[WikiEN-l] WikiEN-l Digest, Vol 41, Issue 153

[Ray Saintonge]

Sarah wrote:

>On 12/19/06, charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com
><charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com> wrote:
>  
>
>>Sarah wrote
>>    
>>
>>>Any public library can order material that's in a regular academic
>>>library.
>>>      
>>>
>>Sorry - any public library in Kerala, Kampala or even Lima can order up anything from any academic library? Do remember that this is a global project. The 'populist' idea that anybody should be able to fact-check anything rather founders on the reality that it at most refers to about 5% of the world population, selected just about entirely on wealth.
>>
>>We are really doing the opposite: making the cream of reliable-source material actually globally available whereever there is a decent internet connection.
>>    
>>
>Charles, anyone in the English-speaking world should be able easily to
>fact-check our material, and this is the English-language Wikipedia,
>so that has to be our priority. 
>
Two of the three places that he mentioned are in the English-speaking 
world.  I have no problem with the priority cited, nor with other 
wikipedias having parallel policies.

>Your argument seems to be that because
>everyone in the world can't fact-check it, no one should be able to,
>and that we should instead leave the writing and research to
>self-selected Wikipiedia "experts," many of whom are anonymous and may
>have no expertise at all, or if they do, may not be highly regarded by
>other experts in the field.
>
I don't read that interpretation into the above at all; there is 
certainly no mention of experts.

>I agree wholeheartedly that we should make the cream of
>reliable-source material globally available, but I strongly disagree
>with allowing Wikipedians to insert their own opinions and
>interpretations between those sources and our readers.
>
We all disagree with generally allowing personal opinions.  The 
disagreement is in what constitutes personal opinion.  I do not consider 
it personal opinion to say that we have not found the information in a 
specified range of sources.  Such a comment is a partial step toward 
sourcing, and may be as much as can be done at the moment.  Full 
sourcing may require the combined efforts of several editors with access 
to a different range of sources.  If we disallow partial sourcing it 
could be more difficult to ever have a collaborative result that is the 
sum of these partial sourcings.

Ec