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Avoiding Wikipedia as a reference


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Farix



Joined: 28 Feb 2007
Posts: 152
PostPosted: Thu Jun 11, 2009 8:33 pm Reply with quote
Not long ago, Wikipedia determined that the ANN Encyclopedia could no longer be classified as a reliable source because its content is user-edited and was no fact-checked or otherwise verification against other reliable sources before being published. But the ANN Encyclopedia isn't a useless resource because Wikipedia editors can use the same sources that the ANN Encyclopedia uses if those sources meets Wikipedia's definition of a reliable source.

However, earlier today while cleaning up the Bakugan Battle Brawlers article and undoing the "genre-stuffing" that frequently occurs on anime and manga articles, I visited ANN's entry to see what genres were listed here and what their sources were. Except for Action, all of the genre's listed were using Wikipedia as a source. I can't express how bad this is.

For much the same reasons that Wikipedia no longer classifies the ANN Encyclopedia as a reliable source, I would suggest that the ANN Encyclopedia no longer accept information sourced directly to Wikipedia because the content on Wikipedia is user-edited. Despite the fact that a group of Wikipedia editors are attempt to improve sourcing of anime and manga related articles, crap still finds its way in and and it could persists for months, or years before it is discovered and removed.
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Calathan
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PostPosted: Thu Jun 11, 2009 9:40 pm Reply with quote
I think you are trying to get ANN to work the same way as Wikipedia, which just isn't how ANN works. On ANN, you can add information with "I watched the anime" as a source, or with no source at all. Just looking at the three themes listed on the ANN Bakugan Battle Brawlers page, I see "watched the anime", "The main characters use toys to fight", and even the ANN Bakugan Battle Brawlers page itself listed as sources for information (I'm guessing that is citing the plot summary that someone else added). People are basically trusted to submit good information, and if something is erroneous, hopefully someone else will come along and report it as erroneous. The whole reason Wikipedia does consider the ANN encyclopedia a valid source is because it is user submitted, and the information doesn't necessarily have a source backing it up. Citing Wikipedia at least means that one other person agrees with the person adding the info to ANN (unless the same person added it to Wikipedia as well).
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dormcat
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Joined: 08 Dec 2003
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PostPosted: Fri Jun 12, 2009 12:49 am Reply with quote
farix wrote:
Not long ago, Wikipedia determined that the ANN Encyclopedia could no longer be classified as a reliable source because its content is user-edited and was no fact-checked or otherwise verification against other reliable sources before being published.

Sounds like slapping its own face. At least ANN requires user to register in order to submit information.

farix wrote:
However, earlier today while cleaning up the Bakugan Battle Brawlers article and undoing the "genre-stuffing" that frequently occurs on anime and manga articles, I visited ANN's entry to see what genres were listed here and what their sources were. Except for Action, all of the genre's listed were using Wikipedia as a source. I can't express how bad this is.

Genres are not quantitatively defined. Therefore, an user might simply find a source with English plot summary to back his claim, and Wikipedia is one of the most accessible place for such information.

farix wrote:
For much the same reasons that Wikipedia no longer classifies the ANN Encyclopedia as a reliable source, I would suggest that the ANN Encyclopedia no longer accept information sourced directly to Wikipedia because the content on Wikipedia is user-edited. Despite the fact that a group of Wikipedia editors are attempt to improve sourcing of anime and manga related articles, crap still finds its way in and and it could persists for months, or years before it is discovered and removed.

This is no Cold War and we don't need Mutual Assured Destruction (read: MAD). Twisted Evil Being prone to vandalism is an unavoidable disadvantage of any user-edited database. See the Doonys incident for an example.

Calathan wrote:
On ANN, you can add information with "I watched the anime" as a source, or with no source at all.

The former is sometimes necessary, as many secondary casts and staffs are not listed in any publicized document. We do, however, wish the submitter could accompany specific episode and time point.

The latter ("no source") is not acceptable.

Calathan wrote:
and even the ANN Bakugan Battle Brawlers page itself listed as sources for information (I'm guessing that is citing the plot summary that someone else added).

Negative. In my experience of past five years, using the exact same URL of the page itself or the root page of ANN are signs of laziness and are not acceptable. Users keep doing this will receive a warning first, asking them to improve the quality of their input; otherwise they'll be banned from adding more info.

Calathan wrote:
People are basically trusted to submit good information, and if something is erroneous, hopefully someone else will come along and report it as erroneous.

This concept is true to both ANN and Wikipedia. However, the difference is that once an erroneous info has been entered, ANN relies on staff to double check error reports, while every stranger can modify Wikipedia. The method ANN adapted is more organized yet very slow, as staff are few and can be occupied by other matters. On the other hand, Wiki's method often results meme-styled pranks, vandalism, or flame wars, followed by "protected" or "semi-protected," which still needs staff intervention.
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Calathan
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Joined: 27 Aug 2005
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PostPosted: Fri Jun 12, 2009 7:49 am Reply with quote
Dormcat, I think you missed my point. I'm saying that on ANN people can add information with no source listed or citing the same ANN page, not that they should. My whole point is that Wikipedia is at least a better source than those, since it at least shows that someone somewhere agreed with you on the information.
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Farix



Joined: 28 Feb 2007
Posts: 152
PostPosted: Fri Jun 12, 2009 9:03 am Reply with quote
dormcat wrote:

Sounds like slapping its own face. At least ANN requires user to register in order to submit information.


How is it a slap in its own face. And there really isn't a advantage to requiring submissions from registered accounts as far as verifiability and fact checking is concerned.

dormcat wrote:

Genres are not quantitatively defined. Therefore, an user might simply find a source with English plot summary to back his claim, and Wikipedia is one of the most accessible place for such information.


But I've seen users cite ANN Encyclopedia for information that itself was cited to Wikipedia. It's a circular reference that often times turns out to be crap. If no longer accepting submissions that cite Wikipedia helps reduce the crap, then ANN can only benefit.

dormcat wrote:

This is no Cold War and we don't need Mutual Assured Destruction (read: MAD). Twisted Evil Being prone to vandalism is an unavoidable disadvantage of any user-edited database. See the Doonys incident for an example.


I'm not seeing how one user-edited resource avoiding using another user-edited resource as a source for information is MAD.
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Tempest
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PostPosted: Fri Jun 12, 2009 11:31 am Reply with quote
Dan and I recently discussed this. Wikipedia is to be avoided as a source for the exact same reason that ANN's Encyclopedia should be avoided as a source at Wikipedia.

We discussed adding a warning about Wikipedia, but it hasn't been implemented yet.

Both ANN and WP prefer to have all material cited, and last year ANN made the sources publicly visible.

So when submitting info to ANN from WP, it is preferable to source the source cited in WO and not WP itself.

Likewise when submitting ANN Encyc info to WP, it is preferable to cite the source listed on ANN.

None of this is to say that WP is an unacceptable source, it is just not the preferable source.
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dormcat
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PostPosted: Fri Jun 12, 2009 12:38 pm Reply with quote
Calathan wrote:
Dormcat, I think you missed my point. I'm saying that on ANN people can add information with no source listed or citing the same ANN page, not that they should.

I've complained the problem many times that people can still submit info with either leaving it blank or entering gibberish, but it seems not fixed yet. Rolling Eyes

farix wrote:
But I've seen users cite ANN Encyclopedia for information that itself was cited to Wikipedia. It's a circular reference that often times turns out to be crap. If no longer accepting submissions that cite Wikipedia helps reduce the crap, then ANN can only benefit.

I'd be happy to zap those users; which is another reason for a hierarchical user system. Frankly, ANN would be more accurate if only staff and selected few power-users can enter info (sort of like AniDB and Baka-Updates Manga -- the largest fansub and scanlation hub, respectively, and the fact that ANN is falling behind them is extremely humiliating, at least for me), but with current manpower we'll burn ourselves out first. Anime dazed Anime dazed Anime dazed

tempest wrote:
Dan and I recently discussed this. Wikipedia is to be avoided as a source for the exact same reason that ANN's Encyclopedia should be avoided as a source at Wikipedia.

We discussed adding a warning about Wikipedia, but it hasn't been implemented yet.

Is that warning/restriction limited to the English version of Wikipedia, its every language, or everything that uses Wiki engine?

I do agree that in the realm of anime and manga, the English Wikipedia is far less accurate than its Japanese counterpart. However, many, many Japanese websites, including Moon Phase, Saishin Anime Jōhō (ANN's two most important sources of news), D2_STATION, Anison Generation, Comic Holmes, Tail's Room, Syoboi, etc., etc., are organized by one or a few enthusiastic fans, not anime industry professionals. Many contributors of Wikipedia -- and ANN -- are no less enthusiastic or professional than administrators of those websites. The average level of the latter two, however, are far worse, and for some reason many anime fans don't know where the line is and often vandalize user-edited databases.
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Farix



Joined: 28 Feb 2007
Posts: 152
PostPosted: Fri Jun 12, 2009 2:42 pm Reply with quote
tempest wrote:
Dan and I recently discussed this. Wikipedia is to be avoided as a source for the exact same reason that ANN's Encyclopedia should be avoided as a source at Wikipedia.

We discussed adding a warning about Wikipedia, but it hasn't been implemented yet.


I would strongly recommend implementing it then.

tempest wrote:
So when submitting info to ANN from WP, it is preferable to source the source cited in [WP] and not WP itself.

Likewise when submitting ANN Encyc info to WP, it is preferable to cite the source listed on ANN.


In short, always reference the original source whenever possible and not a "transitory source" that references the original source. If the information is not sourced, consider it dubious. Wink

dormcat wrote:
Is that warning/restriction limited to the English version of Wikipedia, its every language, or everything that uses Wiki engine?

I do agree that in the realm of anime and manga, the English Wikipedia is far less accurate than its Japanese counterpart.


The restriction should be for all languages version of Wikipedia. The Japanese language version is no more reliable than the English language version. In fact, the English language version tends to be better sourced than its Japanese counterpart. The later of which is almost never sourced.

dormcat wrote:
However, many, many Japanese websites, including Moon Phase, Saishin Anime Jōhō (ANN's two most important sources of news), D2_STATION, Anison Generation, Comic Holmes, Tail's Room, Syoboi, etc., etc., are organized by one or a few enthusiastic fans, not anime industry professionals.


Are these self-published sources? Because under Wikipedia's guidelines for reliable sources, they can't be used the source was, to quite Wikipedia, "produced by an established expert on the topic of the article whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications."
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dormcat
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PostPosted: Fri Jun 12, 2009 3:23 pm Reply with quote
farix wrote:
The restriction should be for all languages version of Wikipedia. The Japanese language version is no more reliable than the English language version. In fact, the English language version tends to be better sourced than its Japanese counterpart. The later of which is almost never sourced.

I was talking about anime/manga in particular, not the entire Wikipedia in general. Care to make a comparison?

farix wrote:
Are these self-published sources? Because under Wikipedia's guidelines for reliable sources, they can't be used the source was, to quite Wikipedia, "produced by an established expert on the topic of the article whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications."

(Sigh)

Those guidelines were designed for scholastic topics, eliminating weasel words ("it is widely accepted that (...)") and self-published "researches." In the case of basic information of an anime title, how do you suppose to "source" facts that have been gathered and collected? As I said before, most secondary casts and staffs are only listed in 1) internal documents and 2) credit roll at the end of an episode or a movie. Anyone not belonging to the production committee wouldn't be able to legally acquire the former, therefore most people can only painstakingly transcribe what is on the screen, episode by episode. Are you saying that, just because those devoted fans are not "established expert(s) on the topic," their efforts are worthless to Wikipedia? Heck, for many vintage titles I even have to dig Yahoo! Auctions Japan and hope to find pictures of boxes of those VHS tapes that are large enough to identify staff and cast information printed on them.

Yeah, I know there are books by "established expert(s)" e.g. The Anime Encyclopedia, but I've corrected entries submitted by people sourcing the book. I don't have the book personally so I can't say if the transcriber made a mistake or the book itself was erroneous, but I wouldn't say the book is 100% correct either. Furthermore, many sites listed on the Encyclopedia bibliography page wouldn't meet the Wikipedia guideline above.

And if I were you, with just 28 (10 only if "automated duplicates" of episode titles are not counted) entries of submissions, I wouldn't teach site admins what and how to do next.
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doc-watson42
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Joined: 10 Feb 2003
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PostPosted: Sat Jun 13, 2009 12:56 am Reply with quote
dormcat wrote:
Yeah, I know there are books by "established expert(s)" e.g. The Anime Encyclopedia, but I've corrected entries submitted by people sourcing the book. I don't have the book personally so I can't say if the transcriber made a mistake or the book itself was erroneous, but I wouldn't say the book is 100% correct either.

Speaking as a beta reader of and contributor to the second edition, The Anime Encyclopedia is far from perfect, but corrections are gladly received at [email protected] (I myself have submitted 169 correction messages so far). OTOH, IMNSHO it's the best resource on the topic in print in English.

Just don't bring up the topic of an "encyclopedia" (as opposed to a "guide") having an opinion—you're not going to change the authors' minds on that point.
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dormcat
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PostPosted: Sat Jun 13, 2009 3:23 am Reply with quote
doc-watson42 wrote:
Just don't bring up the topic of an "encyclopedia" (as opposed to a "guide") having an opinion—you're not going to change the authors' minds on that point.

I was not talking about TAE in any way; just used it as an example. Confused I don't have it, have never read it, and am unlikely to acquire it in foreseeable future. On the other hand, I've seen many official Japanese websites having errors as well.
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doc-watson42
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Joined: 10 Feb 2003
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PostPosted: Sat Jun 13, 2009 5:35 am Reply with quote
dormcat wrote:
doc-watson42 wrote:
Just don't bring up the topic of an "encyclopedia" (as opposed to a "guide") having an opinion—you're not going to change the authors' minds on that point.

I was not talking about TAE in any way; just used it as an example. Confused I don't have it, have never read it, and am unlikely to acquire it in foreseeable future. On the other hand, I've seen many official Japanese websites having errors as well.

In that last paragraph (which you quote) I did not intend to refer to any statement you made—I was speaking more broadly, and merely intended to forestall others' criticism on a well-worn point.

My point to you was that, yes, TAE does have mistakes.
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Dessa



Joined: 14 Jul 2004
Posts: 4438
PostPosted: Tue Jan 12, 2010 8:05 pm Reply with quote
Sorry to revive this, but I was wondering what the opinion on Japanese Wikipedia as a source would be? I can't read it well enough to find the sources, but I can at least recognize the kanji for "voice", and go off of said seiyuu's roles to find something in the ANN encyclopedia that they've done, and match the name kanji to confirm it's the right person.

There are a few games/drama CDs that I've been looking for recently, that neither ANN nor English Wikipedia list, that I've had to go to Japanese Wikipedia for.
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Tempest
I Run this place.
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PostPosted: Mon Mar 08, 2010 7:27 pm Reply with quote
Dessa wrote:
Sorry to revive this, but I was wondering what the opinion on Japanese Wikipedia as a source would be? I can't read it well enough to find the sources, but I can at least recognize the kanji for "voice", and go off of said seiyuu's roles to find something in the ANN encyclopedia that they've done, and match the name kanji to confirm it's the right person.


Wow, no one answered this yet, sorry.

Japanese Wikipedia is an okay source if nothing else is available. If you can't read the Japanese source, that qualifies as nothing else being available.

I would however stress that you should be really careful when mining the data the way you describe. It sounds to me like it could be prone to mistakes.

-t
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tyciol



Joined: 31 Jul 2006
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PostPosted: Sat Jun 25, 2011 10:05 pm Reply with quote
It's too bad both anime resources can't simply 'assume good faith' in each other's populations eh?
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