jayjg wrote:
Right, we can all come up with some extreme example of an absolute
madman editing some page. At some point common sense has to prevail,
if not the "extreme minority" provisions of [[WP:NPOV]]. But, to get
back to the original point, there's no way that a claim that something
is "legal consensus" based on a search of some database you've done
can ever be considered a "simple fact", or even something that has
been "reliably cited". Quote a legal expert or legal tome making that
claim.
Yes, I agree this discussion has diverged quite a bit from the original
topic. Certainly *I* never tried to make the claim that "I could not
find a contrary opinion in a legal database" could reasonably be taken
to imply a "legal consensus" without engaging in original research.
My point earlier in this thread was that, in my view, not all databases
are equal, and that specifically, at least for some libraries, the claim
that "no book with this ISBN is listed in the catalog" is not only in
itself a meaningful and verifiable fact, but in *some* cases *might*
even be taken as reasonable evidence that the book is not, at least
officially[1], to be found at the library in question.
In the particular message you replied to, my point was simply that any
policy that assumes that "no reasonable person will" can only work in
the long run if there is some way to deal with the eventual appearance
of an unreasonable person.
([1] It is, of course, possible that the book is, in fact, to be found
in the shelves because someone put it there while nobody was looking;
this may seem unlikely, but stranger things have happened, such as
people sneaking paintings into a museum. Whether that really counts as
it being part of the library's collection, at least until it is
discovered, is of course debatable, as is the (more common) case of
whether a book that has been stolen from the library should be counted.
In any case, phrasing the citation such that it only makes claims
about the official catalog should render such concerns irrelevant.)
--
Ilmari Karonen