Wikipedia talk:Attribution/popculture

message: This whole thing seems to revolve on the often contentious issue of amateur versus professional. It is well known that in some fields amateurs do better work than professionals. And even in some professional fields, some people call themselves amateurs, though they are published and respected experts (working in their spare time outside their paying job). It might be better to avoid specifics here, and to default to the "case by case" judgement, with a note here that there are exceptions to this "attribute to professional, peer-reviewed, publications" clause, but that professional stuff is preferable if available. If not available, then use your judgement. Carcharoth 12:21, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: OK. I may have repeated a lot of the above. But it's in my own words. As for the 'bloat' issue. I would suggest a short sentence in the main policy, and then more detail in the FAQ. Carcharoth 12:25, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I rather agree that the terms "professional" and "amateur" are very misleading and unfortunate. Many trade magazines, e.g., are highly professional, but print little but disguised adverts (articles commisioned by the maker of a product) and real adverts (payed for by the very same maker). Similarly, computer game magazines are "professional", but very often have only very weak separation of the advertising and the editorial departments. When is the last time you saw a negative review in such a magazine? --Stephan Schulz 08:35, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Amateur versus professional 

message: I must mention there is an alternate, more consistent solution to the problem, rather than introducing exceptions. The whole reason we need easements for popular culture is that articles require different source reliability and amount of sourcing. A source which would be reliable in describing a movie would not work in an article on elementary physics. Moreover, going broader, a major newspaper may be an excellent source for news on politics, but a very poor source for technical subjects, as we know how often they make mistakes. 
So we could avoid making countless exceptions by introducing a varistor into the system. More specifically, we just need to acknowledge that acceptable sources depend on the subject. It is quite simple, easy to remember, and flexible, but not loose. Then some elaboration can be given on general choice of sources without positioning pop-culture as exception. CP/M comm |Wikipedia Neutrality Project| 16:20, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It's not clear to me what, besides pop culture, would or should require an exception. In fact, it's not entirely clear to me why pop culture requires an exception. Jayjg (talk) 21:06, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Exception? I'm talking not about exceptions. Example: A newspaper is a reliable source for political news, and is not a reliable source for scientific details. A book about art (not popculture) is an excellent source for art, but poor for historical conclusions (despite it may discuss historical context). The reason why popculture popped up is just that we would nearly totally lose coverage of that topic under WP:ATT, unless WP:IAR was applied thousands of times. CP/M comm |Wikipedia Neutrality Project| 21:42, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I do like this idea of stating that acceptable sources depend on the subject without specifying "pop culture" specifically, but I think that it also needs to be stressed that one should use the most reliable sources available for the topic.  For some subjects these will be scholarly journals, for other subjects these will be newspaper articles, and for other subjects these may be usenet postings.  JYolkowski // talk 21:45, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Preferred sources may depend 

message: We don't need a pop culture exception. We just need a verbalization of policy that recognizes the world is analog with relationships that are continuous rather than discrete. And forcing everything to be not only in discrete categories but only two (binary -  black/white vision of reality) creates absurdities. Saying these are in and those are out and here is our bright line dividing a complicated world into these two sections such that one is accepted and the other is not accepted creates more harm than good. WAS 4.250 22:47, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I second that. That's why I think the policy should have wording not as binary, and only note that reliable sources should be used for all information that can be reasonably questioned. It would be good idea to give the idea of the major sources, and leave covering sources selection in detail to guideline(s). It could also be noted that importance of direct sourcing and required reliability should depend on the information, and the more questionable it is, the more requirements to the source. Of course, it should denote that sources which reliability is not certain should be used only in shortage of reliable ones, and cited with caution. This way editors would be clearly guided what to do, yet given enough flexibility for consensus to work without circumventing anything. CP/M comm |Wikipedia Neutrality Project| 23:13, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Binary versus continuous relationships