[WikiEN-l] Verifiability and Africa

[Kirill Lokshin]

On 3/2/06, Nicholas Moreau <beaubeaver at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> Africa was brought up in discussion of verifiability. This raises an  important question, should/can we be lax references for African content  in en?
>
>  Suppose a tribes' elder writes an article on his village, he'll do it  based on oral history, or one-off documents. This information may be  recorded in books, but these books are stashed away in libraries miles  upon miles away.
>
>  What happens then? It's true information, but there's little or no available sources for the writer to cite.

Err, how would the elder find Wikipedia?

I think it's safe to say, at least for the time being, that most of
our article writing will be done by people in countries that have
access to modern libraries.  If/when we start seeing any substantial
amount of content added by people who cannot use published sources
(but nevertheless have a decent Internet connection and a working
knowledge of English), we can deal with possible exceptions to policy.

Kirill Lokshin