From: "Daniel P. B. Smith"
<dpbsmith(a)verizon.net>
On Jul 23, 2005, at 6:21 PM, wikien-l-request(a)Wikipedia.org wrote:
Impressive responses. One point: OR is often used
as a
an excuse to squash certain debated points, without
allowing them to devlop (including citing sources).
A silly example might be something like "go find some
source for your notion that the world is round, and
come back when you do so." Such source can then be
debated for a while.
I, and everyone else, frequently insert stuff that is "well known" without
citing sources. "Beethoven is widely regarded as one of the greatest of
composers..." "f = m * a"...
However, whenever a statement, however obvious, is seriously challenged, I
take it seriously.
IF something is TRULY well known, it is usually EASY to find a source.
When someone says cite a source, I just find one and cite it
.
And the article is the better for it.
Exactly so. People who claim that NOR is used to quash certain obvious
facts that are so well-known that they don't need to be cited. However, it
is generally easy to find citations for obvious facts. Often the search and
citation will help refine the information provided so that it is even more
accurate. Sometimes it will turn out that this "obvious fact" is merely one
POV, and further study will reveal opposing viewpoints, thus contributing to
NPOV. And if the obvious fact can't be found at all, then it's usually a
classic case of Original Research masquerading as "obvious fact".
"The earth is approximately an oblate spheroid (a
sphere flattened at the
poles.... For many navigational purposes the earth is assumed to be a
sphere, without intolerable error."
And now the article is even better, because "round" can describe a number of
shapes, so "sphere" is more accurate.
Once I've cited the source, I can replace the
sentence in the article that
says "the world is round" with the sentence "The U. S. Naval Oceanographic
Office states that for many navigational purposes the earth is assumed to
be a sphere, without intolerable error." Problem solved.
A more lengthy search will usually reveal a number of different sources
corroborating this fact; at that point one can simply state "the earth is a
sphere", with a footnote listing the multiple sources confirming that.
Jay.