"Scotland is not a real country; you are an Englishman with a dress". - Keen eyed Scotsman finds Scots Wikipedia is faked by an American Teenager

[IceCold008]

Title of the post made me laugh

[Athan Immortal]

1 hour ago, Caroline said:

Reading the article about Scotland it says 

It aforetyms wis a free kinrik, but than Scotland gaed intil a union wi Ingland in 1603, whan Jeams VI o Scotland becam Jeams I o Ingland eftir the daith o Elspeth I. This union wis makkit formal on 1 Mey 1707 bi the Treatie o Union.

 

I reckon it says something like... aforetime it was a free country, but then Scotland was annexed (not sure what gaed intil could mean tbh) to England in 1603 when Jeams (James?) VI of Scotland became Jeams I of England after the death of Elspeth I. This union was made formal on May 1 1707 by the Treaty of Union.

 

But is this a real language or just weird English??

It's not real. Scottish people speak and write English, certainly with a thick accent.

 

Sometimes as a joke they'll write it in tweets like on reddit's /r/scottishpeopletwitter , but it's not real. Seems like the person that wrote that was watching Chewin the Fat, a sketch comedy set in Scotland, mainly around Glasgow and the Glaswegian accent.

[Kisai]

14 hours ago, LAwLz said:

I think people have way too hard of a black or white thinking when it comes to Wikipedia (or on things in general really).

There is absolutely nothing wrong with using Wikipedia as a source, in the right circumstances. Of course using the first hand sources is better, but that is always the case regardless of where you get info from.

 

Clearly you haven't used Wikipedia /s.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_original_research

Quote

Wikipedia articles must not contain original research. The phrase "original research" (OR) is used on Wikipedia to refer to material—such as facts, allegations, and ideas—for which no reliable, published sources exist.^[a] This includes any analysis or synthesis of published material that serves to reach or imply a conclusion not stated by the sources. To demonstrate that you are not adding OR, you must be able to cite reliable, published sources that are directly related to the topic of the article, and directly support the material being presented. (This policy of no original research does not apply to talk pages and other pages which evaluate article content and sources, such as deletion discussions or policy noticeboards.)

 

The prohibition against OR means that all material added to articles must be attributable to a reliable, published source, even if not actually attributed.^[a] The verifiability policy says that an inline citation to a reliable source must be provided for all quotations, and for anything challenged or likely to be challenged—but a source must exist even for material that is never challenged. For example: the statement "the capital of France is Paris" needs no source, nor is it original research, because it's not something you thought up and it is so easily verifiable that no one is likely to object to it; we know that sources exist for it even if they are not cited. The statement is attributable, even if not attributed.

 

Despite the need to attribute content to reliable sources, you must not plagiarize them or violate their copyrights. Rewriting source material in your own words, while substantially retaining the meaning of the references, is not considered to be original research.

 

"No original research" (NOR) is one of three core content policies that, along with Neutral point of view and Verifiability, determines the type and quality of material acceptable in articles. Because these policies work in harmony, they should not be interpreted in isolation from one another, and editors should familiarize themselves with all three. For questions about whether any particular edit constitutes original research, see the NOR noticeboard.

Wikipedia itself says not to use Wikipedia as a source as Wikipedia prohibits original research. So that means Wikipedia itself is not a source, it's only a pointer to sources. No respectable person will ever cite Wikipedia as a primary source, because Wikipedia is at best a tertiary source, and is edited by people that can be relied on to have knowledge on the subject.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_is_not_a_reliable_source

Quote

Wikipedia is not a reliable source. Wikipedia can be edited by anyone at any time. This means that any information it contains at any particular time could be vandalism, a work in progress, or just plain wrong. Biographies of living persons, subjects that happen to be in the news, and politically or culturally contentious topics are especially vulnerable to these issues. Edits on Wikipedia that are in error may eventually be fixed. However, because Wikipedia is a volunteer-run project, it cannot monitor every contribution all the time. There are many errors that remain unnoticed for days, weeks, months, or even years. Therefore, Wikipedia should not be considered a definitive source in and of itself.

 

Unlike Encyclopedia Britannica, which has been around since 1771 and used primary sources.

https://www.britannica.com/editor/The-Editors-of-Encyclopaedia-Britannica/4419

Quote

You will notice that many of the encyclopedic articles on this site are attributed in full or in part to the Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. The vast majority of articles attributed solely to the editors have been written, reviewed, or revised by external advisers and experts, and the lack of formal acknowledgment of their contributions was an editorial policy dating to the 1970s. In the absence of those authorities' names, Britannica's editors, who have played a key role in the development and maintenance of such articles, have been designated as the contributor. More recently, nearly all Britannica contributors have been credited by name—whether they are editors, experts, or other members of the Britannica community—and the "The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica" attribution has been used in encyclopedic articles that combine writing by named contributors and later substantive revisions by Britannica's editorial staff.

Britannica can't be "vandalized" like Wikipedia can, and Britannica's editors are experts, or so they claim. So this puts them as far, far more credible than Wikipedia.

 

Any person foolish enough to cite or use Wikipedia in a school/college/university report, deserves to fail the entire class, or at least do the report over from scratch. 

 

As someone who remembers when you could actually buy the books, or get encyclopedias on CD-ROM, it's quite interesting seeing how little intellectual interest people have when the ability to search exists. When you only had the books, you had to get the name and spelling of the thing you wanted to look for and find out what volume it was in alphabetically. You would never just read a volume start to finish. The print encyclopedia set I had was from the 50's, and much like every student who had to use the print versions, you were never going to replace a set with a newer set, you had a set, you didn't need a newer set. So the advent of digital encyclopedias largely removes this reliance on keeping print volumes around that may be decades out of date.

 

[Doqtori]

I hope I'm not necroing too hard, but

 

Everyone saying that this proves Wikipedia isn't a reliable source is wrong. The translation is bad, but the information is right.

 

On 8/29/2020 at 3:40 AM, Kisai said:

Wikipedia itself says not to use Wikipedia as a source as Wikipedia prohibits original research.

And oxygen absorbers say "do not eat", it's there for stupid people. There's a small mark next to any unmarked parts of a Wikipedia article that I believe says "citation missing" or "source missing", can't remember which. If it says that, go get a different source. If it doesn't, 99% of the time you have a good source. If you wanna be really sure, look trough the source yourself.

[Kisai]

7 minutes ago, Doqtori said:

I don't think I'm necroing too hard, but

 

Everyone saying that this proves Wikipedia isn't a reliable source is wrong. The translation is bad, but the information is right.

 

And oxygen absorbers say "do not eat", it's there for stupid people. There's a small mark next to any unmarked parts of a Wikipedia article that I believe says "citation missing" or "source missing", can't remember which. If it says that, go get a different source. If it doesn't, 99% of the time you have a good source. If you wanna be really sure, look trough the source yourself.

That's missing the point. 

- Nothing on Wikipedia is original research by design, so you can not use it as a primary source because itself is not a primary source.

- Bots frequently delete parts of articles that sources are destroyed for, so in some cases there is content in the Wikipedia that used to exist, but because of crappy bot design, the articles mutate to lose the sources, and then the material without the source is then removed by editors who think they're cleaning up the article.

[maartendc]

Only one thing comes to mind:

 

How was this kid able to edit 60,000 articles, over the course of several years, 1/3rd of the volume, without anyone noticing it was completely made up garbage??

 

Perhaps nobody actually reads Scottish Wikipedia?

[Glenwing]

On 8/28/2020 at 5:40 PM, Kisai said:

Clearly you haven't used Wikipedia /s.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_original_research

Wikipedia itself says not to use Wikipedia as a source as Wikipedia prohibits original research. So that means Wikipedia itself is not a source, it's only a pointer to sources. No respectable person will ever cite Wikipedia as a primary source, because Wikipedia is at best a tertiary source, and is edited by people that can be relied on to have knowledge on the subject.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_is_not_a_reliable_source

 

Those are policies for editors. They are for determining which sources can be uses as references on WP pages. Of course WP itself says not to use WP as a source... on WP pages. It's not commenting on outside usage.

 

Of course no one should cite WP as a primary source since it can't be a primary source, and no one would use it in a research paper or whatever. But since there are usages of sources outside of research papers, it can be acceptable to use WP as a source of information depending on the circumstance, such as when writing a casual forum post. Even then I don't think anyone should be thinking that it "proves" it's true just because the WP article says so, but it's good enough for most casual discussion; if people dispute it they can have further discussion about it and look for more reliable sources.

[rcmaehl]

On 8/27/2020 at 6:56 PM, mr moose said:

I don;t think I would ever call a scot an english man in a dress.  That sounds like a death wish to me.