On Fri, 29 Dec 2006 10:18:56 -0800, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
No, I don't think it does - or if it does it's not relevant. We will allow sources of varying degrees of reliability as long as overall there are one or two really solid sources for the core premise of the article (because, unlike academic papers, we don't allow original research). But as long as the subject itself is fundamentally supported by good, credible sources, it's not necessary to cite Britannica for every trivial fact.
Where I have difficulty is in finding that this view still rests on a number of highly subjective notions: "reliability", "really solid", "good, credible", "trivial". ven leaving aside "original research" and how we view that there is still a wide gap in how we understand these subjective terms. If I use the academic paper as a reference point it's considerably more than what we might find in popular publications, and noticeably less than what is wanted by those who view each article as an isolated whole that strives for independence from the rest of the encyclopedia.
I'd say that the subjectivity was largely illusory. There would, I think, be little dissent form the view that Nature is a solid reliable source, and equally little dissent from the idea that a political extremist's blog is a bad source on which to base an article.
Nor would there be much dissent form the notion that contentious ideas require robust secondary sources and attribution to known authorities, whereas small and uncontentious ideas can often be sourced from primary sources. Compare and contrast: X is a blonde; X is a *natural* blonde.
Everything must be stated form the neutral point of view. If there are no secondary sources, how can we check that? So it's fair to require that we can verify the overall article from reputable sources, and equally fair that minor elements within that article might be sourced from the International Journal of Everybody Knows That. Which is, of course, not infallible, so is open to challenge.
Guy (JzG)