I'm not sure if this is a retaliatory effort for the deletion of some meme or not, but there is a deletion debate on both Lumber Cartel and There Is No Cabal, based on the assertion that the cited sources for these Usenet phenomena, being themselves on Usenet, are not reliable. We have some references from Eric Raymond which to my mind amount to reliable sources, but it's an interesting point.
Guy (JzG)
On 09/07/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG guy.chapman@spamcop.net wrote:
I'm not sure if this is a retaliatory effort for the deletion of some meme or not, but there is a deletion debate on both Lumber Cartel and There Is No Cabal, based on the assertion that the cited sources for these Usenet phenomena, being themselves on Usenet, are not reliable. We have some references from Eric Raymond which to my mind amount to reliable sources, but it's an interesting point.
(Surely these can be cited from the Jargon File?)
Someone, a while ago, claimed that anything posted on Usenet could never ever ever be a reliable source; and, indeed, they modified WP:RS to say so:
"Posts to bulletin boards and Usenet, wikis or messages left on blogs, are never acceptable as primary or secondary sources. This is because we have no way of knowing who has written or posted them."
On my questioning them on IRC, their original aim seemed to be to say that you couldn't use blogs, usenet posts, etc. as *primary sources* (ie, to indicate the existence of frenzied discussion about $astroturfed_topic), which makes sense, but it did seem to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Unfortunately, I was tired, and forgot to do anything about this...
Fundamentally, it's meaningless for anything with value. I want to cite a post by, oh, Henry Spencer to clarify some erudite aspect of a topic? Of course I can tell he posted it, and I can tell he's a reliable source. Refusing to accept that Usenet posts can be reliable is about as useful as saying "a letter published in a newspaper isn't a reliable source because we have no way of telling the guy signing it was actually the author".
On 7/9/06, Andrew Gray shimgray@gmail.com wrote:
On 09/07/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG guy.chapman@spamcop.net wrote:
I'm not sure if this is a retaliatory effort for the deletion of some meme or not, but there is a deletion debate on both Lumber Cartel and There Is No Cabal, based on the assertion that the cited sources for these Usenet phenomena, being themselves on Usenet, are not reliable. We have some references from Eric Raymond which to my mind amount to reliable sources, but it's an interesting point.
(Surely these can be cited from the Jargon File?)
Someone, a while ago, claimed that anything posted on Usenet could never ever ever be a reliable source; and, indeed, they modified WP:RS to say so:
"Posts to bulletin boards and Usenet, wikis or messages left on blogs, are never acceptable as primary or secondary sources. This is because we have no way of knowing who has written or posted them."
On my questioning them on IRC, their original aim seemed to be to say that you couldn't use blogs, usenet posts, etc. as *primary sources* (ie, to indicate the existence of frenzied discussion about $astroturfed_topic), which makes sense, but it did seem to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Unfortunately, I was tired, and forgot to do anything about this...
Fundamentally, it's meaningless for anything with value. I want to cite a post by, oh, Henry Spencer to clarify some erudite aspect of a topic? Of course I can tell he posted it, and I can tell he's a reliable source. Refusing to accept that Usenet posts can be reliable is about as useful as saying "a letter published in a newspaper isn't a reliable source because we have no way of telling the guy signing it was actually the author".
Letters to the editor are checked for authenticity by the newspapers printing them; in fact, the fundamental thing making a source reliable is fact-checking. Usenet posts do not have fact-checkers.
Jay.
On Sun, 9 Jul 2006 17:08:19 -0400, jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com wrote:
Letters to the editor are checked for authenticity by the newspapers printing them; in fact, the fundamental thing making a source reliable is fact-checking. Usenet posts do not have fact-checkers.
I have a friend who is one of several people who have had letters published under their name and address but which they did not write, and which caricatured their well-known views to cast them in a bad light.
Guy (JzG)
On 7/9/06, jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com wrote:
Letters to the editor are checked for authenticity by the newspapers printing them; in fact, the fundamental thing making a source reliable is fact-checking. Usenet posts do not have fact-checkers.
I always find it mildly amusing -- and disturbing -- how conservative and, dare I say it, naive Wikipedia can be when it comes to comparing old media with the Internet. Every printed source is held up as a symbol of journalistic integrity, and a guy in Ohio hacking up a moderate article about some website 2 hours before the deadline is considered, per WP:WEB, to make the thing more notable than a hundred blogs with thousands of readers, because he's a "reliable source." Con artists like Stephen Glass or Jayson Blair must have been evil geniuses to pass through the firewalls of fact checking built by the New Republic or the New York Times.
It turns out that when the New York Times actually writes about us, they do a crappier job at it than the average blog. But, they are printed on paper and sold on newsstands. It is almost like the physical manifestation of news on paper carries with it some magic, transcendental moment in the age of rapid, electronic distribution. Those who wikify the 1477th revision of an article about a minor pop celebrity look to the profession of The Journalist with the awe of devout altar boys.
Take it from a published author and journalist: the process of actually taking an article from submission to print is much messier than you might think, especially in newspapers. Fact checking is often a luxury; as a writer, I had my articles messed up more than once by an editor who thought he knew what he was doing -- and my byline ended up on them. In one case it was so bad that I completely severed my connection to the newspaper, and had to publish a correction online.
So, let's get back to the case of people posting on Usenet. If you have a group regular participating again and again in the same newsgroup, and you want to cite a particular post from that group that was _not contested_, you can pretty safely assume that it was posted by the same regular. Sure, you might be dealing with an elaborate hoax dating back several years. Then again, the newspaper you are citing might be subject to the very same kind of elaborate hoax. At some point, you have to start making _reasonable assumptions_.
And if you want to verify that it was really written by person X, then take off your WP:NOR hat for a moment and send the guy an e-mail. Problem solved. The assumption that anything posted on Usenet is not reliable is not reasonable. The assumption that an _isolated_ post that does not match an established pattern needs to be treated with caution is much more reasonable. The assumption that, if an author contests the authenticity of a post, we need to believe them, is generally reasonable.
And if you want to say "blog X said Y", then of course "blog X" is an excellent source for that. The question in both cases is more one of notability and relevance than one of reliability. What needs to stop is the blind worshipping of printed paper.
Erik
On 7/9/06, Erik Moeller eloquence@gmail.com wrote:
I always find it mildly amusing -- and disturbing -- how conservative and, dare I say it, naive Wikipedia can be when it comes to comparing old media with the Internet. Every printed source is held up as a symbol of journalistic integrity, and a guy in Ohio hacking up a moderate article about some website 2 hours before the deadline is considered, per WP:WEB, to make the thing more notable than a hundred blogs with thousands of readers, because he's a "reliable source."
Erik, the important point about newspapers is that all but the tiniest have processes in place to detect errors, and particularly legal problems, prior to publication. We can only hope they use the processes correctly; if they don't, that's not our fault. But Wikipedia has no such process, which is why we rely on what we call "reliable sources" who do.
Sarah
On 7/10/06, Sarah slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote:
Erik, the important point about newspapers is that all but the tiniest have processes in place to detect errors, and particularly legal problems, prior to publication. We can only hope they use the processes correctly; if they don't, that's not our fault. But Wikipedia has no such process, which is why we rely on what we call "reliable sources" who do.
Wikipedia has quite a lot of processes to detect errors, though it doesn't have the traditional notion of publication. Wikinews does, by the way. But let's not go there.
The question is: a reliable source for what? A reliable source that person A said B? Person A tends to be a reliable source for that, and there are other indicators that he is indeed person A than some imagined process of verification. The more important question is whether the statement is relevant to the article, and whether it speaks for itself or is used to support an original speculation. If not, we need a secondary source that establishes the context -- but very often, a primary source is more than sufficient (and in some ways preferable).
Our own history is an example. Virtually all of it is documented through electronic mailing lists and edits to the wiki. It is possible to fake mailing list posts just like it is possible to fake them on Usenet. So, are we going to dispute that Larry Sanger wrote the "Let's make a wiki" post on those grounds? Are we going to argue that a mailing list is not a "reliable source" and we need to wait until some piece of paper picks up the same information from the same source, with the added magic pixie dust of print, to turn it into an eternal truth?
No, because if someone had faked Larry's post, Larry himself would have pointed it out quite quickly. The situation needs to be looked at in context, rather than reducing it to a simple formula of "reliable sources." We need to be very careful that dogma does not take the place of common sense.
Erik
On 7/9/06, Erik Moeller eloquence@gmail.com wrote:
On 7/10/06, Sarah slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote:
Erik, the important point about newspapers is that all but the tiniest have processes in place to detect errors, and particularly legal problems, prior to publication. We can only hope they use the processes correctly; if they don't, that's not our fault. But Wikipedia has no such process, which is why we rely on what we call "reliable sources" who do.
Our own history is an example. Virtually all of it is documented through electronic mailing lists and edits to the wiki. It is possible to fake mailing list posts just like it is possible to fake them on Usenet. So, are we going to dispute that Larry Sanger wrote the "Let's make a wiki" post on those grounds?
We need to be very careful that dogma does not take the place of common sense.
The policy is based on common sense, not dogma. When you send a letter to a newspaper for publication, you're expected to supply your name, address, and telephone number so that someone from the newspaper can check that you really did send it. Nothing like that exists for Usenet. It's all very well to say that if X didn't write the post, and we quote from it, X will tell us soon enough. But what happens if X claims that, in purporting to quote him, and in leaving that unchecked quote on Wikipedia for months until he spotted it, we have damaged him in some way? Newspapers have processes in place to avoid this scenario, and they have libel insurance for when things go wrong. We have none of those things, which is why we piggy-back on other people's, by using only material that has already been checked.
Sarah
On 7/10/06, Sarah slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote:
The policy is based on common sense, not dogma. When you send a letter to a newspaper for publication, you're expected to supply your name, address, and telephone number so that someone from the newspaper can check that you really did send it.
The processes used or not used vary nationally and internationally and on a case-by-case basis, and even large papers do not necessarily follow reliable processes.
Nothing like that exists for Usenet. It's all very well to say that if X didn't write the post, and we quote from it, X will tell us soon enough.
That is not the argument I made.
Erik
On 7/9/06, Sarah slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote:
The policy is based on common sense, not dogma. When you send a letter to a newspaper for publication, you're expected to supply your name, address, and telephone number so that someone from the newspaper can check that you really did send it.
I've had letters published in many different newspapers and other publications. While all or almost all require such information, I have never, ever had any of them check back.
I'd imagine if I was claiming to be a well-known individual, they MIGHT check it, but even then, I have my doubts whether they would do so every single time.
Newspapers have processes in place to avoid this scenario, and they have libel insurance for when things go wrong. We have none of those things, which is why we piggy-back on other people's, by using only material that has already been checked.
I think it's a huge amount of faith you have in the press that they check stuff at all well. My experience is the opposite.
They DO tend to fact-check things that look like they might get them in trouble - e.g. the famous and influential. Otherwise, most publications are much slacker with the fact-checking.
Newspapers are also, IMO, much less reliable outside of the sphere of pure news.
-Matt
On 7/9/06, Matt Brown morven@gmail.com wrote:
On 7/9/06, Sarah slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote:
The policy is based on common sense, not dogma. When you send a letter to a newspaper for publication, you're expected to supply your name, address, and telephone number so that someone from the newspaper can check that you really did send it.
I'd imagine if I was claiming to be a well-known individual, they MIGHT check it, but even then, I have my doubts whether they would do so every single time.
Newspapers have processes in place to avoid this scenario, and they have libel insurance for when things go wrong. We have none of those things, which is why we piggy-back on other people's, by using only material that has already been checked.
I think it's a huge amount of faith you have in the press that they check stuff at all well. My experience is the opposite.
Matt, many newspapers do make checks for every letter they're going to publish. The point is that you have to supply your details so they can check in principle.
As for fact-checking processes, all decent-sized newspapers will have, first, an editor who assigns the story to a reporter and who may check it periodically while it's being written; then it'll be edited by a copy editor who'll look for obvious factual errors and legal problems; and then finally by a page editor. That's the bare minimum and that's only if no problems are picked up. If there are problems, more people are involved (senior editors, maybe lawyers), and many newspapers and serious magazines have much more elaborate basic processes. In addition, all these people are trained researchers/writers/editors.
Mistakes in newspapers cost them money, sometimes a lot of money, so they're highly motivated not to get things wrong.
We have none of those things. The only thing we have is a policy that says we have to use halfway decent sources who DO have them.
Sarah
On 7/9/06, Sarah slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote:
Mistakes in newspapers cost them money, sometimes a lot of money, so they're highly motivated not to get things wrong.
What I generally find is that newspapers are highly motivated to get things right in areas where they feel likely to be sued if they get things wrong. In other areas, not so much - especially when it comes to factual errors that are not likely to be libellous or otherwise actionable.
In other words, I'm very inclined to trust a newspaper to have fact-checked an accusation against someone that if wrong would be grounds for a lawsuit. I have less confidence in them, for example, reporting accurately on a technical or scientific matter. I trust them less as well when they're merely passing on the word of someone else - e.g. the New York Times passing on what the police told them about a suspect doesn't make it any more trustworthy.
-Matt
On 7/9/06, Matt Brown morven@gmail.com wrote:
I've had letters published in many different newspapers and other publications. While all or almost all require such information, I have never, ever had any of them check back.
The San Francisco Chronicle called me back the first couple of times they printed my letters to the editor, and once after I moved from that address to a new one to verify that I was still me.
Someone cares...
On 7/9/06, Sarah slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote:
The policy is based on common sense, not dogma. When you send a letter to a newspaper for publication, you're expected to supply your name, address, and telephone number so that someone from the newspaper can check that you really did send it. Nothing like that exists for Usenet. It's all very well to say that if X didn't write the post, and we quote from it, X will tell us soon enough. But what happens if X claims that, in purporting to quote him, and in leaving that unchecked quote on Wikipedia for months until he spotted it, we have damaged him in some way? Newspapers have processes in place to avoid this scenario, and they have libel insurance for when things go wrong. We have none of those things, which is why we piggy-back on other people's, by using only material that has already been checked.
With groups.google.com (or previously to that, access to Dejanews, or previously to that being a close enough friend of Henry's to for him to be able to dig up the tapes) it is possible to (semi-reliably) go back and say "A person with this email account posted the following article at this time in history: [...]"
That is not to say that forgeries and frauds are unknown in Usenet. However, such were relatively rare, and are not unknown in other media which are taken generally to be acceptably accurate sources.
Wikipedia has not set the bar at unquestioned verifyable accuracy for every source. When someone adds in or uses a reference, there's no independent fact checking necessarily performed to see if the source really exists, or says what it is purported to say, or is not part of some sort of elaborate forgery project. And I do not doubt that within the million-odd articles, we have sources cited which don't exist, we have sources cited which say something else, and that we have sources cited which exist and say those things, but are forgeries or fraudulent.
Usenet posts, in verifyable archives, documenting Usenet activities, are as reliable as we need them to be. The existence and contents of such posts is easily and reliably validated. As a primary source for "the contents of Usenet", they're fine. Articles on Usenet and early Internet phenomena citing Usenet discussions on the topics (or contemporary mailing lists) should feel free to use those contents. If it turns out that a particuar cite was a forged article, we deal with that the usual way as with any other discredited source.
On 7/9/06, Erik Moeller eloquence@gmail.com wrote:
And if you want to say "blog X said Y", then of course "blog X" is an excellent source for that. The question in both cases is more one of notability and relevance than one of reliability. What needs to stop is the blind worshipping of printed paper.
One problem with citing "blog X" when saying that "blog X said Y" is that the blog might very well not exist in a few years. A copy of a New York Times story, on the other hand, will certainly exist for many years.
The other problem is one of original research. Sure, blog X might have said Y, but if that's an important enough point to be made in an encyclopedia article, then someone else will have discussed it. As I see it the purpose of barring original research is not so much to bar unreliable facts as it is to bar original arguments.
It's to bar stuff like this, taken from the current [[George W. Bush]] article:
"The Commission found no credible evidence that Saddam Hussein possessed stockpiles of WMD. On December 14, 2005, while discussing the WMD issue, Bush stated that "It is true that much of the intelligence turned out to be wrong."[35] However, Bush would remain unwavered when asked if the war had been worth it, or would he have made the same decision if he had known more."
Anthony
On 7/9/06, Anthony wikilegal@inbox.org wrote:
On 7/9/06, Erik Moeller eloquence@gmail.com wrote:
And if you want to say "blog X said Y", then of course "blog X" is an excellent source for that. The question in both cases is more one of notability and relevance than one of reliability. What needs to stop is the blind worshipping of printed paper.
One problem with citing "blog X" when saying that "blog X said Y" is that the blog might very well not exist in a few years. A copy of a New York Times story, on the other hand, will certainly exist for many years.
The other problem is one of original research. Sure, blog X might have said Y, but if that's an important enough point to be made in an encyclopedia article, then someone else will have discussed it. As I see it the purpose of barring original research is not so much to bar unreliable facts as it is to bar original arguments.
It's to bar stuff like this, taken from the current [[George W. Bush]] article:
"The Commission found no credible evidence that Saddam Hussein possessed stockpiles of WMD. On December 14, 2005, while discussing the WMD issue, Bush stated that "It is true that much of the intelligence turned out to be wrong."[35] However, Bush would remain unwavered when asked if the war had been worth it, or would he have made the same decision if he had known more."
Anthony
And it is *exactly* transience problems like this that show that we need to be working more closely with the Internet Archive people (more closely that is than simply letting ourselves be spidered by 'em and letting'em d/l database dumps); I've suggested several times that when a valid ext. link is submitted, it be discreetly tagged with an IA link (assuming it exists), somewhat like how we're *supposed* to be validating ISBN links (http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=2391; I really wonder about this bug- it should be pretty simple and useful, but you know the devs... got other fish to fry). Or at least a robot to go around adding links (http://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=1500288&gro...) if the original is gone.
I mean, c'mon, there's a lot of ways we could use them and they us; is the current low level of cooperation the best we can do? Wikicommons alone should be fairly valuable to them- they seem to be packrats for free content.
~Maru
On 7/9/06, maru dubshinki marudubshinki@gmail.com wrote:
On 7/9/06, Anthony wikilegal@inbox.org wrote:
On 7/9/06, Erik Moeller eloquence@gmail.com wrote:
And if you want to say "blog X said Y", then of course "blog X" is an excellent source for that. The question in both cases is more one of notability and relevance than one of reliability. What needs to stop is the blind worshipping of printed paper.
One problem with citing "blog X" when saying that "blog X said Y" is that the blog might very well not exist in a few years. A copy of a New York Times story, on the other hand, will certainly exist for many years.
And it is *exactly* transience problems like this that show that we need to be working more closely with the Internet Archive people (more closely that is than simply letting ourselves be spidered by 'em and letting'em d/l database dumps); I've suggested several times that when a valid ext. link is submitted, it be discreetly tagged with an IA link (assuming it exists), somewhat like how we're *supposed* to be validating ISBN links (http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=2391; I really wonder about this bug- it should be pretty simple and useful, but you know the devs... got other fish to fry). Or at least a robot to go around adding links (http://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=1500288&gro...) if the original is gone.
I agree that this would be useful, to the extent it's possible ("there is a 6-12 month lag between the date a site is crawled and the date it appears in the Wayback Machine"). Also, since IA can and will remove pages from the archive under certain circumstances (one of which is when a robots.txt file appears later), you still have to worry about an archive disappearing later.
And of course this doesn't at all address the issue of original research - rather than proving something by referencing original sources Wikipedia generally (if not exclusively) should be referencing facts which have already been analysed by experts in that field.
Referencing in Wikipedia is currently a big mess. The incremental tweaks seem to be making things worse in many ways.
Anthony
On 10/07/06, Anthony wikilegal@inbox.org wrote:
On 7/9/06, maru dubshinki marudubshinki@gmail.com wrote:
On 7/9/06, Anthony wikilegal@inbox.org wrote:
On 7/9/06, Erik Moeller eloquence@gmail.com wrote:
And if you want to say "blog X said Y", then of course "blog X" is an excellent source for that. The question in both cases is more one of notability and relevance than one of reliability. What needs to stop is the blind worshipping of printed paper.
One problem with citing "blog X" when saying that "blog X said Y" is that the blog might very well not exist in a few years. A copy of a New York Times story, on the other hand, will certainly exist for many years.
And it is *exactly* transience problems like this that show that we need to be working more closely with the Internet Archive people (more closely that is than simply letting ourselves be spidered by 'em and letting'em d/l database dumps); I've suggested several times that when a valid ext. link is submitted, it be discreetly tagged with an IA link (assuming it exists), somewhat like how we're *supposed* to be validating ISBN links (http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=2391; I really wonder about this bug- it should be pretty simple and useful, but you know the devs... got other fish to fry). Or at least a robot to go around adding links (http://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=1500288&gro...) if the original is gone.
I agree that this would be useful, to the extent it's possible ("there is a 6-12 month lag between the date a site is crawled and the date it appears in the Wayback Machine"). Also, since IA can and will remove pages from the archive under certain circumstances (one of which is when a robots.txt file appears later), you still have to worry about an archive disappearing later.
And of course this doesn't at all address the issue of original research - rather than proving something by referencing original sources Wikipedia generally (if not exclusively) should be referencing facts which have already been analysed by experts in that field.
Referencing in Wikipedia is currently a big mess. The incremental tweaks seem to be making things worse in many ways.
Anthony _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
[Apologies for the last, quotes-only, email - hit the wrong button]
On 10/07/06, Anthony wikilegal@inbox.org wrote:
I agree that this would be useful, to the extent it's possible ("there is a 6-12 month lag between the date a site is crawled and the date it appears in the Wayback Machine"). Also, since IA can and will remove pages from the archive under certain circumstances (one of which is when a robots.txt file appears later), you still have to worry about an archive disappearing later.
Mmm. IA have made it reasonably clear that they're not there to compete with paid-for "real archives", if that makes sense - they're not going to be competing with the NYT for access to NYT backstories, which are our major need for links to transient pages. It *is* better than nothing - especially if we extend it to the national legal-deposit archives that will be slowly appearing - but I'm not sure if it'd be enough benefit to be worth the work.
On 7/9/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG guy.chapman@spamcop.net wrote:
I'm not sure if this is a retaliatory effort for the deletion of some meme or not, but there is a deletion debate on both Lumber Cartel and There Is No Cabal, based on the assertion that the cited sources for these Usenet phenomena, being themselves on Usenet, are not reliable. We have some references from Eric Raymond which to my mind amount to reliable sources, but it's an interesting point.
It would seem to me that Usenet sources should ONLY be cited in the case of Usenet phenomena (ditto with blogs, etc.), and that the prohibition should be on citing them for anything BUT Usenet phenomena.
So you could use a Usenet source to report on something that happened on Usenet, or a blog source to report on something which happened on a blog. But you couldn't use them for anything else.
As for the question of why something printed "on paper" becomes authoritative, there are two obvious answers to this: 1. it is a holdout from an age which is quickly passing us by. As newsjournalists well know, the monopoly of the mainstream media over mass information has been attacked by electronic sources for some time now, and blogs and wikis and the like have been dramatically changing the relationship between journalism and "the readers." But three hundred years of print journalism monopoly over information still has some clout for most people, and the truth status of blogs et al is still viewed with some suspicion.* 2. being printed by a respected newspaper means that at the very least the newspaper has put their own capital and respect on the line for a story. This of course does not guarantee truth *in the slightest* but does get closer to accountability of information than you have elsewhere on the internet (where there is generally no real accountability).
FF
*As it should be. The problem is not that people view blogs and wikis with suspicion, but that they do not view all journalism with suspicion. I think Wikipedia has actually worked wonders in this department: it trying to assess the accuracy of WP, it has become very clear and widely publicized that though it is often inaccurate, it is not usually any MORE inaccurate than mainstream sources.
On 7/10/06, Fastfission fastfission@gmail.com wrote:
- being printed by a respected newspaper means that at the very least
the newspaper has put their own capital and respect on the line for a story. This of course does not guarantee truth *in the slightest* but does get closer to accountability of information than you have elsewhere on the internet (where there is generally no real accountability).
This is the crucial point. Someone can trust an article in the New York Times about as much as they trust the New York Times itself. And most people reading the Times would know how much they trust it based on past experience. That way they can go some way to evaluating the reliability of what they are reading even though they don't have the resources to check it for factual inaccuracy, bias etc. You can't do that with somerandomblog.com. You might be able to do it with blogthatswidelytrusted.com but they're few and far between.
Stephen Bain wrote:
On 7/10/06, Fastfission fastfission@gmail.com wrote:
- being printed by a respected newspaper means that at the very least
the newspaper has put their own capital and respect on the line for a story. This of course does not guarantee truth *in the slightest* but does get closer to accountability of information than you have elsewhere on the internet (where there is generally no real accountability).
This is the crucial point. Someone can trust an article in the New York Times about as much as they trust the New York Times itself.
About as far as I can throw it.
On 7/9/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG guy.chapman@spamcop.net wrote:
I'm not sure if this is a retaliatory effort for the deletion of some meme or not, but there is a deletion debate on both Lumber Cartel and There Is No Cabal, based on the assertion that the cited sources for these Usenet phenomena, being themselves on Usenet, are not reliable. We have some references from Eric Raymond which to my mind amount to reliable sources, but it's an interesting point.
What count as reliable sources depends very much on the subject matter.
-Matt