Andrew Gray wrote:
On 13/05/07, Todd Allen toddmallen@gmail.com wrote:
plenty of people that have gotten in trouble for lying about where they went to school, and a -ton- of people that lie about their age.)
The single most common specific OTRS complaint is "please correct my date of birth"... I can't offhand think of any who've asked us to correct which university they went to - at least, none where it might have been wishful puffery. (There have been a couple who wanted us to fix that we had them down as attending a prestigious university they didn't, but I don't remember any the other way around)
In the absence of credible alternative information, one should begin from a position of assuming good faith on the part of these people when it comes to basic biographical data. Sometimes there will be controversies, but one should not assume that there is controversy. Otherwise reliable sources can make innocent mistakes, and those become copied by other reliable sources until the wrong information dominates the sources. By the time the subject notices the source of the original error may no longer exist, and nobody can determine where the idea came from.
In the extreme case the subject may be willing to fax us documentary proof of the facts, but since this is contrary to the claims of an overwhelming majority of "reliable" sources we find this proof unacceptable. I really would like to poot in a good word for good judgement, and being able to evaluate between some poor sap that's just trying to set the record straight and another that's trying to elevate his own reputation above reality. Inevitably, our judgement will be wrong about some of them, but probably less often than blind acceptance of "reliable" sources.
Ec