog and even most websites are considered unreliable by default. One interesting sidepoint is on self-published sources talking about themselves. Obviously, a source talking about itself is going to be authoritative, but be careful that the source is not too self-serving – the article really should not be totally based on a direct source like that.
Mainstream news sources are generally considered reliable... but any single article should be assessed on a case by case basis. Some news organizations have been known to check their information on Wikipedia – so be careful not to get into a cyclic sourcing issue!
There's a lot more about what makes a source reliable here.
This test is going to be based on questions. One word "Yes" or "No" answers are unacceptable. I want to see some evidence of a thought process. There's no time limit - answer in your own words and we'll talk about your answers.
1) Q - You have just discovered from a friend that the new Ford Escort is only going to be available in blue. Can you add this to the Ford Escort article and why?
A - No, this it is an untrustworthy source, there is no evidence to prove this
OK, good, exactly. We need reliable sources (websites with a strong reputation for reliability, or books, newspapers, magazines), and a friend is not that. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 18:33, 13 May 2012 (UTC)
2) Q - A mainstream newspaper has published a cartoon which you see is clearly racist as part of an article. Can you include this as an example of racism on the newspaper's article? What about on the racism article?
A - No, there is no evidence this was intended to be racist
Exactly - we ideally need an independent reliable source to describe it as racist - not just to have our own opinion that it is. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 18:33, 13 May 2012 (UTC)
Big and chunky and four engines - but still only 17 passengers
3) Q - You find an article that shows that people in the state of Ohio eat more butternut squashes than anywhere in the world and ranks each of the United States by squashes per head. Interestingly you find another article that ranks baldness in the United States and they are almost identical! Can you include this information anywhere on Wikipedia? Perhaps the baldness article or the butternut squash article?
A-
No answer? No problem, this is a bit of a weird question. What it's getting at is that on Wikipedia we can't use WP:SYNTHESIS - we can't look at what two different sources say, and then combine what they say into some new fact of our own.
So for example - here's some aviation! - if we found a source that said "four engined aircraft are popular because they can carry more passengers than other aircraft", and another source that said "the Short Empire had four engines", we couldn't edit the Short Empire article to say "the plane could carry more passengers than other aircraft because it had four engines". That's improper synthesis of the two sources. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 18:33, 13 May 2012 (UTC)
4) Q - Would you consider BBC news a reliable source on The Troubles? Would you consider BBC news to be a reliable source on its rival, ITV?
A - Neither would be reliable as there is a fair chance it may be less dramatic (more negative/positive then it needs to be) that they have made it out to be also as most other media sources there is a chance it maybe biased
OK, good cautious answer. What I would say, is that often both BBC News and ITV News are considered to be reliable sources. So for example the newspaper The Daily Mail is often considered to be a potentially unreliable source, particularly in what they print about living persons (we have to be extra careful with sources when editing articles about living persons). BBC News, at least, would be considered to be more reliable than that - it doesn't publish things just for shock value, certainly. BBC News and ITV News reporting on each other would be more of a problem (since it's hard to be independent when you are reporting on a company that competes with you), so they would still be useable as sources but it would be better to have another more independent reliable source as well. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 18:33, 13 May 2012 (UTC)
A- In some circumstances maybe for example the fact that they maybe starting to make a new ice cream or no if they say maybe they have the best ice cream in the world
Exactly right. (Facebook is not reliable for some things, of course, but in this case their official Facebook page is just as reliable or unreliable as their official website would be.) --Demiurge1000 (talk) 18:33, 13 May 2012 (UTC)
6) Q - A "forum official" from the Daily Telegraph community forums comments on Daily Telegraph's stance on world hunger. Would this be a reliable source?
A- This would only be opinions there for wouldn't be wiki material in addition to this there is no fact it is opinion only so no.
Well, since the Daily Telegraph is a notable topic (there's an article about them), it might be suitable material to mention what their opinion is on world hunger. But a forum official could be anyone, and might not really be representing what the editors of the newspaper actually think. So, we would view this with suspicion. Also, even if the editors themselves published an editorial saying what their opinion was, we would have to think whether that's relevant in the article about the newspaper, if it's not covered by third-party reliable sources as well. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 18:33, 13 May 2012 (UTC)
7) Q - Would you have any problem with beerbarrels2u.co.uk being used in a beer related article?
A - This is advertising the company so there would be a problem
I agree. Now, if the website had a "history of beer" section that seemed to be well researched and written by a renowned expert, then it might be useable (even if it advertises their business in other parts of the site!), but actually there's not much information like that on their site. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 18:33, 13 May 2012 (UTC)
8) Q - Would you have any issue with using the About Us page on Xerox as a source for the history section of the Xerox article.
A - No as long as the text was none biast and was not protected by copyright
Well, there's a few things to be careful of here. First, we can still use the page as a source even if it's protected by copyright - in fact we should assume it's protected by copyright unless it specifically says otherwise. But, if we use it as a source, we must re-write it completely in our own words. So we use it as a source of facts, not sentences.
The other thing to be careful of is that it is difficult to spot bias. So for example, (I haven't looked), Xerox's own history might say that they invented what was really the first graphical user interface, but if we go to the Apple website, that might say that Apple's graphical user interface was the first proper one. Ideally, we shouldn't use either of these to source who was first (although we could report what they claim!), but instead look at a proper historical book that discusses their claims and says who was first. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 18:33, 13 May 2012 (UTC)
9) Q - Everybody knows that the sky is blue right? An editor doesn't agree - he says it is bronze, do you need a source?
A - Yes, he will need something to back up his ideas weather a source or explains it
Yes, I think having a source for this sort of thing is good. Also spend a few minutes reading the essay WP:BLUE - it has some very interesting similar ideas. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 18:33, 13 May 2012 (UTC)
Right, great job, you have done really well with these questions. Please read very carefully through my extra notes on your answers - there are a few things you missed, that might be important later on. (I have added a picture as well!) Let me know when you're done reading them, or if you have any more questions on this, then I can put up the next lesson. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 18:33, 13 May 2012 (UTC)
