Ensuring high quality sources where needed, especially science/academic topics (narrow focus)

I already placed this above, but now think it is more appropriate here - sorry, maybe I still don't understand the liquid thread system. here goes:

I think we need to be honest about two ways that sources are used - consider it a "push model" versus a "pull model." In Wikipedia, I think most editors use a "push model" - they have a view they wish to include so they then go about lookin for reliable sources they can use to support their view. I don't like this but see no way to stop if, and many of FT2 and others' suggestions may help us develop a better set of criteria for "reliable sources" - someone on another threa, I apologize that I do not remember who, singled out better sources and I cannot agree more. So I value FT2's approach here and will see if I can add anything to it.

For now I want to point out that this is not the approach most academics take. This other approach ("pull") is really a combination of approaches. One starts with identifying the best sources, and then finding out what views are represented in these sources. Thompson's web of knowledge has one way for ranking peer-reviewed journals, there is at least one other company that produces the same statistics but calculated in a different way. The key statistics are impact factor and immediacy index. Immediacy index basically measures how soon it is before other articles are published that cite articles published in this journal. Impact factor has to do with the total times articles from the journal are cited elsewhere. So one way to go is to identify which journals for a given discipline, subdiscipline, or topic, score highest on impact factor and immediacy index, and give greater weight to articles published in those journals, regardless of what view (e.g. their interpretation of why the Maya empire collapsed, or whether Franco was a "fascist").

We can easily ask people on different Wikiprojects to investigate the journals on their topic o discipline and annualy revise th impact/immediacy stats, and actively encourage editors working on WP articles to seek out journal articles from those journals and from those articles decide what the contents of the WP article should be or how views should be weighted.

Another approach is to start with some articles from major journals or books from major university presses and see what books or articles are regularly or most frequently citd in other books and articles, as a way of inferring wich books and articles are most important.

This approach does not start with a view in search of a source, it starts with sources in search of views. But in my experience this is how most academics research literature reviews, they try to find out what books and articles everyone else cites, and give more weight to articls in the most prestigious journals ... and then, whatever those books and articles are writing about, what issues they are debating, what are the dominant sides in any debate, that then determines what gos into a lit. review.

I think a big problem with Wikipedia is that many editors do not know how to research in this way or do not have the resources (books and journals readily available at their library). Perhaps we can get the Wikiprojects to help in encouraging people to research for articles this way. Any good university library has the Thompson web of knowledge database and perhaps one or two others that provide impact factors and immediacy indexes so why not start a project of: ranking journals, and making sure that Wikipedia has articles on all the top ranked journals and provides these two stats - the databases today will also show what the stats were in previous years. By the way, these indexes are only for the natural and social sciences. I am not sure why they do not cover the humanities but my guess is that the journals are far more specialized with lower readerships and perhaps the raw data is insufficient to calculate significant stats.

The thing is, there are LOTS of peer-reviewed journals; among academics, their rejection rates and where they dtand on these indexes are the real measures of prestige. My point is NOT to ban the use of cites from low-scoring journals. My point is to encourage editors to turn to high-ranking journals with an unbiased eye to discover what researchers are saying on a topic without looking for a particular view they already wish to put in an article.