On 7/26/06, Erik Moeller eloquence@gmail.com wrote:
People have been overinterpreting WP:RS recently (which itself is a guideline, not policy). This is a problematic trend.
Yes. There is very much confusion between the concepts of "verifiability" (we can determine where information came from), "verifiable sources" (we can actually get hold of the sources of the information), and "reliable sources" (those sources aren't hate blogs).
It might help to establish some kind of scale of good to bad:
1. Information is cited to a high quality source which is easily obtained. 2. Information is cited to a high quality source which is not easily obtained. 3. Information came from a high quality source, but was not cited. 4. Information is cited to a low quality source which is easily obtained. 5. Information is cited to a low quality source which is not easily obtained. 6. Information came from a low quality source, which was not cited.
Do people agree with that ranking?
I place 3 above 4 because at least in 3 the information is, at the end of the day, very likely correct. And I imagine we prefer having high quality, unsourced information, rather than low quality, sourced information. Though it's certainly better to have low quality sourced information than low quality unsourced information.
Interestingly, when I reanalyse that list, it gives the following priorities: 1. Use high quality sources [[WP:RS]] 2. Cite your sources [[WP:CS]] 3. Use sources that are easily obtained [[WP:V]]
Steve