[WikiEN-l] Age fabrication and original research

[Ken Arromdee]

On Tue, 29 Sep 2009, Durova wrote:
> Suppose for discussion's sake we can fully trust that the brother-in-law of
> Jeane Dixon's nephew has indeed commented upon the matter.  Relatives have
> been known to get their facts wrong.  The more distant, the more likely a
> mistake.

But that argument applies to anything.  Even the kind of sources we accept
have been known to get their facts wrong.  "We shouldn't listen to the
relatives because they might be wrong" is not just an argument for ignoring
the relatives, it's one for not having Wikipedia at all.

What you have to argue is "it's far more likely that the relatives got it
wrong than the reliable sources", and that's a lot harder to justify.