On Thu, 15 Jul 2010, Carcharoth wrote:
But really, if something is obscure enough that it doesn't get published in reliable sources, you are stuck. What I would support in such cases is an external link to a page documenting this. Kind of like further reading.
The *character* is in a reliable source, it's just that the fact that it was based off a fandom joke or that the character's "creator" thought it was preexisting are not in reliable sources.
And for the Marion Zimmer Bradley example, the *dispute* is present in reliable sources, it's just that *both sides* of the dispute are not (since only the side who is a professional author gets to publish her side professionally).
And the real point is that our reliable source concept is utterly broken when it comes to using blogs and other modern sources. Saying "if it's not in a reliable source, there's nothing you can do" misses the point. Sure there's something you can do: fix the definition of reliable source.