19.506 Wikipedia and citation

               Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 19, No. 506.
       Centre for Computing in the Humanities, King's College London
                   www.kcl.ac.uk/humanities/cch/humanist/
                        www.princeton.edu/humanist/
                     Submit to: humanist_at_princeton.edu

         Date: Tue, 13 Dec 2005 06:51:50 +0000
         From: mattj_at_newsblip.com
         Subject: Re: 19.494 Wikipedia and citation

>From: Ryan Deschamps <Ryan.Deschamps_at_Dal.Ca>
>What if a citation is provided, but not quoted and the information
>has substantially changed? The retrieval date helps, I suppose, but
>that's a pretty hard slog to check the source if you ask me.

I think I mentioned this in an earlier message, but it's actually
rather easy to cite, and verify, a specific version of a Wikipedia
article. If the topic is Watergate, then do not merely cite the URL
of the article:

   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watergate

Instead, click Wikipedia's "History" tab at the top of the page.
You'll see a list of several dozen versions of the article, each with
a unique URL. Just right-click the date of the top (mnost recent )
one ("13:55 12 December 2005" as of right now; wow, someone just
edited it). From the pop-up menu, choose "Copy Link Location" (I 'm
using Firefox), and then go to your word processor and paste in the URL:

   http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Watergate_scandal&oldid=31047940

If you follow this URL to check it, you'll see gray text at the top
of the page which indicates the version: "Revision as of 13:55, 12
December 2005; view current revision". So it takes only an extra ten
seconds for an author to cite a specific version, and no extra time
for a reader to verify it.

-Matt Jensen
NewsBlip
Seattle
Received on Tue Dec 13 2005 - 02:34:41 EST