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Avoiding Wikipedia as a reference

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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."

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.

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.

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. 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.

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.