That Wikipedia page isn't saying you should infringe the copyright of the mainstream news source. It's just saying that you shouldn't put a fact on Wikipedia unless it's been independently verified by a reputable source. This has nothing to do with "stealing." It's not "stealing" to link to a New York Times article that supports an factual contention you're making.

And nowhere does it say that primary sources are verboten, provided that the primary sources are themselves publicly available. The point is that unpublished sources, available only to a single editor, are not an acceptable source for a Wikipedia article, because other Wikipedians have no way of verifying such sources.

Wouldn't providing citations be an easy solution on Wikipedia. I believe some articles on Wikipedia already do this, but not most.

With controversies over plagerism and accuracy, it doesn't really matter whether Wikipedia contributors post content in good faith. They should address a legitimate concern that may diminish the viability and perceived legitimacy of Wikipedia.

I have to concur with Tim here. Facts, last time I checked, are not copyrightable (for instances, if the NYT published a story on Iraq, and its factual content was added to Wikipedia's Iraq page, that's hardly stealing. After all, once a newspaper breaks a story, doesn't every other newspaper do the same thing as Wikipedia by rewriting the facts into original content?). Wikipedia discourages original research because, in the wide world of the internets, there's no way to prove something without it coming from a reliable source.

Although I do agree that Wikipedia is not citation-worthy, I've always found it a useful place to start looking for information.

Patrick's main point is about the over-hyped illusions of grandeur that comes with Wikipedia and some other entities.

Facts are not copyrightable per se, but I believe news stories and other web content can even if they contain facts.

If Patrick's target is "delusions of grandeur," then he is attacking a straw man. Wikipedia *is* a revolutionary new type of online resources that offers people information they couldn't have gotten easily in the pre-Wikipedia era. No one has ever claimed that Wikipedia is flawless or that it will replace all other reference works.

And of course news articles are copyrightable. But no one is saying it's acceptable for Wikipedia to incorporate copyrighted material--just that it's acceptable for them to use the facts described by copyrighted articles as the basis for Wikipedia entries.

You are right about the copyright issue. Still, Wikipedia is *new* but by no means *revolutionary*. Its akin to the early P2Ps- fun with some potential to become productive and profitable. Its a low end alternative with limitations in precisely those categories that distinguish top news and information resources: accurate, credible, consistent, of high quality, reliable.

Noel, Wikipedia isn't trying to compete with "top news and information resources," any more than the Honda Civic is trying to compete with high-end sports cars. That doesn't mean it's not revolutionary.

I use Wikipedia several times a week to get information on miscellaneous topics that I encounter. I hardly ever did the same thing with Britannica because I was far less likely to find entries on obscure topics there. The ability to get a "good enough" entry on almost any conceivable topic is revolutionary. Nothing like it has ever existed before.

Commons Music,

I think we're getting off point here a bit but let me address your comment. Of course facts are not copyrightable, but that has nothing to do with your newspaper analogy. Speaking as a former reporter, here are your options if a competitor breaks a story: 1) You can reprint the news, adding that the competitor is reporting this (you don't say it is true yourself because you haven't verified it). 2) You can pick up the phone and work your butt off to independently verify the story. You should still, for the sake of professional courtesy, note your competitor was the first to report it when you file your own, personally verified, story.

My understanding of Wikipedia is that people who post are not actually doing primary research to verify what they add. Rather, they add what they choose and under the rules Wikipedia has laid out, they rely on the reader to verify if it is true or not.

God forbid if newspapers started just running snippets of things they found on the Web and then gave us a hint as to origin so we, the readers, could all independently verify the veracity of the content. If Wikipedia users understand the burden is on them to prove veracity, and don't confuse it with journalism as you have, then I'm not so troubled.

I'm not sure all Wikipedia users know they are supposed to do this, though. A professional fiction author e-mailed me recently (not my mom). She almost had inaccurate historical information in her latest book because she used Wikipedia. The ages of the historical figures seemed odd to her, so she did further research and found that the king and queen had both had their birthdates recorded inaccurately, and there were other inaccuracies as well. She says she will never again use Wikipedia for anything that could end up in print.

Patrick, if your point is that people need to be taught not to cite Wikipedia as a primary source, I don't think anybody could disagree with you. But if that's all your saying, why the scornful tone? Lots of new technologies get misused for purposes for which they were not intended, sometimes with harmful results. But that doesn't make the technologies bad, it just means that we need to do a better job of teaching people how to use them correctly.

You say my tone is scornful. I could ask you, why do you feel such a need to defend Wikipedia? Why the resistance to criticism of something that shouldn't have anything to do with you?

And this has nothing to do with misuse of technology. I don't view Wikipidia as a "technology" and I'm surprised a technologist would. It is a service. In economics, the technology, or perhaps theta if you're using differential calculus, is merely a choice made before producing the product or service, in this case, a wiki format. The end-user cares little about how the service is "made." To borrow your car analogy, there are many types of auto plants and related methods of manufacturing; how many Honda Civic buyers ask the dealer which type of plant the car rolled off of before making a purchase?

I'm not "resistant to criticism" of Wikipedia. Of course Wikipedia has flaws, just like any other large-scale project. And criticism of those flaws is healthy.

What I object to is your evident hostility toward the site. You've offered no evidence that I can see that Wikipedians are "messianic zealots" deserving of ridicule. You wrote: "These folks are just a hoot. Over time these messianic zealots will find society moving beyond them." These are not the words of someone trying to offer constructive criticism. For reasons I don't understand, you seem to have an axe to grind against the site.

You accuse Wikipedia of telling people to "steal original content," but the policy document you quote says nothing of the sort. They're plainly suggesting that Wikipedia do what every secondary source does: summarize the information contained in primary sources. I don't see the problem.

As for why I defend it, I simply think that it's an extremely useful site that's unlike anything that was available in the pre-Internet age, and so I dislike unfair criticisms of it.

***You've offered no evidence that I can see that Wikipedians are "messianic zealots" deserving of ridicule***

Patrick may be referring to the fact that after all of this debate over Wikipedia, when we can all pretty much agree that its not meant to be a substitute for high-end publications and that copyright infringement occurs to some extent (at least), some folks still thinks its some kind of revolutionary cause.

Why do you have to "substitute for high-end publications" to be revolutionary? The Apple II was pretty revolutionary, but it wasn't competing with high-end mainframes.

Substitution isn't a requirement for Wikipedia being revolutionary.

But I ask you this: will Wikipedia change the way online information is managed or disseminated, will it introduce new business models, will it prove more efficient or save costs yet deliver quality results?

Everything I've read here echoes Donna's point exactly; everyone is defending Wikipedia (and apparently ignoring Google and Digg) by making a "net-positive" argument.

Noel, it already has. As I said in another comment, millions of people use it to get information more quickly and conveniently than from any other resource.

So Tim, it sounds like Wikipedia is just another website.

As Tim Lee rightly noted above:

"What I object to is your evident hostility toward the site. You've offered no evidence that I can see that Wikipedians are "messianic zealots" deserving of ridicule. You wrote: 'These folks are just a hoot. Over time these messianic zealots will find society moving beyond them.'

These are not the words of someone trying to offer constructive criticism. For reasons I don't understand, you seem to have an axe to grind against the site."

I would second that. I don't understand why there is so much sidewise slander of free culture advocates on this site. It detracts from the level of the dabate and reduces the reputation of those who spew it.

Actually, I've seen a lot of good policy arguments against FOSS on this site.

I don't have any hostility towards Wikipedia per se. But why call it a "revolution" and then offer the worst justifications for it. Just say its a useful site, like 10 million other sites on the web.