steven l. rubenstein said:
It is true that there is debate over what constitutes a reputable/non-dubious/authoritative source, and we will never agree on a single standard. But I think we do all agree that we need to discriminate between authoritative, non-authoritative but useful, and unacceptable sources.
Absolutely. it's fun to give people instructions on which policy documentsthey are supposed to reread, and perhaps less fun to read the examples they give. I think the examples I gave illustrate well the difference between "authoritative" and "non-authoritative"--it's a matter of context. As far as I'm aware, there are no useless or unacceptable sources (even /dev/random has a value in the right context), only useless and unacceptable citations.