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There was a question related to attack terms like DNS spoofing and DNS cache poisoning. Now most times these two terms are used interchangeably. But I wanted a solid reference document to support this but could not find any (mentioned it in a comment).

I saw the Wikipedia article but for some reason I felt that giving a Wikipedia article as a reference in the answers will not be a good thing. Later there was an answer which gave the Wikipedia link.

I wonder is it a good practice to give Wikipedia links in your answers?

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    As long as you have an answer in addition to the link, not just the link on its own.
    – Rory Alsop Mod
    Mar 27, 2013 at 12:09

2 Answers 2

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In general, I think it is good practice to give references.

Of course the quality of references varies a lot. Wikipedia is obviously better than some random website. But a website from someone with a high reputation in the security context may be better. Ideally the reference goes to a peer reviewed research paper.

Often Wikipedia articles have a References section at the end.

To summarize: Referencing Wikipedia is okay. If someone comes up with a higher quality reference, even better.

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A Wikipedia link should never stand in place for an answer. I find the best uses of it are much like within Wikipedia itself; words within an otherwise complete answer that might raise questions or be beyond the scope of the explanation should be linked to Wikipedia articles.

With regard to references, I believe Wikipedia is a perfectly acceptable source to cite[1.].


Bibliography

  1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citation
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    Perfect. 2 additions: I would expand that there are times where it is good to quote a section of a WP article, but again in addition to the otherwise complete answer. Also, note that there ARE wikipedia articles which may not be 100% correct, accurate, or complete. In short, unlike Skeptics, while WP is not an authoritative source, it is a pretty decent substitute. It is good as prepared explanation, but it cannot stand in place of good analysis and reason.
    – AviD Mod
    Mar 28, 2013 at 16:09
  • @AviD thanks, now I have to spend all afternoon reading Skeptics.
    – lynks
    Mar 28, 2013 at 16:28

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