On Sat, Oct 3, 2009 at 12:02 PM, Ken Arromdee
<arromdee(a)rahul.net> wrote:
On Fri, 2 Oct 2009, Rob wrote:
In this context, the secondary source is "I found a reference to a
newspaper
article which quotes the date". It's
not going to discuss the conflict
the
way you describe--it's just more acceptable
because it better fits the
rule.
I got the newspaper article today and it turns out it discusses the
birth date discrepancy in detail, with references to interviews with
family, a number of documents, and court testimony. This is exactly
the reason we should be using these kinds of sources as opposed to our
own amateur database lookups, not the strawman of a rules fetish.
If they're available. But what if they're not? Is it okay to mention that
the contradictory information exists?
I doubt you're going to come up with a hard and fast rule which doesn't have
any unintended consequences. Ultimately, the fact that "everyone can edit"
ensures a system of "verifiability, not truth".