David Gerard wrote:
On 10/04/2008, Delirium <delirium(a)hackish.org>
wrote:
That still leads us to the initial question---how
do we determine
accuracy and truth? Generally, we determine it by consulting and citing
sources, rather than doing original research ourselves. For example, if
through consulting archival documents I determine that the standard
attribution of some ancient Greek poet to the 4th century BC is actually
incorrect, and the truth is that he lived in the 2nd century BC, it
would still be appropriate for Wikipedia to report that he lived in the
4th century BC, unless I get my new estimate published in a classics
journal first.
That's fine for eventualism, but breaks down with living bios - on
which we are forced to be immediatist in order to avoid causing actual
harm, because we're vastly popular and have a ridiculously high Google
page rank.
It isn't so much eventualism that causes us to reject these
"improvements" based on original research, though, as actually a
distrust that the original research is correct. While we phrase it as
"that's a nice discovery, but please submit to a classics journal
first", what we really mean at least 19 times out of 20 is, "your
alleged 'discovery' is actually bunk, but don't take it from us; if you
really think it's a discovery, go submit to a classics journal and let
it get ripped to shreds in peer review".
Are we more confident in the ability of nonspecialist Wikipedians to
carry out accurate original research based on analyzing primary sources
when it comes to living people? A lot of the research I see in this area
is highly questionable, including a lot of "I searched arrest database
[x] and didn't find anything, therefore my research shows Joe Bob was
never arrested".
-Mark