From: "Jeff Raymond" jeff.raymond@internationalhouseofbacon.com
When the mainstream media consistently uses blogs as reliable information for their stories, there's absolutely no reason why we can't do the same thing.
-Jeff
It's a question of the "web of trust." My belief is that part of a journalist's skill involves knowing what sources to trust (and in obtaining reliable information from not-fully-reliable sources through various means, such as cross-checking with other not-fully-reliable sources). My belief is also that a journalist measures a blog posting, or anything else, against a large body of background that _he_ has, that _I_ don't have, that _he_ can use to judge the credibility of the source.
Just because the New York Times' source for _a_ story is _a_ blog doesn't mean that _any_ blog has the same reliability as The New York Times.
It's like saying that a "when mainstream surgeons consistently use scalpels as reliable tools for cutting into living flesh, there's no reason why we can't do the same thing."
Of course, if one believes that the existence of bad journalist and bad surgeons implies that journalists and surgeons don't genuinely possess any special skills, then it would follow that anyone can use a blog (or a scalpel) just as safely as a journalist (or a surgeon).
It was Dilbert's pointy-haired boss reasoned that "anything I don't understand must be easy..."
On 27/03/07, wikipedia2006@dpbsmith.com wikipedia2006@dpbsmith.com wrote:
Just because the New York Times' source for _a_ story is _a_ blog doesn't mean that _any_ blog has the same reliability as The New York Times.
Indeed, but just because _some_ blogs are full of rubbish, doesn't mean that _all_ blogs should be ignored completely (which is, AIUI, the current BLP policy).
On 3/28/07, James Farrar james.farrar@gmail.com wrote:
Indeed, but just because _some_ blogs are full of rubbish, doesn't mean that _all_ blogs should be ignored completely (which is, AIUI, the current BLP policy).
So let's formulate a more sensible policy:
1) Blog posts can be used to substantiate the opinion of their authors at the time of posting. 2) Respected, widely used blogs can be used in the same manner as other types of publications where defamation of living people is not concerned. Of course, proof of "respect" and "wide use" must be demonstrable.
But what do you really want to do when a respected, widely used blog claims that some living person bribed a member of parliament, and provides some kind of "proof"? I don't see how we could publish that. Can anyone name a blog they would feel comfortable citing directly for something really contentious and defamatory? If the claims are that important, surely they will be picked up, verified and repeated by newspapers or other media?
Steve
On Wed, 28 Mar 2007, Steve Bennett wrote:
But what do you really want to do when a respected, widely used blog claims that some living person bribed a member of parliament, and provides some kind of "proof"?
I'd say it depends. For instance, in the extreme case where the blog was a blog by a member of parliament who has been there, I'd give the blog at least as much credence as I'd give a newspaper article about the same thing. Sure, he could be lying in the blog, but he could also lie to the newspaper.
If the claims are that important, surely they will be picked up, verified and repeated by newspapers or other media?
That might be true if it's actually about a member of parliament, but there are claims that can have limited audiences, and yet be "important" in the sense that they are still encyclopediac subjects. It may be that nobody picks up the claim because nobody picks up most claims related to the topic, rather than because this claim is particularly unimportant.
On 3/27/07 11:19 PM, "Ken Arromdee" arromdee@rahul.net wrote:
If the claims are that important, surely they will be picked up, verified and repeated by newspapers or other media?
That might be true if it's actually about a member of parliament, but there are claims that can have limited audiences, and yet be "important" in the sense that they are still encyclopediac subjects. It may be that nobody picks up the claim because nobody picks up most claims related to the topic, rather than because this claim is particularly unimportant.
Or, perhaps, we could consider that if there are no indisputably reliable sources about a living person, we should not have an encyclopedia article on that person until such reliable sources are available. Or is that too difficult a concept to grasp?
Loosening our "reliable sources" criteria is all well and good when considering something like Pokemon or Star Wars characters, but we're talking about the lives and reputations of real people, and I am vehemently opposed to weakening the criteria for biographical sources.
What we write appears on one of the most popular Internet sites in the world, and there is a moral and ethical imperative for us to be responsible and prudent when talking about real people. Yes, that means accepting only sources which are clearly reliable to support information of a negative nature.
-Travis Mason-Bushman
Travis Mason-Bushman wrote:
Or, perhaps, we could consider that if there are no indisputably reliable sources about a living person, we should not have an encyclopedia article on that person until such reliable sources are available. Or is that too difficult a concept to grasp?
Loosening our "reliable sources" criteria is all well and good when considering something like Pokemon or Star Wars characters, but we're talking about the lives and reputations of real people, and I am vehemently opposed to weakening the criteria for biographical sources.
What we write appears on one of the most popular Internet sites in the world, and there is a moral and ethical imperative for us to be responsible and prudent when talking about real people. Yes, that means accepting only sources which are clearly reliable to support information of a negative nature.
You have my full and unreserved support in this.
--Jimbo
Jimmy Wales wrote:
Travis Mason-Bushman wrote:
Or, perhaps, we could consider that if there are no indisputably reliable sources about a living person, we should not have an encyclopedia article on that person until such reliable sources are available. Or is that too difficult a concept to grasp?
Loosening our "reliable sources" criteria is all well and good when considering something like Pokemon or Star Wars characters, but we're talking about the lives and reputations of real people, and I am vehemently opposed to weakening the criteria for biographical sources.
What we write appears on one of the most popular Internet sites in the world, and there is a moral and ethical imperative for us to be responsible and prudent when talking about real people. Yes, that means accepting only sources which are clearly reliable to support information of a negative nature.
You have my full and unreserved support in this.
It all sounds reasonable as a general concept, yes, but as far as I can tell it is actually irrelevant to the main problem here. We have a source that according to everyone who's familiar with the field is reliable, but which is being stigmatized by the fact that it happens to be in a blog format. This is not a question of loosening standards as far as _reliability_ is concerned since the problem with the source is not its reliability but rather its format.
Also, adding "or is that too difficult a concept to grasp?" is a pretty lame means of argument, implying that anyone who disagrees is simply too stupid to understand the obvious correctness of the position. I'm hoping that this is not part of what you're giving full and unreserved support to.
On Mar 28, 2007, at 2:42 AM, Travis Mason-Bushman wrote:
What we write appears on one of the most popular Internet sites in the world, and there is a moral and ethical imperative for us to be responsible and prudent when talking about real people. Yes, that means accepting only sources which are clearly reliable to support information of a negative nature.
Sure. No problem. So here's my question. Why is Teresa Nielsen Hayden, the former managing editor for the biggest science fiction publishing imprint on the US, ever an unreliable source for a question about publishing? Or, put another way, what is it about Movable Type that somehow corrupts her words when her speaking the exact same text aloud at a transcribed lecture or in an interview would be OK?
This is not a matter of us using a fansite. This is a case of us using a source that should, by any standard whatsoever, be an acceptable source for issues related to publishing, and should in fact be considered a positively excellent source for issues related to publishing science fiction and fantasy. If BLP forbids the use of this source, BLP has moved from useful to paranoia.
-Phil
On 3/28/07, Philip Sandifer snowspinner@gmail.com wrote:
Sure. No problem. So here's my question. Why is Teresa Nielsen Hayden, the former managing editor for the biggest science fiction publishing imprint on the US, ever an unreliable source for a question about publishing? Or, put another way, what is it about Movable Type that somehow corrupts her words when her speaking the exact same text aloud at a transcribed lecture or in an interview would be OK?
Your implication that she is always a reliable source about publishing is as misguided as the assertion you are arguing against, that she never is. A big problem is that you fail to distinguish that for which she is a reliable source.
Her blog is *always* a great source for her opinion. It may or may not be a reliable source for fact, and is probably not most of the time, no matter how often she's actually right.
As to your point about where her words are published, yes it does make a difference. When what she says comes from an interview and is published by an intermediary, we have that intermediary's reliability to hang our hat on. When what she says is delivered in a lecture, we have the host's reliability to hang our hat on.
On Mar 28, 2007, at 10:45 AM, Stephen Bain wrote:
Your implication that she is always a reliable source about publishing is as misguided as the assertion you are arguing against, that she never is. A big problem is that you fail to distinguish that for which she is a reliable source.
Her claims on matters related to publishing are sufficiently significant that they can reasonably be reported. Where there is disagreement, they should be clearly attributed to her point of view.
Her blog is *always* a great source for her opinion. It may or may not be a reliable source for fact, and is probably not most of the time, no matter how often she's actually right.
And her opinion on publishing matters is worth including. One such notable opinion is "Barbara Bauer is a fraud."
As to your point about where her words are published, yes it does make a difference. When what she says comes from an interview and is published by an intermediary, we have that intermediary's reliability to hang our hat on. When what she says is delivered in a lecture, we have the host's reliability to hang our hat on.
Nonsense. When I invite a speaker to the University of Florida to give a lecture at a conference, I don't intend our invitation to be a warranty of their factual accuracy. Nor do we offer such a warranty when and if we post the transcript or video of the lecture on our website, or even in our journal. All we do is vouch for the accuracy of the transcription and claim to its significance in some fashion.
In the case of Teresa Nielsen Hayden, though, that significance is no longer in doubt.
There are two questions that matter here.
1) Is Teresa Nielsen Hayden a source worthy of citing in matters related to publishing? 2) Does Making Light definitely contain material by her?
The answer to both is unquestionably yes. Here endeth the discussion.
-Phil
On 3/28/07, Philip Sandifer snowspinner@gmail.com wrote:
On Mar 28, 2007, at 10:45 AM, Stephen Bain wrote:
Your implication that she is always a reliable source about publishing is as misguided as the assertion you are arguing against, that she never is. A big problem is that you fail to distinguish that for which she is a reliable source.
Her claims on matters related to publishing are sufficiently significant that they can reasonably be reported. Where there is disagreement, they should be clearly attributed to her point of view.
Her blog is *always* a great source for her opinion. It may or may not be a reliable source for fact, and is probably not most of the time, no matter how often she's actually right.
And her opinion on publishing matters is worth including. One such notable opinion is "Barbara Bauer is a fraud."
As to your point about where her words are published, yes it does make a difference. When what she says comes from an interview and is published by an intermediary, we have that intermediary's reliability to hang our hat on. When what she says is delivered in a lecture, we have the host's reliability to hang our hat on.
Nonsense. When I invite a speaker to the University of Florida to give a lecture at a conference, I don't intend our invitation to be a warranty of their factual accuracy. Nor do we offer such a warranty when and if we post the transcript or video of the lecture on our website, or even in our journal. All we do is vouch for the accuracy of the transcription and claim to its significance in some fashion.
In the case of Teresa Nielsen Hayden, though, that significance is no longer in doubt.
There are two questions that matter here.
- Is Teresa Nielsen Hayden a source worthy of citing in matters
related to publishing? 2) Does Making Light definitely contain material by her?
The answer to both is unquestionably yes. Here endeth the discussion.
Not really. Blogs have no editorial oversight, and their contents are ephemeral - that is, they can change without notice, leaving evidence of that change.
Jay.
jayjg wrote:
There are two questions that matter here.
- Is Teresa Nielsen Hayden a source worthy of citing in matters
related to publishing? 2) Does Making Light definitely contain material by her?
The answer to both is unquestionably yes. Here endeth the discussion.
Not really. Blogs have no editorial oversight, and their contents are ephemeral - that is, they can change without notice, leaving evidence of that change.
What sort of editorial oversight do you believe is in place for an interview in a normal publication? My understanding is that when a newspaper or magazine says you said something, then the fact-checker verifies that you said it, not that it is true.
As to the latter, there's no technical barrier for web publishers of any sort, blogs or magazines. The main protection is convention; in both realms it is customary to note changes on the page, and you risk ridicule if you don't do that. But the original text is not sacrosanct. To overcome this would it be sufficient in your eyes to cite from the Internet Archive or WebCite?
William
On 3/28/07, William Pietri william@scissor.com wrote:
jayjg wrote:
There are two questions that matter here.
- Is Teresa Nielsen Hayden a source worthy of citing in matters
related to publishing? 2) Does Making Light definitely contain material by her?
The answer to both is unquestionably yes. Here endeth the discussion.
Not really. Blogs have no editorial oversight, and their contents are ephemeral - that is, they can change without notice, leaving evidence of that change.
What sort of editorial oversight do you believe is in place for an interview in a normal publication?
The fact checker checks that you said it; the editor decides whether or not the magazine or newspaper will fact a lawsuit if they print it. The latter, in my view, is fairly criticial.
As to the latter, there's no technical barrier for web publishers of any sort, blogs or magazines. The main protection is convention; in both realms it is customary to note changes on the page, and you risk ridicule if you don't do that. But the original text is not sacrosanct.
It's better than nothing, though.
To overcome this would it be sufficient in your eyes to cite from the Internet Archive or WebCite?
The odds of either of them actually catching some change on an individual blog are very, very low.
Jay.
jayjg wrote:
What sort of editorial oversight do you believe is in place for an interview in a normal publication?
The fact checker checks that you said it; the editor decides whether or not the magazine or newspaper will fact a lawsuit if they print it. The latter, in my view, is fairly criticial.
Could you point me at cases where publications have successfully been sued for publishing an interview with an expert where the expert gives their opinions on something? I've heard of publications being sued for libel over articles, and I've heard of people being sued for libel over what they say in the press, but I've never heard of a successful US suit against a publication for printing somebody else's opinion when that person is an expert on the topic. It's not my field, so I'm prepared to be surprised, but I'd be very, very surprised.
Barring precedents like that, I don't think it matters to us, just as long as we don't confuse expert opinion for fact. If we write "notable publisher X said that agent Y is a fraud", then we are reporting the fact of the saying, not an unproven fact of fraud.
William
On 3/28/07, jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com wrote:
On 3/28/07, William Pietri william@scissor.com wrote:
jayjg wrote:
There are two questions that matter here.
- Is Teresa Nielsen Hayden a source worthy of citing in matters
related to publishing? 2) Does Making Light definitely contain material by her?
The answer to both is unquestionably yes. Here endeth the discussion.
Not really. Blogs have no editorial oversight, and their contents are ephemeral - that is, they can change without notice, leaving evidence of that change.
What sort of editorial oversight do you believe is in place for an interview in a normal publication?
The fact checker checks that you said it; the editor decides whether or not the magazine or newspaper will fact a lawsuit if they print it. The latter, in my view, is fairly criticial.
As to the latter, there's no technical barrier for web publishers of any sort, blogs or magazines. The main protection is convention; in both realms it is customary to note changes on the page, and you risk ridicule if you don't do that. But the original text is not sacrosanct.
It's better than nothing, though.
To overcome this would it be sufficient in your eyes to cite from the Internet Archive or WebCite?
The odds of either of them actually catching some change on an individual blog are very, very low.
Jay.
Why would that be? The Internet Archive might not store all revisions, but once on their servers, the archived copy doesn't change. WebCite could store all revisions as it works on-demand - all you would have to do is request it to archive each version as it changes, and as before, the copies don't change once archived. That's the entire point.
-- gwern
On 3/28/07, jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com wrote:
On 3/28/07, William Pietri william@scissor.com wrote:
jayjg wrote:
There are two questions that matter here.
- Is Teresa Nielsen Hayden a source worthy of citing in matters
related to publishing? 2) Does Making Light definitely contain material by her?
The answer to both is unquestionably yes. Here endeth the discussion.
Not really. Blogs have no editorial oversight, and their contents are ephemeral - that is, they can change without notice, leaving evidence of that change.
What sort of editorial oversight do you believe is in place for an interview in a normal publication?
The fact checker checks that you said it; the editor decides whether or not the magazine or newspaper will fact a lawsuit if they print it. The latter, in my view, is fairly criticial.
As to the latter, there's no technical barrier for web publishers of any sort, blogs or magazines. The main protection is convention; in both realms it is customary to note changes on the page, and you risk ridicule if you don't do that. But the original text is not sacrosanct.
It's better than nothing, though.
To overcome this would it be sufficient in your eyes to cite from the Internet Archive or WebCite?
The odds of either of them actually catching some change on an individual blog are very, very low.
Jay.
However, it's possible that, given a suitable request, Wikipedia could work with the Internet Archive to have them specifically archive anything that got used as a Wikipedia cite.
I know a guy over there, but the decision to do it on a regular automatic basis would have to come from higher up in the organization.
Jimmy, have you thought of this before? Do you talk much to Brewster Kahle?....
On 28/03/07, William Pietri william@scissor.com wrote:
What sort of editorial oversight do you believe is in place for an interview in a normal publication? My understanding is that when a newspaper or magazine says you said something, then the fact-checker verifies that you said it, not that it is true.
If they bother with the fact checking.
The notions of the reliability of printed media in this thread are ridiculous in my experience.
As to the latter, there's no technical barrier for web publishers of any sort, blogs or magazines. The main protection is convention; in both realms it is customary to note changes on the page, and you risk ridicule if you don't do that. But the original text is not sacrosanct. To overcome this would it be sufficient in your eyes to cite from the Internet Archive or WebCite?
I do that when citing the words of organisations with a history of paid PR writing, e.g. on [[AdTI]].
- d.
On 3/28/07, jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com wrote:
On 3/28/07, Philip Sandifer snowspinner@gmail.com wrote:
On Mar 28, 2007, at 10:45 AM, Stephen Bain wrote:
Your implication that she is always a reliable source about publishing is as misguided as the assertion you are arguing against, that she never is. A big problem is that you fail to distinguish that for which she is a reliable source.
Her claims on matters related to publishing are sufficiently significant that they can reasonably be reported. Where there is disagreement, they should be clearly attributed to her point of view.
Her blog is *always* a great source for her opinion. It may or may not be a reliable source for fact, and is probably not most of the time, no matter how often she's actually right.
And her opinion on publishing matters is worth including. One such notable opinion is "Barbara Bauer is a fraud."
As to your point about where her words are published, yes it does make a difference. When what she says comes from an interview and is published by an intermediary, we have that intermediary's reliability to hang our hat on. When what she says is delivered in a lecture, we have the host's reliability to hang our hat on.
Nonsense. When I invite a speaker to the University of Florida to give a lecture at a conference, I don't intend our invitation to be a warranty of their factual accuracy. Nor do we offer such a warranty when and if we post the transcript or video of the lecture on our website, or even in our journal. All we do is vouch for the accuracy of the transcription and claim to its significance in some fashion.
In the case of Teresa Nielsen Hayden, though, that significance is no longer in doubt.
There are two questions that matter here.
- Is Teresa Nielsen Hayden a source worthy of citing in matters
related to publishing? 2) Does Making Light definitely contain material by her?
The answer to both is unquestionably yes. Here endeth the discussion.
Not really. Blogs have no editorial oversight, and their contents are ephemeral - that is, they can change without notice, leaving evidence of that change.
Newspaper stories online regularly change without notice.
On 24/06/07, The Cunctator cunctator@gmail.com wrote:
Not really. Blogs have no editorial oversight, and their contents are ephemeral - that is, they can change without notice, leaving evidence of that change.
Newspaper stories online regularly change without notice.
Or a correction is issued but the original story isn't changed or even annotated - both are problematic.
[I'm wondering why this thread has suddenly reappeared after three months...]
On 6/24/07, The Cunctator cunctator@gmail.com wrote:
On 3/28/07, jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com wrote:
On 3/28/07, Philip Sandifer snowspinner@gmail.com wrote:
On Mar 28, 2007, at 10:45 AM, Stephen Bain wrote:
Your implication that she is always a reliable source about publishing is as misguided as the assertion you are arguing against, that she never is. A big problem is that you fail to distinguish that for which she is a reliable source.
Her claims on matters related to publishing are sufficiently significant that they can reasonably be reported. Where there is disagreement, they should be clearly attributed to her point of view.
Her blog is *always* a great source for her opinion. It may or may not be a reliable source for fact, and is probably not most of the time, no matter how often she's actually right.
And her opinion on publishing matters is worth including. One such notable opinion is "Barbara Bauer is a fraud."
As to your point about where her words are published, yes it does make a difference. When what she says comes from an interview and is published by an intermediary, we have that intermediary's reliability to hang our hat on. When what she says is delivered in a lecture, we have the host's reliability to hang our hat on.
Nonsense. When I invite a speaker to the University of Florida to give a lecture at a conference, I don't intend our invitation to be a warranty of their factual accuracy. Nor do we offer such a warranty when and if we post the transcript or video of the lecture on our website, or even in our journal. All we do is vouch for the accuracy of the transcription and claim to its significance in some fashion.
In the case of Teresa Nielsen Hayden, though, that significance is no longer in doubt.
There are two questions that matter here.
- Is Teresa Nielsen Hayden a source worthy of citing in matters
related to publishing? 2) Does Making Light definitely contain material by her?
The answer to both is unquestionably yes. Here endeth the discussion.
Not really. Blogs have no editorial oversight, and their contents are ephemeral - that is, they can change without notice, leaving evidence of that change.
Newspaper stories online regularly change without notice.
When they makes changes they note that the online version has changed.
On 6/24/07, jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com wrote:
When they makes changes they note that the online version has changed.
z
On 6/24/07, jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com wrote:
On 6/24/07, The Cunctator cunctator@gmail.com wrote:
On 3/28/07, jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com wrote:
Not really. Blogs have no editorial oversight, and their contents are ephemeral - that is, they can change without notice, leaving evidence of that change.
Newspaper stories online regularly change without notice.
When they makes changes they note that the online version has changed.
(Please ignore the gmail-blasted previous post from me...)
The "they" here is a bit broad for such a generalization. Some do, some don't. Of course, that's true for blogs as well--the more conscientious of them will note changes. The relative prevalences of such a practice between the two media, of course, is certainly something that could be discussed, but to say that all newspapers note changes to their online versions is about as accurate as saying no blogs do.
-- Jonel
On 6/24/07, Nick Wilkins nlwilkins@gmail.com wrote:
The "they" here is a bit broad for such a generalization. Some do, some don't. Of course, that's true for blogs as well--the more conscientious of them will note changes. The relative prevalences of such a practice between the two media, of course, is certainly something that could be discussed, but to say that all newspapers note changes to their online versions is about as accurate as saying no blogs do.
And even if they note that changes were made, not all say when, and few say what changes were made.
-Matt
On 25/06/07, Nick Wilkins nlwilkins@gmail.com wrote:
The "they" here is a bit broad for such a generalization. Some do, some don't. Of course, that's true for blogs as well--the more conscientious of them will note changes. The relative prevalences of such a practice between the two media, of course, is certainly something that could be discussed, but to say that all newspapers note changes to their online versions is about as accurate as saying no blogs do.
Note the recent case where the NYT stealth-changed an article and didn't note the fact until Wikipedians called them out on it.
(Anyone who makes a blanket statement that the press is reliable and blogs aren't is on crack.)
- d.
Blanket rules about the acceptability of sources set off WP:IAR constantly. Blogs are a case in point. TNH's blog entries about herself are clearly primary sources and would tend to be preferred and in some cases necessary.
Blanket rules are a problem when one has a lot of amateurs writing, When you have to tell people which types of sources are acceptable, it's almost a foregone conclusion that they are going to fail to deal with the evaluation of the sources they have fairly frequently, because they are likely to rely on authority too much. For example, I've been doing lighthouse articles of late. Basically I've been using four sources: the USCG website, two lighthouse society-type websites, and a sort of coffee-table book of photography. I'm also checking them against Google Earth and NOAA charts as to the locations given. Which source is the best? Well, all of them have been caught in some sort of conspicuous error. As it turns out, the coffee-table book is generally the best-- and as it turns out, everyone else uses it as a reference too.
Yes blogs are generally not a good source, but it's extremely dependent on context.
On 6/25/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
Note the recent case where the NYT stealth-changed an article and didn't note the fact until Wikipedians called them out on it.
(Anyone who makes a blanket statement that the press is reliable and blogs aren't is on crack.)
That isn't a very nice way to talk about our BLP guidelines.
David Gerard wrote:
On 25/06/07, Nick Wilkins nlwilkins@gmail.com wrote:
The "they" here is a bit broad for such a generalization. Some do, some don't. Of course, that's true for blogs as well--the more conscientious of them will note changes. The relative prevalences of such a practice between the two media, of course, is certainly something that could be discussed, but to say that all newspapers note changes to their online versions is about as accurate as saying no blogs do.
Note the recent case where the NYT stealth-changed an article and didn't note the fact until Wikipedians called them out on it.
(Anyone who makes a blanket statement that the press is reliable and blogs aren't is on crack.)
That, or maybe they just fell into one.
Ec
On 6/25/07, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
(Anyone who makes a blanket statement that the press is reliable and blogs aren't is on crack.)
That, or maybe they just fell into one.
Again not a very nice way to talk about our BLP policy.
On 6/25/07, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
On 6/25/07, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
(Anyone who makes a blanket statement that the press is reliable and blogs aren't is on crack.)
That, or maybe they just fell into one.
Again not a very nice way to talk about our BLP policy.
Is your point that Ec isn't very nice?
Are we supposed to be nice to the BLP policy?
I'm confused.
On 6/25/07, The Cunctator cunctator@gmail.com wrote:
Is your point that Ec isn't very nice?
Are we supposed to be nice to the BLP policy?
I'm confused.
Eh my point is that all the people makeing these statements don't appear to be on the BLP talk page trying to put them into effect (current argument is if external links fall under the same rules as sources).
On 6/24/07, jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com wrote:
On 6/24/07, The Cunctator cunctator@gmail.com wrote:
On 3/28/07, jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com wrote:
On 3/28/07, Philip Sandifer snowspinner@gmail.com wrote:
On Mar 28, 2007, at 10:45 AM, Stephen Bain wrote:
Your implication that she is always a reliable source about
publishing
is as misguided as the assertion you are arguing against, that she never is. A big problem is that you fail to distinguish that for
which
she is a reliable source.
Her claims on matters related to publishing are sufficiently significant that they can reasonably be reported. Where there is disagreement, they should be clearly attributed to her point of
view.
Her blog is *always* a great source for her opinion. It may or may
not
be a reliable source for fact, and is probably not most of the
time,
no matter how often she's actually right.
And her opinion on publishing matters is worth including. One such notable opinion is "Barbara Bauer is a fraud."
As to your point about where her words are published, yes it does
make
a difference. When what she says comes from an interview and is published by an intermediary, we have that intermediary's
reliability
to hang our hat on. When what she says is delivered in a lecture,
we
have the host's reliability to hang our hat on.
Nonsense. When I invite a speaker to the University of Florida to give a lecture at a conference, I don't intend our invitation to be
a
warranty of their factual accuracy. Nor do we offer such a warranty when and if we post the transcript or video of the lecture on our website, or even in our journal. All we do is vouch for the accuracy of the transcription and claim to its significance in some fashion.
In the case of Teresa Nielsen Hayden, though, that significance is
no
longer in doubt.
There are two questions that matter here.
- Is Teresa Nielsen Hayden a source worthy of citing in matters
related to publishing? 2) Does Making Light definitely contain material by her?
The answer to both is unquestionably yes. Here endeth the
discussion.
Not really. Blogs have no editorial oversight, and their contents are ephemeral - that is, they can change without notice, leaving evidence of that change.
Newspaper stories online regularly change without notice.
When they makes changes they note that the online version has changed.
You mean, "they should note". It's certainly not universally done.
Stephen Bain wrote:
Her blog is *always* a great source for her opinion. It may or may not be a reliable source for fact, and is probably not most of the time, no matter how often she's actually right.
Is anybody suggesting that expert opinion should be treated as fact? I think I've only seen people say that we should be able to use expert opinion as expert opinion, whether that opinion appeared in a New York Times interview or on the expert's blog, neither of which is fact-checked. I thought that was a pretty uncontroversial thing to do on Wikipedia.
William
On Tue, 27 Mar 2007, Travis Mason-Bushman wrote:
Or, perhaps, we could consider that if there are no indisputably reliable sources about a living person, we should not have an encyclopedia article on that person until such reliable sources are available. Or is that too difficult a concept to grasp?
Loosening our "reliable sources" criteria is all well and good when considering something like Pokemon or Star Wars characters, but we're talking about the lives and reputations of real people, and I am vehemently opposed to weakening the criteria for biographical sources.
The point is that the blog *is a reliable source*. Using the blog is not loosening any criteria.
On 3/28/07, Ken Arromdee arromdee@rahul.net wrote:
If the claims are that important, surely they will be picked up, verified and repeated by newspapers or other media?
That might be true if it's actually about a member of parliament, but there are claims that can have limited audiences, and yet be "important" in the sense that they are still encyclopediac subjects. It may be that nobody picks up the claim because nobody picks up most claims related to the topic, rather than because this claim is particularly unimportant.
Thus we arrive at the problem of systemic bias - certain aspects of the things we cover may not be sufficiently covered in full by secondary sources. The question is, do we loosen our definition of ourselves as an encyclopaedia, i.e. a tertiary source, for the sake of becoming a knowledge base which becomes the first secondary source for particular topics, or do we remain rigid and refuse to accept information which has yet to be published/cited in any secondary source?
There's no clearcut answer, but I lean towards the latter. Maybe I'm a bit biased, but from my experience, loosening our sourcing requirements for areas with lacunae due to systemic bias (e.g. Malaysian topics - being a Malaysian editor, I frequently run into articles with questionable content) only leads to people running wild with republishing claims from primary sources such as blogs, without regard for whether the content is actually from a decently reliable source.
It's just my opinion, but I would lean against opening the floodgates here. If the information in a primary source has been cited in secondary sources, there shouldn't be anything particularly wrong with citing the primary source - but we should never be the first primary or secondary source for anything.
Johnleemk