--- On Fri, 13/5/11, Scott MacDonald doc.wikipedia@ntlworld.com wrote:
The problem is that Wikipedians like to make the complex world simple, in order to create nice rules and pretend that what we do is objective and editorial judgement and POV can be excluded. This is a myth and a dangerous one.
We end up with people saying "well, is the NYT a reliable source or not?"
That reminds me of the celebrated occasion when editors insisted that Gloria Gaynor was a "former Scientologist", based solely on the fact that the Guardian had once published a piece called "Listed Scientologists". The piece was on page G2, "Diversions", next to the crossword puzzle and the TV programme.
The piece was just a list of names, and it had an uncanny resemblance to Wikipedia's List of Scientologists at the time of publication (which also included Gaynor as a former member, based on a poor and misrepresented web source).
Nevertheless, editors insisted that this was good sourcing, even though sources discussing her life in depth said nothing about that - except that she had at one time in her life looked at about a dozen different religions, including Scientology, to see if any would suit her.
Jimbo said*, "Do we imagine that the reporter interviewed a few dozen people to establish facts? No, the list obviously came from a quick look at something... could be Wikipedia, could be earlier news reports. If it's valid, then there should be some actual source to prove it (and so far no one has come up with one)."
That's exactly the kind of discrimination and judgment that needs to be applied. But editors were unwilling to give up on their "scoop", and barricaded themselves behind "The Guardian is a reliable source", "verifiability, not truth", and "not whether editors think it is true".
What's worse is that any editor who loses an argument based on "it's verifiable in a reliable source" and "not whether you think it's true" learns that this is how you win arguments in Wikipedia, and will use the same method themselves next time round, creating new converts in those they defeat.
A.
* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons/Noticeb...