Will Beback wrote:
Matthew Brown wrote:
1) ...
Is it enough to simply match name, approximate age, and state of
residence in death records to prove someone is dead for BLP concerns?
2) Are such lookups in SSDI legitimate sourcing for articles, or are
they original research?
Under special circumstances (highly unusual names, extremely advanced
ages, very small states) the information may be presumed correct. Under
normal circumstances it's impossible to be sure that one has the right
entry. My opinion is that the guideline should be to exclude raw primary
source material like the SSDI but that editors could plead a special
case, as with any guideline.
And my opinion is that the guideline should say the same thing as common
sense, without any mention of red herrings like "raw primary sources":
if the source, of whatever kind, clearly says something (and is
otherwise regarded as reliable), go ahead and use it -- but don't go
leaping into inferences that might be wrong.
Deciding when something is clear and when it isn't must be made on a
case by case basis, using common sense. But then, this is a decision
one must always make, when deciding whether a particular source is
really talking about the same thing as the article you'd like to cite it
in. The issue is by no means limited to names (though they're a common
source of confusion), nor to databases or even primary sources in general.
--
Ilmari Karonen