User:Spinningspark/Quality proposal

This proposal has a main part and an optional part for which there is a separate vote.

Main proposal

Add to Attestation section following Conveying meaning subsection:

Quality of sources Sources which contain spelling, grammatical, or syntactical errors are best avoided since it can be difficult to distinguish between errors and deliberate use of non-standard forms. In this respect, sources which have been through a review process should be given more credence than those that have not as non-standard and rare forms are more likely to be intentional in such sources. Items considered reviewed may include books from a reputable publisher (not self-published), peer reviewed journals, and news sources possessing an editorial board.

In Attestation section replace:

Where possible, it is better to cite sources that are likely to remain easily accessible over time, so that someone referring to Wiktionary years from now is likely to be able to find the original source. As Wiktionary is an online dictionary, this naturally favors media such as Usenet groups, which are durably archived by Google. Print media such as books and magazines will also do, particularly if their contents are indexed online. Other recorded media such as audio and video are also acceptable, provided they are of verifiable origin and are durably archived. We do not quote other Wikimedia sites (such as Wikipedia), but we may use quotations found on them (such as quotations from books available on Wikisource). When citing a quotation from a book, please include the ISBN.

with:

Where possible, it is better to cite sources that are likely to remain easily accessible over time, so that someone referring to Wiktionary years from now is likely to be able to find the original source. Print media such as books and magazines are good, particularly if their contents are indexed online. Online-only media are not considered durably archived unless they are also held in an independent archive that is considered to be robust enough that the material would survive the collapse of the organization maintaining it. Explicit status of selected sites Considered durable Not considered durable Usenet WebCite Google Groups (except Usenet) Wayback Machine Other recorded media such as audio and video are also acceptable, provided they are of verifiable origin and are durably archived. We do not quote other Wikimedia sites (such as Wikipedia), but we may use quotations found on them (such as quotations from books available on Wikisource). When citing a quotation from a book, please include the ISBN.

Add to Spanning at least a year subsection:

Internet-only citations can be difficult to date accurately as they do not always carry date stamps. Internet archives (even ones that are not durable such as the Wayback Machine) may be used to establish an upper bound for the creation date, but should be used with caution. For instance if there are two citations from 2003 and an archive shows a copy of a third from 2005, this does not establish that they span a year since there could have been an even older 2003 version which was not archived. However, finding a 2001 version in the archive would prove they spanned more than a year.

Optional part

Replace:

Attestation “Attested” means verified through clearly widespread use, use in a well-known work, or use in permanently recorded media, conveying meaning, in at least three independent instances spanning at least a year (different requirements apply for certain languages).

with:

Attestation “Attested” means verified through clearly widespread use, use in a well-known work, or use in permanently recorded media, conveying meaning, in at least three independent instances spanning at least a year (different requirements apply for internet-only citations and certain languages).

Add to Number of citations subsection:

Two citations from internet-only sources count as only one durably archived citation. For instance, an entry which requires three citations and already has two from book sources would need a further two from WebCite or Usenet to meet the attestation requirement.

Add to Spanning at least a year subsection:

Where internet-only citations are used and the non-internet citations do not span at least a year then the requirement is increased to spanning at least two years.

• Rationale: A previous vote for allowing WebCite as a source failed (but only just), partly because of concerns over the quality of citations that might result. As there is nothing in the CFI that explicitly addresses quality this concern was justified. This proposal seeks to add a quality clause into the CFI and, having addressed that issue, to reintroduce the idea of internet-archived citations. The extended requirements for internet-only sources has been broken out into a separate optional vote.
• Rationale of previous proposal: WebCite archive is now well established and widely used by academics and publishers. The site has only ever taken down a handful of pages ("around 20 out of several million records" according to Dr. Eysenbach, founder of WebCite) and even those are still available for inspection on an individual basis. The site can now be considered "durably archived", but nevertheless, it is proposed that a greater number of citations be required, for safety's sake.

• Vote created:

• Discussion:

  Wiktionary:Beer parlour#Quality requirement in CFI

  Wiktionary talk:Votes/pl-2012-08/Citations from WebCite

  Wiktionary:Votes/pl-2012-08/Citations from WebCite