Abd ul-Rahman Lomax wrote:
At 09:29 PM 5/24/2008, WJhonson(a)aol.com wrote
Do you, since you are solely and only fixing
"badly writen English" have to
be yourself familiar with the underlying source from which it
supposedly comes.
My opinion is that you need to be sure you understand it before you
change a paraphrase.
That's a fair middle position. There are plenty of paraphrases which
cause one to wonder, "Did the source author really mean this?" Those
absolutely demand checking with the source.
That's the
question. I say that's a silly position to take. We can
certainly fix badly writen English, without needing to be aware of
what source, or any source, from which it comes.
Given that there seems to be a consensus that accuracy is quite
important, more important than style, or even "good English," I'd say
it's not quite silly. Take anything to an extreme, you can make it silly.
We have more than a few exemplars available to prove that statement.
Nobody is disputing the importance of accuracy, though there are
problems with defining the level of accuracy suitable to some articles.
Now, suppose that the original writing did *not*
faithfully reflect
the source. You take that erroneous text and "fix" it. With the same
reference, of course. Are you now responsible for the inaccuracy that
you have perpetuated?
Assuming that our first contributor is still around, we have the makings
of an edit war over If both refuse to discuss the matter on the talk
page it will probably take a third person to guide the dispute to
settlement.
We need editorial notes. It's possible to put them
in the wikitext,
not visible unless you edit: "I just reworded this, I did not check
the source. Please, someone with access to the source, check what
I've done." Probably better to do this in Talk, though.
Editorial notes could be useful, but that may not be the best place for
them. In the edit box having the text interrupted by in-line notes and
references makes it more difficult to develop quality sentence flow.
Pretty much, this is what another writer said about
this. Ask for
help from someone to check your new paraphrase. If you do so, you'll
be utterly free of any blame for introduced errors, or for the
implied validation of improper sourcing from your new paraphrase.
POV editing is
accompanied by the self-declared notion that one's own
view is the only view that could possibly be neutral. There is also a
passion for having things settled to the detriment of onging dialogue
which can often seem messy and disordered.
Ec