SourcererBot
Joined 7 July 2015
Latest comment: 8 years ago by Risker in topic Why is IMDB being used as a source?
Strange qualifiers edit
The bot is using strange qualifiers. Source is IMDB, and the bot adds the IMDB id as a GND id. See example. Mbch331 (talk) 14:27, 21 July 2015 (UTC)
- Correct would be reference URL (P854) with
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0930739/. Queryzo (talk) 10:42, 29 January 2016 (UTC)- I agree. IMDb ID (P345) is not meant for being used as source reference. See here how to give valid web page sources and please fix your abuses of IMDb ID (P345). --Jobu0101 (talk) 18:07, 29 January 2016 (UTC)
Why is IMDB being used as a source? edit
I am confused. Few projects of which I am aware will accept IMDB as a reliable source for information such as dates of birth, because it's unsourced user-submitted and unverified content; in other words, it's not particularly reliable. So why is this bot submitting it as a reliable source for this information? (IMDB data often comes from the promotional companies associated with its content, or the artists involved, and frequently includes dates of birth that are preferred rather than factual, for example.) Risker (talk) 04:29, 11 January 2016 (UTC)
- Risker: my guess is that any source is better than no source at all. If you find a different value, and it comes from a more reliable source, then you can substitute the new value with a clear conscience. If you don't know where the current value came from, you have no basis on which to judge if the new value is more valid. HTH HAND —Phil Boswell (talk) 12:39, 4 February 2016 (UTC)
- Phil Boswell, thanks for responding. Unfortunately, when the source is so bad that it's considered disreputable, including it on Wikidata reflects very negatively on this project. IMDB isn't quite into the "completely disreputable" column, but it's considerably less reliable than even Wikipedia, which isn't a very good source itself. The more that Wikidata and Wikidatians continue to make use of poor quality referencing, the more it renders Wikidata an undesirable reference source. The result may be that Wikidata gets less exposure, or (perhaps more seriously) that it propagates erroneous, badly sourced information across multiple sites. Since there isn't even a need for reusers to "credit" Wikidata as the source of information, it could easily result in citogenesis. I'm actually quite worried about the continued addition of poor quality sources to Wikidata, and also fairly concerned at the "no big deal" attitude I've seen on the talk pages of many Wikidatians who spend time "sourcing" information. Risker (talk) 19:50, 4 February 2016 (UTC)