Marc Riddell wrote:
There seems to be a great concern about having verifiable material Œsources¹ in Wikipedia that can be checked; why not place at least as much importance on the Œsources¹ (the editors) of the very material that is included? We want to be able to check the reliability of the substance of the text, but seem to place little importance on being able to check on who entered it in the first place.
If the material is taken from an authoritative published source, why does it matter who typed it in? Is "the leaves are 20-30 cm long" more correct if it's personally typed in by the professional botanist, than by the high-school student who works from the botanist's book and lists it as a source?
If I want to question the substance of an Article in Wikipedia, I should be able to go to an editor¹s personal information page and get a sense that they have the expertise to be editing the material, and a page where I can contact them with questions. Every, reputable reference work has this.
"Get a sense"? So what you're saying is you want WP's reputation to hang on *your* intuition-based assessment of the editors' personal details? I'm an expert in some areas that I edit and an amateur in others, and as an expert it's hugely tempting to write into articles "this is true because *I* said so". But then how does someone else check that? I don't want to be answering the phone all day, and when I die, or more likely sooner, completely forget why I made the statement, what then? The whole approach of relying on "who you know" is really sloppy scholarship that's unfortunately common today, and I hope that WP will eventually come to be seen as exemplifying a stricter standard based on publications rather than personalities.
Stan