On 07/04/2008, SlimVirgin <slimvirgin(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
We don't try to impose "the truth"
on people, and we don't expect that
they should trust anything just because they read it in Wikipedia. All
we do is provide what we hope are the best and most appropriate
sources, and a surrounding text that sums up what good sources are
saying, in a way that we hope is readable and that makes readers want
to know more. We enable them to inform themselves.
That's the difference between us and, say, the Encyclopaedia
Britannica. We empower readers. We don't ask for their blind trust.
Uh, the history of [[WP:RS]] is *precisely* an attempt to impose such
upon the reader. Canonicalising given sources is training wheels for
sourcing at best - it's a limited rule to teach beginners right at the
introduction to the subject. Not a basis for going on.
RS has always been a troubled guideline. It's wavered between versions
with long instructions about how to identify reliable sources, and
versions that are basically just a repeat of WP:V.