[WikiEN-l] Online Newspapers Considering Subscription Model

[wjhonson at aol.com]

The problem of lack of availability has been with us since the year 
3000 BC.  We can't solve every problem right away.  That we can specify 
a citation stating that *if* you had a way to get the item, you could 
verify it, satisfies our policy requirement that an item is "published" 
(made available to the public).

Satisfaction of the guideline (or discussion) issue that an item should 
be widely available, would come from projects like Gutenberg and 
WikiSource for publication of things like books and from newspaper 
archives or JSTOR for publication of things like newspapers and 
magazines.

That something is not yet available online, shouldn't be a factor in 
considering whether or not we should cite it.  Even the library of Bora 
Bora *could* (theoretically at least) request a copy of an item for 
you, provided you have the citation and the repository location (see 
worldcat.org).

Will Johnson



-----Original Message-----
From: Charles Matthews <charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com>
To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at lists.wikimedia.org>
Sent: Fri, Aug 7, 2009 2:49 pm
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Online Newspapers Considering Subscription Model


David Goodman wrote:
> A much more serious problem is the availability of this material in
> the less-developed world, which includes a great many people who rely
> on the English Wikipedia--many of whom do not have practical access to
> any good library.
Quite. But then the traditional solution has been ... compile an
encyclopedia (since the 17th century). The cream of scholarly info
without all the underlying scholarship.

The fact that we have extremes of scepticism, often driven by divisive
or ideological or partisan starting points, should not eclipse the fact
that _we_ offer a solution to the inequities of access to basic
information. As they say, if not us, who?

Those of us who have been around here a while have seen the
ultra-verificationist perspective spread out from the most vexed areas
to appear as a problem all over the 'pedia. (Not without 
justification.)
But let's keep things the right way round: if we post the facts, and
they are verifiable, and the verifying sources are behind subscription
walls, the readers are still better off than without the info.

Charles


_______________________________________________
WikiEN-l mailing list
WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l