Re: Wikipedia & Music Theory

On 4 Oct, 03:15, LJS <ljsche...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Oct 3, 11:56 am, SleepyHead <simonharp...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:





On 3 Oct, 16:51, w...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (J. B. Wood) wrote:

Hello, all, and sorry to be a spoil sport here but I continue to see the
same individuals (I won't name names)

I will.

I'm one of the individuals mentioned and I do it for a couple of
reasons.

1) Wiki provides me with a free, brief, high-level overview of topic X
with references. This means:

a) I don't have to pay someone besides my ISP to access it;
b) I don't have to read pages and pages of stuff I'm not interested in
order to garner the basic facts;
c) I can look up other sources of information to verify what I'm
reading by using the references, google, and my intelligence (such as
it is);
d) Other people can do the same too.

That is fine. It sounds like you are using it as a beginning as John
is saying and as I always have said. The problem is that if it is
PRESENTED as fact, then many people believe that it is fact.

But this is a problem for printed materials just as much as it is for
online materials ... if you read the work of Willis Carto believing it
to be fact (as opposed to opinion) then you could easily come up with
some very 'interesting' opinions of your own.

This problem affects pretty much anything in historical research
(which is what a great many threads on here about the rise of
tonality, temperaments, &c. amount to) - do you believe the source
you're reading, or not - and what are your reasons for believing /
disbelieving your source?

Yes, there are some that are very good. Still, most of them are practically
cut and pasts of real research. That is somewhat fine, but constant
reference to Wiki gives it more credibility than it earns. Personally,
I am more impressed by a citation that is the source from a well
documented Wiki post. When reading a Wiki post, I go first to the
discussion and comments on the article. To do less is just rolling the
dice relative to accuracy. Used properly, it is very useful. Taken as
a serious source is still a shot in the dark.

It is, and it isn't. If - as Jack pointed out - you've found an
article by someone with a serious interest in their topic, who's
written a well-though-out article with copious (and useful) references
then it might as well /be/ fact. If OTOH you've got something written
by a dullard like myself then you'd be building your house on sand.

It's all to do with doing your research - and WIKI's a good a starting
point as I know of outside a university library (or being rich enough
to buy the Encylopedia Britannica).



2) Usenet is somewhere I come to debate topics which interest me with
likeminded people: I don't necessarily come here to collect facts
because usenet is a place where opinion is rife and fact hard to come
by. I would advise anyone who comes to usenet in order to collect
facts (unless it's facts about opinions) that they would be better off
visiting a well-stocked university library and/or talking to an expert
in their field of interest.

This again, to me at least, seems to be NOT the problem that John is
pointing out primarily. BUT the citations of Wiki are only a click or
two away and then you have a better documentation of what is closer to
real information. The very nature of Wiki, makes only a step more
credible than places like r.m.t. that allows anyone to say anything
without ANY logic or documentation and then  use their own post as a
source of proving that it is valid!

I enjoy debating topics, but there is no reason that the facts can't be accurate.

I'm not arguing that facts can't be accurate, just that because WIKI
isn't necessarily reliable it isn't necessarily unreliable either - it
comprises a mixture of the reliable and the unreliable and thus isn't
(a) to be believed without quesion; (b) to be dismissed out of hand. I
say again - If you want serious facts then start with WIKI, but then
do some research of your own - click some of the reference links, try
to get a good appreciation of the general area you're discussing
before forming an opinion, and so on. Be scientific.

I was noticing that Palin used some of the same spin
techniques, the same "talking point" replies that answer different
questions than were asked and then comes back with a spin on their mis
quoted or simply made up "facts" as a source to prove what they think
(or want you to think) is true. It doesn't have to be that way. If one
want to cite an article, that article should be read and checked for
accuracy to at least some standard and then presented for what it is.
That is really all that John was saying. CMIIAW!  Wiki is not really
very authoritative but it does lead to more authoritative links.

When ever possible, just put in those links.

I would tend to the view that this means you're just plagiarising
someone else's work. Sure, if you're familiar with the linked article
already then that's one thing, but presenting a link for consideration
can make it appear as if you've chanced across amazing-source-material-
X all on your own rather than having been directed there by WIKI. Not
to mention which: If you were directed there by WIKI /and/ there are
concerns regarding its sources for a given topic then you should be
upfront about where you've got your material from just so that someone
else can put you right and maybe give you a link to a more reliable
source.

If there are no documentation,
well, what's wrong with stating your opinion for what it is? An
opinion is fine and if it is backed up with good reason and common
sense or logic, well that is much better and more truthful than to
back it up with a dubious source.

For sure: If there's nothing much to go on then one opinion is
certainly as good as another and just admitting that you don't know
diddly about a given topic can prompt someone to provide better
information.


continually quoting wikipedia as if it is some final, universal authority.  It's certainly useful as a quickie info source but I would not place heavy reliance on the accuracy or factual content of its articles.  I wonder if any universities allow wikipedia articles to be referenced in research papers.  As typical of an encyclopedia we usually don't have a clue as to the identity or credentials of the author(s). But at least with a printed encyclopedia we have the reputation of a publisher such as Britannica..

Just because it's written on paper doesn't mean it's true: I cite Mein
Kampf as an example, and, having done that close the circle by
observing that the length described in Godwin's Law is sometimes not
so much long, as short.

No, but you can read Mein Kampf and make your own conclusions. Reading
it gives you the truth about what Mein Kampf is. Reading about
someone's undocumented or explained opinion of what is in Mein Kampf
is NOT. It may reflect what Mein Kampf is saying or it may not. Only
by going to the source can you really know what Mein Kampf actually
does and does not say. The rest is only opinion.

It's the opinions /in/ Mein Kampf that I was questioning, not
someone's abilty to obtain, read, or form opinions about the book.

And just because it's on Wiki doesn't mean it's false. I citehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truthasan example - an article which
covers (albeit briefly) all the things I covered during my philosophy
undergrad days. It represents, IMO, a very good introduction to the
vexed topic of truth as discussed in Western Analytic Philosophy of
the last 200 or so years.

Maybe it does, but the only way you know this is because you actually
read the sources in your undergrad days!

True. I merely offer it as an example of WIKI being spot-on.

You could write a Wiki article covering what you learned. That is fine. It would be a
truthful article of what YOU got out of your studies. This may or may
not be the absolute truth or the only thing or even the best
conclusion of the studies that you had done. It might! But then it
might not! My article of a study of the same material may be very
different. Yes, opinions may be correct. But then again, since they
are opinions, they might not be either.

But this is the problem with all historical research. Fact there are a-
plenty: Making sense of those facts OTOH often requires the person
approaching those facts to use their imagination to fill in the gaps
between the facts. In science the same gap is filled with hypotheses
which can be disproved, but science has something history does not -
the ability to re-test the same circumstances to see if we get a
different result.

I would advise anyone who is interested in facts and who sees a link
on usenet to a Wiki article to adopt the scientific method: Keep your
mind open, but cultivate a healthy scepticism towards finality in any
field of investigation.

That is describing my opinion and is why I think that you are not the
real focus of what John is saying. I know that it is not what I am
saying!

Yes, use Wiki, but then use it for what it is good for and that is to give you a starting place of further research.

Agreed.

LJS- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

.

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