From owner-cse584-sp07-list@LISTSERV.BUFFALO.EDU Wed Mar 7 22:30:31 2007 Received: from ares.cse.buffalo.edu (ares.cse.Buffalo.EDU [128.205.32.79]) by castor.cse.Buffalo.EDU (8.13.6/8.12.10) with ESMTP id l283UVo6001685 for ; Wed, 7 Mar 2007 22:30:31 -0500 (EST) Received: from front1.acsu.buffalo.edu (upfront.acsu.buffalo.edu [128.205.4.140]) by ares.cse.buffalo.edu (8.13.6/8.13.6) with SMTP id l283USPQ010920 for ; Wed, 7 Mar 2007 22:30:28 -0500 (EST) Received: (qmail 8709 invoked from network); 8 Mar 2007 03:30:28 -0000 Received: from mailscan8.acsu.buffalo.edu (128.205.7.55) by front1.acsu.buffalo.edu with SMTP; 8 Mar 2007 03:30:28 -0000 Received: (qmail 8655 invoked from network); 8 Mar 2007 03:30:28 -0000 Received: from deliverance.acsu.buffalo.edu (128.205.7.57) by front1.acsu.buffalo.edu with SMTP; 8 Mar 2007 03:30:28 -0000 Received: (qmail 1424 invoked from network); 8 Mar 2007 03:30:18 -0000 Received: from listserv.buffalo.edu (128.205.7.35) by deliverance.acsu.buffalo.edu with SMTP; 8 Mar 2007 03:30:18 -0000 Received: by LISTSERV.BUFFALO.EDU (LISTSERV-TCP/IP release 14.5) with spool id 3688438 for CSE584-SP07-LIST@LISTSERV.BUFFALO.EDU; Wed, 7 Mar 2007 22:30:18 -0500 Delivered-To: cse584-sp07-list@listserv.buffalo.edu Received: (qmail 9127 invoked from network); 8 Mar 2007 03:30:18 -0000 Received: from mailscan6.acsu.buffalo.edu (128.205.7.95) by listserv.buffalo.edu with SMTP; 8 Mar 2007 03:30:18 -0000 Received: (qmail 27380 invoked from network); 8 Mar 2007 03:30:15 -0000 Received: from castor.cse.buffalo.edu (128.205.32.14) by smtp3.acsu.buffalo.edu with SMTP; 8 Mar 2007 03:30:15 -0000 Received: from castor.cse.Buffalo.EDU (rapaport@localhost [127.0.0.1]) by castor.cse.Buffalo.EDU (8.13.6/8.12.10) with ESMTP id l283UFhJ001678 for ; Wed, 7 Mar 2007 22:30:15 -0500 (EST) Received: (from rapaport@localhost) by castor.cse.Buffalo.EDU (8.13.6/8.12.9/Submit) id l283UFCa001677 for cse584-sp07-list@listserv.buffalo.edu; Wed, 7 Mar 2007 22:30:15 -0500 (EST) X-UB-Relay: (castor.cse.buffalo.edu) X-PM-EL-Spam-Prob: : 7% Message-ID: <200703080330.l283UFCa001677@castor.cse.Buffalo.EDU> Date: Wed, 7 Mar 2007 22:30:15 -0500 Reply-To: "William J. Rapaport" Sender: "Philosophy of Computer Science, Spring 2007" From: "William J. Rapaport" Subject: WIKIPEDIA To: CSE584-SP07-LIST@LISTSERV.BUFFALO.EDU Precedence: list List-Help: , List-Unsubscribe: List-Subscribe: List-Owner: List-Archive: X-UB-Relay: (castor.cse.buffalo.edu) X-DCC-Buffalo.EDU-Metrics: castor.cse.Buffalo.EDU 1336; Body=0 Fuz1=0 Fuz2=0 X-Spam-Status: No, score=-2.5 required=5.0 tests=AWL,BAYES_00 autolearn=unavailable version=3.1.7 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.1.7 (2006-10-05) on ares.cse.buffalo.edu X-Virus-Scanned: ClamAV 0.88.6/2774/Wed Mar 7 19:57:23 2007 on ares.cse.buffalo.edu X-Virus-Status: Clean Status: R Content-Length: 2108 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Subject: WIKIPEDIA ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Many of you cited Wikipedia in Position Paper 2. There was usually no reason to do so, especially those who cited it for a definition of a Universal Turing Machine. You could have gotten that from many of our readings. (Many of you also cited dictionaries; that's also a no-no, but one that I'll leave for another time.) In general, you should rarely, if ever, cite Wikipedia as a source in a technical paper for publication or in a paper for a course. There are two reasons: 1. There is no way to know who wrote the articles, so no way to judge if they are accurate (unless you already know the material discussed, in which case, there's no reason for you to be reading the article or citing it; you presumably know enough to be able to cite a more standard source). 2. Anyone can change any article at any time, so your citing an article *now* doesn't mean that your reader will necessarily be able to find it *later* to check it (or that what they find will be what you cited). Note that this is independent of point 1, which concerns the possible unreliability of the authors; point 2 concerns the dynamic nature of the resource--only static resources should be cited, so that everyone knows that they are referring to the same thing and not a changing target. There are exceptions. Obviously, if you're writing a paper about Wikipedia, you can cite articles (though keep point 2 in mind!). And I have cited the Wikipedia article on UB CSE's SNePS knowledge representation, reasoning, and acting system, because it was our SNePS Research Group that wrote it. (Of course, I have to keep checking it to make sure that no one has hacked it!) And very occasionally I will recommend a Wikipedia article to introduce someone to a topic if I can't find anything better on the Web and if I know the material well enough to know that the Wikipedia article is authoritative. Nevertheless, point 2 is always lurking in the background.