SomePerson:: " then what is the credibility of Wikipedia and similar non-edu/gov sources?"
Maybe you::" they're your best friend telling you they know what they're doing because they watched a YouTube tutorial on it."
I'm not sure if you are making fun of people who use a variety of media other than print. Many people have disabilities that make reading more difficult, like dyslexia or vision issues that require using audio media.
I use video all the time because I have slight dyslexia and I can absorb material much faster that way (running videos at 2x).
So, I not sure I understand what you are saying...
@Pat
I'm not discounting the medium. I'm discounting the source.
Wikipedia/YouTube are not credible sources.
They're not sources at all. They're mediums. They convey information from other sources.
You have to look at the underlying sources. In YouTube it's whoever uploaded the video. On Wikipedia it's the source that is cited for whatever claim is being made in the article.
Wikipedia is actually very reliable, comparatively. It's vetted by lots of smart people who verify the information. It's actual better than most content from edited, published sources. Most publishers don't have hundreds of staff checking every fact, but Wikipedia does.
And Youtube, PeerTube and the rest are just communication channels. If Stanford posts a video on YouTube, it's probably reliable info.
@Pat
To be clear, if you sourced a scientific journal in your research- it is very unlikely it will base its scientific findings on a YouTube video or Wikipedia page
If you're simply reviewing for personal use, by all means- go ahead.
If you cite a source, you don't cite Wikipedia or YouTube. You cite the actual source. You look at the citation for the claim (the footnote) in Wikipedia and go there to verify it and cite it.
If you find something on YouTube and need to cite the information in (in a published paper), you go to whoever uploaded the video to verify it and cite.
Usually I'm just browsing information, but I still will often seek out the cited source or video poster to verify things I find in those types of sources.
If it's just for fun, maybe I won't bother, but for something information, like COVID-19 info, I'll track down the source and make sure what I got is from a reliable study or source.
@Pat
"If you cite a source, you don't cite Wikipedia or YouTube. You cite the actual source. You look at the citation for the claim (the footnote) in Wikipedia and go there to verify it and cite it."
This was my intended argument. Though many people feel free to cite the platforms directly instead of supposed sources of the contributed material. in cases like Wikipedia, many content is pending citation- and remains to be proven accurate. I'm not saying Wikipedia is always wrong, but cannot be consistently relied upon to be 100% accurate enough to cite the platform instead of the sources or lack thereof.
I guess we're on the same page here. Your OP
(original post) didn't mention anything about citation in research papers, it sounded like it was making fun of people who use video media. I've never seen anybody cite Wikipedia in a published paper (although I've heard stories); that's a freshman mistake.
I cited a Wikipedia article today here on qoto in a toot. But that's completely different. We're just shooting the shit here, not performing science. A toot doesn't require that kind of rigor and if anybody wants to dig deeper the sources are there in the article.
(and that should be "whomever", not "whoever"; he said correcting his own grammar...)
And regarding video tutorials. Sometimes if I'm going to read something in an area that I'm not familiar with, rather than try to plow through some highly technical paper written by an expert scientist in the field (who may be a very good researcher, but let's face it, many are lousy writers), I will seek out a video by an expert who has already digested that type of info, or a lecture by a prof or something so I can get a feel for it first. Then I can dig through the research more efficiently. Videos are very useful tools.
Also, some concepts are just made for video presentation. Visualizing how special relativity works is a good example. There are lots of different ways to present that and video is good tool for that, as an example.
@lucifargundam That's why you check the sources cited on Wikipedia to be able to form a better opinion of the credibility.