On 3/27/07, Cary Bass cbass@wikimedia.org wrote:
Jeff Raymond wrote:
Cary Bass wrote:
I'm sorry, David, you are right. Let me rephrase that. I've never
seen
a blog entry that was reliable enough to be used as source material. These blog entries do not meat WP:RS, and any material derived from
them
should be eliminated.
This is the type of backwards, ten-years-ago thinking that I really wish we'd be able to overcome. I can list off a dozen blogs that are
perfectly
reliable for the subject matter that they offer up in various areas of culture and information. This idea that "self-published" = "bad" is antiquated thinking.
-Jeff
This sort of insulting commentary is entirely inappropriate.
Cary
He could have phrased it more gently, but I agree with the underlying opinion. Blogging is a tool for publication more than it is a form of publication. It's certainly no worse (and often a lot better) than the op-ed pieces you get in newspapers. In addition, it can be a valuable reporting tool - someone pointed out that bloggers covered the Scooter Libby case far better than the mainstream media...but much in the way that reporters did a century ago. If the medium had existed, Mencken would have blogged the Scopes Trial.