Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Minnesota/MNopedia

Communication

Hi Gobonobo et al. Is there a Wikipedian who can contact MNopedia and ask them to cite their articles inline? I tried to reach M. Huber through LinkedIn and failed to make contact. I see limited benefits in us appropriating their stuff adding citations to MNopedia (as in, for example, Samuel Bloomer), because when they get there to MNopedia nobody can track down specifics. Sorry to come in so late to this discussion. -SusanLesch (talk) 15:57, 21 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Susan. Mhsrc might be a good person to contact about this. There is also a contact email listed at the MNopedia website here. I can't remember if this came up at the last two presentations that MNHS had for Wikipedians. Their entries usually have a bibliography and related resources listed at the bottom, though I agree that it would be nice if they had inline citations as well. Gobōnobō ⁺ ^c 17:34, 21 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for the quick reply, Gobonobo. Good thinking. I left Mhsrc a talkback note on their talk page. -SusanLesch (talk) 17:42, 21 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I also left an email two days ago at the contact staff address given on mnopedia.org. If anybody at MNopedia decides to answer this query, would you please ping me on my talk page? -SusanLesch (talk) 18:29, 24 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for contacting us. I replied on your talk page, but I'll paste this response here for anyone else who's interested. MNopedia made an editorial decision early on to use a bibliography rather than in-line citation, since that's how encyclopedias traditionally cited their sources. We hope that our entries' bibliographies will be a useful starting place for Wikipedians. Mhsrc (talk) 20:06, 24 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Mhsrc, thank you very much for your reply. Your reasoning makes sense, but, sorry to say, nobody I know of wants to read a whole bibliography to find the source of a fact. Please cite inline as you go. I trust you'll take this comment to heart. If you need a precedent look at any scholarly paper in Google Scholar. Where would they be without citations? Best wishes. -SusanLesch (talk) 14:18, 25 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

SusanLesch, MNopedia is not a scholarly article, it's an encyclopedia. We understand why Wikipedia uses inline citation, but that's not the standard for encyclopedias. For examples, see leading encyclopedias including the Encyclopedia of Virginia, the New Georgia Encyclopedia, the Dictionary of Sydney, and Encyclopedia Britannica. We appreciate your comments, but MNopedia uses a bibliography and will continue to do so. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mhsrc (talk • contribs) 17:54, 30 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

That's fine, Mhsrc. Your project and Wikipedia won't ever intersect, but I can wave at you politely like a passenger might wave at people on a passing boat. -SusanLesch (talk) 13:54, 7 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Here is a quote from the lede of WP:VERIFY, which is Wikipedia policy:

All material in Wikipedia mainspace, including everything in articles, lists and captions, must be verifiable. All quotations, and any material whose verifiability has been challenged or is likely to be challenged, must include an inline citation that directly supports the material. Any material that needs a source but does not have one may be removed.

Sorry you don't see things the same way but that's your choice. -SusanLesch (talk) 16:43, 2 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]