--- On Fri, 13/5/11, Delirium delirium@hackish.org wrote:
From: Delirium delirium@hackish.org Isn't this just a failure to actually think through what verifying information with a reliable source means, rather than a problem with the principle? It's quite possible for the Guardian to be a good newspaper in general, but for a random list in the "Diversions" section, with no apparent investigative reporting involved, to *not* constitute reliable verification of that point.
I actually think it's malice, rather than a failure to think through what verification means. And it's malice in most cases where editors insist that some tabloid claim should stay in a biography, based on "verifiability, not truth." They don't like the subject, and enjoy taking pot shots at them.
I guess I see that kind of critical source analysis as completely in line with the idea of "verifiable information cited to reliable sources", though. At least as I read it, the WP:V/WP:RS combination asks: is this given citation sufficient to verify the fact it claims to verify? So I wholeheartedly agree that bright-line rules like "everything in The Guardian is reliable" are wrong, but I don't think that ought to require abandoning the WP:V/WP:RS view, at least as I've understood it. Isn't there even some text on WP:RS (there used to be, anyway) about how reliable sources may be context-specific, e.g. a newspaper may be a reliable source for some claims but not for others?
Yes, those sections are still there:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:NEWSORG
I don't see editors quoting them much.
A.