[WikiEN-l] An expert's perspective - Tim Bray on editing the XML article

[Abd ul-Rahman Lomax]

At 02:27 PM 8/14/2009, you wrote:

>I'm glad you finally agree with me :)
>Everyone can edit.  Experts and non-experts together.
>Anyone can find a source stating that "cats have retractable claws".
>Supposed experts should be able to find that souce faster.
>
>I'm not really interested in an expert *explaining* anything to me.  I'm
>interested in that expert finding the souces that *back up* their words with
>published third-party authorities.

Sure. However, sources alone are often not enough. You may have all 
the sources in front of you, and fail to understand them because of 
assumptions in those sources that an expert -- or someone moderately 
familiar with the field -- will understand.

>If they can't do that function, then I agree that they should not be
>editing.

I wouldn't go that far. Experts should have the same right to put up 
unsourced text as anyone else, in fact probably more right. The 
problem is only when there is conflict.

>   You might find 200 online sources that state that Mary of Parma was born
>in 956, but I can show that none of these are realiable sources.  My own
>opinion on when she was born has nothing to do with anything, 
>sources are what
>matters.

I'm chary of experts determining what sources are reliable, as 
Carcharoth suggests. There are two meanings for "reliability." 
Reliability in RS, I claim, depends solely on the publisher, and 
reliability in this sense is about notability, and certainly not 
about reliability in the ordinary sense, that we could assume that 
the material is "true." If it's in independently published source, 
it's reliably sourced. Sure, there are gray areas.

If we accept that fact in reliable source -- or "asserted fact", to 
be precise about what can be verified -- is usuable in the project, 
my view is that RS establishes notability and that, therefore, the 
fact belongs somewhere in the project, it should not be excluded 
because someone, expert or not, claims that, say, the author is 
biased. Rather, if that impeaching claim can be backed, itself, by 
reliable source, we would provide both, and the original "fact" would 
be stated with attribution, "according to ..." and probably likewise 
the rebuttal. Even if there is no impeaching claim in reliable 
source, it is within the sovereignty of local consensus to include 
attribution where it will broaden consensus.

I'd love to give some examples, but not right now. The real point is 
that we determine NPOV and many other things by consensus, there is 
no objective standard that works all the time, but if we have broad 
consensus, found through voluntary acceptance of text, we can be sure 
that it is NPOV *and* accurate, and the broader the consensus, the 
greater our certainty. At some point, there is a loss of efficiency, 
when our scale is large, trying to pull in and satisfy that last 
holdout.... but the principle remains. Consensus is the only way we 
have of measuring NPOV, notability, or anything, in fact.