From: "Tony Sidaway" minorityreport@bluebottle.com
SlimVirgin wrote: I agree that citing the original document is better than citing a secondary source, though others might argue that makes it hard for the reader and other editors to check that Wikipedia is quoting accurately.
I do hope that nobody would make such an argument. We should always cite primary sources where at all possible, and this instance shows the importance of correctly handling secondary sources.
Indeed. And the way *not* to handle them is to put caveats beside them stating (in so many words) that "we have not been able to verify these as truthful" (which, of course, we don't do). Doing so, of course, would be highly POV, since it would naturally create the impression that the sources were suspect and untrustworthy, rather than the actual case that certain editors are unwilling or unable to check the primary references. The fact that only a tiny number of seconday sources seem to even be candidates for this kind of treatment is interesting.
Jay.