[WikiEN-l] Foreign language WP as a source

[Alex Regh]

Hi there!

On Tue, 17 Apr 2007 00:03:49 +0100, Thomas Dalton wrote:

>> >Real quick question: Is there any problem with using a foreign language WP
>> >Article as a source in the English language one? In this case it's birth &
>> >death dates.
>> >
>> Absolutely nothing wrong with that.
>
>Yes, there is definitely something wrong with that. What are you
>talking about? We're always telling the public not to use Wikipedia as
>a source - that same rule applies to us for exactly the same reasons.

That is debatable, if you ask me. Imagine that an article is wholly without
dates, making it, for the casual reader, impossible to place the subject in
history. (And we do have such articles.) In that case, I rather have a date
that can be reasonably expected not to be utterly wrong instead of nothing. 

I do agree that it would be far better to have other sources, but if we have
none, say, because one stumbles over an article in a field one is really not
familiar with, and can translate a glaring omission from another language WP,
that is better than nothing. Of course, an appropriate tag might be a good
idea, too.

Greetings from Cologne,
Alex
-- 
If you don't go over the top, 
you can't see what's on the other side. 
        --- Jim Steinman ---

Alex' Assorted Homepages: www.alexsite.de