Ensuring high quality sources where needed, especially science/academic topics (narrow focus)
I value Kreb Mrkt's comments. I do not fully agree with Randomran.
It is a shame we do not have stats on how many pages people hit. I think there are articles requiring specialized knowldedge that are relative stale becaus emost people do not care. (the Lorenz equations?)
I think there are articles that require specialized knowldedge and draw fring thinkers, but the dedication of three or four people who have been watching if for years reverts what crap is introduced immediately the the article is virutally stable (evolution).
There are articles that rely on fan knowledge and are not sourced (TV shows, movies).
Then there are articles that are controvesial, and either go through periods of intesne instability when o9lder editors are wrn down, or are stable due to a few thankless people. Examples: race, race and IQ, Jesus.
It is these latter articles I care about most because they are of interst to many people (een if they themselves are a small portion of our aticles) and because they are often shit.
And these artiecles are very well sourced. But sources are used like weapons and there is no real neutraility, in research or in writing.
How do we address ths=ese articles? I conceed that they mayu constistute a minority, but we dare not underestimate their impotamtce as I bet these are freuently visdbu vii
Actually, this is smth I though about. I believe there are three large groups of articles.
- Articles of common interest: just common stuff, bios, events, cities etc. They should be well-sourced, and it is usually not a problem to find sources. If the sources somehow can not be found, it means the article may be not notable.
- Specialized articles. These typically can only be written by experts, and experts have access to sources. The problem is not that we do not have sources but that we so not have experts.
- Fan-driven articles: movies, games ets. Sources here are problematic, and at some point a general decision should be made by communities what happens to these articles/topics.
Yea,
I have somewhat the same articles grouping in mind ;)
I can reply questions about the Fan-driven articles sources, if needed as i do articles sourcing for the En anime/manga project so i know what Fan-driven issues can be.