Anthony DiPierro wrote:
On 5/30/06, Ray Saintonge
<saintonge(a)telus.net> wrote:
If among all those Ngs
there is only one Egg Foo Ng it might still be useful there.
I don't see how. Just because there is only Egg Foo Ng in the phone
book still doesn't mean that there is only one Egg Foo Ng in the area
served by that phone book. I just don't see how such information can
be useful, especially considering how easy it is to put false
information into a phone book (in my experience there is generally no
verification of the names at all).
People can indeed put false information into phone books, and into many
other publications. Most don't. Assume good faith is as important for
reading phone books as for reading Wikipedia edits. It also happens
that widows leave the phone listing in their husband's name long after
his death. The average person wants the phone book information to be
correct. That's how people find him. The value of a phone book when
used as a sole source of information is limited, but it can be very
helpful when used in conjunction with other references. It is poor
research to prejudicially dismiss any source.
And we
haven't even mentioned the usefulness of the yellow pages in
establishing the existence of a business over a time frame.
It's even easier to put false information into the yellow pages section.
So? That doesn't mean that every entry has false information.
No, it doesn't. However, it does mean that a phone book isn't a
*reliable* source.