On 12/21/05, Steve Bennett stevage@gmail.com wrote:
It occurs to me that in academia, one occasionally sees "personal correspondance" or "publication forthcoming" cited. Is there something wrong with stating "The New York times gives Jim Smith's birthday as 24 May 1964, although Jim has stated that it's 24 May 1965[1]" where [1] is Personal email to Wikimedia Foundation, 5 Nov 2005. It's verifiable in the sense that you could always email Wikimedia and ask them if that's true.
Steve
If it's a personal email to the Wikipedia Foundation, or to our lawyers or something, then that's a different matter. The problem is that the Wikimedia Foundation aren't the ones putting the facts in the articles. It's if User:RandomName puts in a new date of birth and cites at the bottom "Personal Correspondence". There's no way we can check if that's true, and there's no one to turn to if the article's subject starts demanding corrections and accountability.
Sam -- Asbestos http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Asbestos