This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | Archive 2 |
Ethnologue is as unscientific as you can find. It is so full of errors I am shocked it is quoted and used as a source so often. I have personally on mor than one occasion contacted the editor, who conceded without delay that the information was wrong. Rui ''Gabriel'' Correia ( talk) 21:51, 18 March 2015 (UTC)
Thanks, Maunus, for your constructive input. Yes, in fact, there is a very strong advisory on Wikipedia on how to use Ethnologue information. We should think of how to make it more prominent so editors don't blindly use it as a bible on everything language-related but use their with when they sense that something does not sound/ look right. Rui ''Gabriel'' Correia ( talk) 16:58, 20 March 2015 (UTC)
You disagree because you can't read. Try again. Rui ''Gabriel'' Correia ( talk) 20:58, 20 March 2015 (UTC)
I appreciate the additions made by @ Neil P. Quinn:, adding scholarly opinions about Ethnologue. Nicely done!
In response to Hammarström's criticism, the "failure" to cite sources, I'd like to say three things. (Full disclosure, I'm one of Ethnologue's research editors, which is why I'm doing so here rather than trying to adjust the article.) 1) The criticism is not entirely accurate, in that Ethnologue does disclose its sources in many cases. See, for example, the Ethnologue article on American Sign Language, which cites four sources. Hammarström's criticism, as quoted, could give the impression that Ethnologue never cites sources, which is not accurate. Ethnologue's citation practices are described in its http://www.ethnologue.com/about/plan-site introductory articles]. So, I'd like to request that some editor address this concern in the article; it is obviously not appropriate for me to do so. 2) In the past, citations were kept to a minimum, partly to save space in an already large printed volume, and partly to make reading easier for people who are not specialists, who constitute the primary audience. (In publications for a mixed popular and scientific audience, it is common to provide fewer citations than in scholarly articles.) Now that Ethnologue is primarily an internet publication, we are working to report more sources, especially for certain types of information like population that especially need backup. 3) People are always welcome to write and ask the editor for the source of any information. For changes made in the last several years, we have been careful to keep track of all sources in our database. Unfortunately, sources were not always recorded in earlier days, but in this case, if you have better information, we welcome corrections and we will remove controversial information from the past that we can't back up. AlbertBickford ( talk) 14:33, 10 October 2015 (UTC)
@
AlbertBickford: thanks for pinging me, and sorry it's taken so long to respond. (By the way, I deeply appreciate your scruples in not editing the page directly. I know I've been tempted to edit
my employer's article as well.)
I think you make a good point. To be honest, I added that quote without reading the full article (which I haven't been able to access), thinking that a quote from the first page and a citation was more useful than no mention at all. Do you think you could send me a copy so I could more accurately characterize it? My email is mail (at) myfullname (dot) com. In the meantime, I've moved the quotes out of the introduction to a separate "Reputation" section so they're not unnecessarily prominent.— Neil P. Quinn ( talk) 06:57, 6 November 2015 (UTC)
@ AlbertBickford: Thanks for sending me the article! I've (finally) read it and updated the reputation section. Let me know if you can think of any improvements. Also, I'd be very interested to know about any other scholarly sources which review Ethnologue or discuss its history and reputation.— Neil P. Quinn ( talk) 19:45, 2 February 2016 (UTC)
How significant is the paywall? Important enough to include it in the lead of the article? Or, would it be better down in the main body of the article? By comparison, the articles on Encyclopedia Britannica and the New York Times do not mention income generation from their websites until later in the article. I'm guessing that the mention of the paywall in Ethnologue was stuck in the lead without much thought--or maybe because people were upset enough about it--which isn't exactly a NPOV. I recommend moving discussion of the paywall to the end of the Overview section. Comments? AlbertBickford ( talk) 23:16, 14 March 2016 (UTC)
Expanded Graded Intergenerational Disruption Scale · history; only one edition: 04:18, 5 November 2016 . (←Redirected page to Ethnologue) 24 bytes. Then its use at this article ( Ethnologue) like an internal link is recusrsive and worse it's useless. I change it, now.
(cur | prev) 04:18, 5 November 2016 John Vandenberg (talk | contribs) . . (24 bytes) (+24) . . (←Redirected page to Ethnologue) (thank)
... estimate of language viability using the Expanded Graded Intergenerational Disruption Scale (EGIDS) · · · · · · · · versus the actual one:
... estimate of language viability using the
Expanded Graded Intergenerational Disruption Scale (EGIDS)
Then its use at this article (
Ethnologue) like an internal link is recursive and worse it's useless. I change it, now. --
PLA y Grande Covián (
talk)
08:56, 13 January 2018 (UTC)
The previous post included my signature, copied from elsewhere, but I am not responsible for it, so I removed my signature. I assume the person who copied the reference is the same one who made the last few posts about EGIDS. I'm mystified by the argument as to why reference to EGIDS should be removed, since it has been used in the last several editions of the Ethnologue, has actually gone through a few cycles of refinement (although I don't know why that would make a difference), and is cited by others who are interested in language vitality. BTW, I am a regular contributor to Ethnologue, and the principal author on one of the articles that revised EGIDS, so I'll refrain from editing the article directly. But, I felt I needed to make a response here. AlbertBickford ( talk) 15:26, 13 January 2018 (UTC)
The information displayed on this site, appears to all be relevant to the topic. However, I do think that the information is a little out of date, as most of the information has not been updated since 2018. The tone of the article is neutral and there does not appear to be any heavily biased claims. I did notice that most of the references for this article, are from the Ethnologue official website. This article could be improved if a variety of different references were used that were not from the official website. The use of diverse references from different authors and publishers would led credence to this article. -- Vmarti7 ( talk) 17:32, 16 October 2020 (UTC) (Vmarti7)
This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | Archive 2 |
Ethnologue is as unscientific as you can find. It is so full of errors I am shocked it is quoted and used as a source so often. I have personally on mor than one occasion contacted the editor, who conceded without delay that the information was wrong. Rui ''Gabriel'' Correia ( talk) 21:51, 18 March 2015 (UTC)
Thanks, Maunus, for your constructive input. Yes, in fact, there is a very strong advisory on Wikipedia on how to use Ethnologue information. We should think of how to make it more prominent so editors don't blindly use it as a bible on everything language-related but use their with when they sense that something does not sound/ look right. Rui ''Gabriel'' Correia ( talk) 16:58, 20 March 2015 (UTC)
You disagree because you can't read. Try again. Rui ''Gabriel'' Correia ( talk) 20:58, 20 March 2015 (UTC)
I appreciate the additions made by @ Neil P. Quinn:, adding scholarly opinions about Ethnologue. Nicely done!
In response to Hammarström's criticism, the "failure" to cite sources, I'd like to say three things. (Full disclosure, I'm one of Ethnologue's research editors, which is why I'm doing so here rather than trying to adjust the article.) 1) The criticism is not entirely accurate, in that Ethnologue does disclose its sources in many cases. See, for example, the Ethnologue article on American Sign Language, which cites four sources. Hammarström's criticism, as quoted, could give the impression that Ethnologue never cites sources, which is not accurate. Ethnologue's citation practices are described in its http://www.ethnologue.com/about/plan-site introductory articles]. So, I'd like to request that some editor address this concern in the article; it is obviously not appropriate for me to do so. 2) In the past, citations were kept to a minimum, partly to save space in an already large printed volume, and partly to make reading easier for people who are not specialists, who constitute the primary audience. (In publications for a mixed popular and scientific audience, it is common to provide fewer citations than in scholarly articles.) Now that Ethnologue is primarily an internet publication, we are working to report more sources, especially for certain types of information like population that especially need backup. 3) People are always welcome to write and ask the editor for the source of any information. For changes made in the last several years, we have been careful to keep track of all sources in our database. Unfortunately, sources were not always recorded in earlier days, but in this case, if you have better information, we welcome corrections and we will remove controversial information from the past that we can't back up. AlbertBickford ( talk) 14:33, 10 October 2015 (UTC)
@
AlbertBickford: thanks for pinging me, and sorry it's taken so long to respond. (By the way, I deeply appreciate your scruples in not editing the page directly. I know I've been tempted to edit
my employer's article as well.)
I think you make a good point. To be honest, I added that quote without reading the full article (which I haven't been able to access), thinking that a quote from the first page and a citation was more useful than no mention at all. Do you think you could send me a copy so I could more accurately characterize it? My email is mail (at) myfullname (dot) com. In the meantime, I've moved the quotes out of the introduction to a separate "Reputation" section so they're not unnecessarily prominent.— Neil P. Quinn ( talk) 06:57, 6 November 2015 (UTC)
@ AlbertBickford: Thanks for sending me the article! I've (finally) read it and updated the reputation section. Let me know if you can think of any improvements. Also, I'd be very interested to know about any other scholarly sources which review Ethnologue or discuss its history and reputation.— Neil P. Quinn ( talk) 19:45, 2 February 2016 (UTC)
How significant is the paywall? Important enough to include it in the lead of the article? Or, would it be better down in the main body of the article? By comparison, the articles on Encyclopedia Britannica and the New York Times do not mention income generation from their websites until later in the article. I'm guessing that the mention of the paywall in Ethnologue was stuck in the lead without much thought--or maybe because people were upset enough about it--which isn't exactly a NPOV. I recommend moving discussion of the paywall to the end of the Overview section. Comments? AlbertBickford ( talk) 23:16, 14 March 2016 (UTC)
Expanded Graded Intergenerational Disruption Scale · history; only one edition: 04:18, 5 November 2016 . (←Redirected page to Ethnologue) 24 bytes. Then its use at this article ( Ethnologue) like an internal link is recusrsive and worse it's useless. I change it, now.
(cur | prev) 04:18, 5 November 2016 John Vandenberg (talk | contribs) . . (24 bytes) (+24) . . (←Redirected page to Ethnologue) (thank)
... estimate of language viability using the Expanded Graded Intergenerational Disruption Scale (EGIDS) · · · · · · · · versus the actual one:
... estimate of language viability using the
Expanded Graded Intergenerational Disruption Scale (EGIDS)
Then its use at this article (
Ethnologue) like an internal link is recursive and worse it's useless. I change it, now. --
PLA y Grande Covián (
talk)
08:56, 13 January 2018 (UTC)
The previous post included my signature, copied from elsewhere, but I am not responsible for it, so I removed my signature. I assume the person who copied the reference is the same one who made the last few posts about EGIDS. I'm mystified by the argument as to why reference to EGIDS should be removed, since it has been used in the last several editions of the Ethnologue, has actually gone through a few cycles of refinement (although I don't know why that would make a difference), and is cited by others who are interested in language vitality. BTW, I am a regular contributor to Ethnologue, and the principal author on one of the articles that revised EGIDS, so I'll refrain from editing the article directly. But, I felt I needed to make a response here. AlbertBickford ( talk) 15:26, 13 January 2018 (UTC)
The information displayed on this site, appears to all be relevant to the topic. However, I do think that the information is a little out of date, as most of the information has not been updated since 2018. The tone of the article is neutral and there does not appear to be any heavily biased claims. I did notice that most of the references for this article, are from the Ethnologue official website. This article could be improved if a variety of different references were used that were not from the official website. The use of diverse references from different authors and publishers would led credence to this article. -- Vmarti7 ( talk) 17:32, 16 October 2020 (UTC) (Vmarti7)