On Jan 1, 2009, at 6:28 PM, George Herbert wrote:
Phil - can you be more specific about that policy?
Where is it?
on 1/2/09 12:18 PM, Phil Sandifer at snowspinner@gmail.com wrote:
Sure - it's actually WP:NOR - specifically, the line that all statements from primary sources must be easily verifiable by someone without specialist knowledge. This poses a significant problem for articles on scholars and specialists, whose writings provide a crucial perspective that, by its nature, cannot be replaced. It's a problem for a large band of articles - academic topics really, by their nature, can't function well when crucial sources need to be summarized without use of specialist knowledge.
Currently the discussion is proving how deeply pathological the anti- specialist bias is, with the suggestions being made, in all seriousness, that no sources that require specialist knowledge should be used, and that it is desirable to have people edit articles in areas they do not know anything about.
This is stunning, Phil. Now perhaps you and other persons on this List can appreciate the growing stone wall that I, and many other editors, have been confronted with for a long time.
Marc Riddell