On 5/8/05, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
As a person who is a manic book collector I am not lacking in obscure sources. I could correctly cite an issue of the "Strand Magazine" to say that Queen Victoria enjoyed mountain climbing and reached the top of several of the highest peaks in Scotland, but I would be wrong to cite the same reference to say that she broke her leg during one of these climbs? Good scholarship would require that these facts be checked, but who is going to do that kind of checking even when I make it easy by giving the date and page number for the information. If people do that checking, and find that I am consistently adding fraudulent information my reputation will suffer. In the absence of checking the wrong information could remain there for years.
You don't have to go even that far. Most people don't have easy access to checking something as mainstream as a New York Times article from ten years ago. Most wouldn't even bother checking.
...UNLESS it was incommensurate with another network of facts. I know next to nothing about Queen Victoria, but if you posted some obscure reference about one of the characters I knew about, I'd probably try to track it down if it didn't harmonize with my previous knowledge.
References can be faked for academic papers, too. But as a network of eyes, they become less problematic. Not every reference will be checked, but not every reference warrants checking (as a somewhat related humorous note: I read a very poor book today where the author had cited FOUR separate sources to back up the claim that "Charles Darwin was born to a wealthy family.").
In the end, attribution of sources works in all cases. Sometimes a disclaimer is necesary. But I don't see why Usenet is any worse than any other source, assuming the attribution is done correctly. I wouldn't cite Usenet for information about the speed of light. But I would cite it for information about how a well-known Usenet figure is portrayed on Usenet. Which seems to be what this is all about. This seems fairly obvious to me.
FF